Our First Mission Trip

During the week of June 22, 2009 our youth group attended our first mission trip together.  IT WAS AWESOME!! 

We stayed at a church in Aurora and worked with 1st-5th graders at a daycamp for inner-city kids.  I believe this experience was life-changing for our students.  We spent the days interacting with the children through arts and crafts, kick-ball, 4-square, Bible study, and reading.  This certainly did not feel like work to any of us.  We had a great time with these kids, so much so that we intend on continuing to work with them as an on-going service project.  The camp has need for mentors, tutors and Bible study for the children.  We loved this experience so much that we all decided to commit to working with this group of kids together. 

God did remarkable work this week in each of us.  I truly believe we are all forever changed through the experiences we encountered together.  Not only did we have fun with the kids but we got to know many other students and youth workers from churches in Illinois and Indiana.  We exchanged emails and information so we can stay connected and continue to grow in our faith together through fellowship and service.

The Riverside Worship Project led us all week in worship.  Not only were these guys incredible musicians but they set a positive example to the students as how to live as a Christ follower.  Maybe someday they can come worship with us!?

I have prayed for months prior to going into this experience that God would make this a trip our youth would never forget.  I prayed God would tug at their hearts and instill a hope inside of them that would never die.  I will continue to pray that none of us will never forget the lessons we learned about growing closer to Jesus by following His example of love and friendship through service.

Lastly, I am happy to say that we have gotten a lot closer as a youth group this week.  Many of the camp leaders told me that our group may be small, but we are strong.  Alex, Angela, Jason and Megan really seemed to give their all this week.  I am very proud the way they let God take them to a deeper level of intimacy with Him.  They were so filled with passion that they talked about doing more mission trips each year.  I was amazed when they suggested that they spend less time playing X-Box and more time reading their devotionals!  I nearly fell over in shock!! 

The only thing that could have made this trip better was if Austin could have been with us.  Hopefully next year!

         In Christ,
                                Jessie

Click Here to see photos from our First Mission Trip