Mission Trip Summary

I know - this should have posted weeks ago. I have a couple of family vacations in the mix, along with a couple of hectic weeks playing catch-up at the office, so I apologize for the delay. I do want to take just a minute to give you my final thoughts about the mission trips.

Our Chicago mission trip was probably the best mission trip I have taken students on. Their level of contact with really hurting individuals, and the fact that they were put into the shoes of some of them (to an extent) really made the trip hit home. I feel like CSM did such a great job of educating our students about the city we were in so they knew a lot more about the hurting and the problems of the people in the city. The experiential elements to the trip were fantastic! I feel like the students were really taken out of their comfort zone, which is an important thing to do with teenagers. The thing that really makes me feel like this was a great trip is that so many students are bringing it home. Some students are planning a VBS for south Cape in a week and a half. Other students want to get involved into discipleship so that they don't lose their God-high. And that's what it's all about - being the hands and feet of Jesus, and allowing the experience to transform your own life.

Our Cincinnati trip was excellent as well. YouthWorks does a great job of providing students with a first mission trip experience, and this week was no different. Our students worked their tails off without complaining once. And they were able to do so much good for the community. On the last day of the trip, the guys at the food distribution center separated 26,000 pounds of food. WOW! And the other groups worked just as hard. The things that made this trip feel special was the number of setbacks that we had - schedule changes, dislocated thumbs, sickness, etc. There were too many things going wrong for it just to be a coincidence. I think other forces - evil ones - were at play because they were worried that we were doing so much good for the people of Cincinnati. But those forces didn't win! Jesus did!

Thank you for your support in prayer and for reading our updates!