My:Ministry Youth Mission Trip

I arrived back at my home Church yesterday evening, with sunburnt legs, many memories, a tired body, but a soul on fire. For those of you who weren't aware, me and my youth group went on a Mission Trip this past week to North Carolina. God did extraordinary things within my youth group.

We worked with many cool ministries. Sole Hope, Mission House Church, and the Rowan Helping Ministries.

Sole Hope is a ministry in Jinja, Uganda that works to teach children, and families about hygiene and to help them get the Jiggers out of their feet. Jiggers are a bug that burrow in the feet of Ugandans, and in some cases it can get so bad, that it spread up the body. But they can be prevented by shoes and basic hygiene knowledge. Sole Hope also makes shoes out of old Jeans that are donated to them, and the sole is made out of recycled tires. My: Ministry does shoe-cutting parties, year-long, to donate to Sole Hope. It is truly a God centered organization, and my team was so blessed to get to work and build on friendships with the stateside crew in Salisbury, NC. You can learn more at SoleHope.org.

Mission House Church is the Church we worked with all week, to help them build friendships in their communities. It is a multi-cultural church plant, passionate for the Lord. Working with the Pastor's families of the Church we were able to put on a VBS-type program at a local park. Connecting with the children was definitely the high of my week.

Rowan is another ministry we got the chance to work with , cleaning up, painting, sorting food, really anything they needed us to do. It was a really fun place to work at. At one point two of our teams were there from the youth group and we were singing songs like, "Little Red Wagon", the "Bear Song" and "Bazooka Bubble Gum". Great memories of dancing and singing once we completed our work.

More memories I have found myself looking back on are things like the Cook Out at our Pastor's house. We played fun "youth group games" like 'Chicken, Chicken, Big Fat Chicken', and much more. We also were blessed with meals by Chick-fil-A and many inside joke were formed. We also did a thing we called 'Secret Friend' all week, were we drew a name out of the hat (our first night there), and that was our secret friend for the week. The point was to encourage the other person, and lift them up, throughout the week. We all secretly gave notes and candy to our friends, without them finding out out who we were. That was a challenge. The person who had my name, was a great secret friend, and they gave me a gift I will, without a doubt, cherish forever.

On the Friday night we were there we got to pray walk with Night Crawlers, around the community, that was special. I got to witness my own youth group step up and lead songs, and pray over this community we'd only been for weeks at a time.

I also experienced a near death experience on this mission trip. On Thursday morning we worked up to a youth group leader's tire being flat, and then after the delay to get to our ministry site, my group came within feet of a car wreck. We were a foot and a half away from a head on collision. As strange as this sounds though, it was my high of the day. If both our car, and the car in front of us had not slammed on the breaks, we would've died, and not have been able to serve God, like we did, on that day. God protected. He provided.

My youth group every night shares 'high-lows' as well. It's where we all go around the circle and share first, our low of the day, and then our high. This helps us end on a high note.

It was such a God-given experience, like no other. I was so proud of each and every person of my youth group, and getting to get to see God work in and through them. It was even my brother's , Obadiah, first mission trip.

Everything that has happened this past week, makes God's calling for my life even more apparent. I am so blessed. So I shall keep sharing what God has done for me.

Until the whole world hears.

(Originally published July 3, 2016.)