To listen to the Mission Trip Sermon, click here.
The Sr. High Youth go on a Mission Trip three of every four years they are in the High School Formation Class. This year they spent June 13 - 18 working for the Mission in the Mountains, run by St. James Episcopal Church in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Following you will find the impressions of three of the 14 youth who participated. Avie Churchwell (freshman - first Mission Trip), Kyle Ingraham (junior - second trip)and Aidan Manning (senior - third trip).
Avie Churchwell:
Going on the mission trip was a very moving experience. I got closer to the people in my youth group and to God. As a freshman last year, I had never been on anything like a mission trip before, so I really had no idea what to expect. All I knew was we were doing a little manual labor and were staying in a church. But now I understand that a mission trip is much more than that. It's not just about work, but about helping people.
On the first day, all my group did was paint the front side of the church. It was really hot outside and everyone was complaining a little but I felt better about it to know that even though painting isn't the hardest job in the world, it was still helping out this church. Which made me stop complaining and try to work harder and do a more quality job than I had been doing before.
Another day we got to head up to a monastery in the mountains. It was so beautiful there. There were many dogs roaming around, and one was blind. We had to shovel gravel into the dog runs so they wouldn't get muddy when it rained. We would go back and forth and back and forth, which wasn't so bad once we got a wheelbarrow that actually worked. One of the nuns welcomed us inside and sat us down and told us a story of a dog they had. The dog was named after a teacher from a local school that had recently passed away, she had been expertly trained and the school had sponsored her.
I kept doing small jobs around the church for a while until the end of the week, where I finally got the chance to work with a family. Joe had taken us out to the hills where we met Evelyn, a lady whose trees had recently died and when she asked a lumber company to take them down, they had intentionally not told her that one of the trees had fallen on her roof, leaving a hole. Many months had gone by so by the time we had gotten there the spot in the roof had some serious water damage and was falling apart. She had another job for us to do but she told us that even if all we did was fix the roof, she would be truly thankful. We worked two days to fix the roof and when it was done, Evelyn's face lit up. Like our small little job meant something so much bigger to her. I saw the face of God in Evelyn. Through the whole thing she was sitting out there in the heat with us, laughing and talking with our group.
The ride home seemed longer than the ride there, but I really didn't mind because I would have been happy staying up there a while longer. Being with everyone and the scenery was so beautiful. The mission trip really made me appreciate having the company of my youth group peers and living in a town like Geneva. I'm so thankful that I was able to be a part of the mission trip and I cannot wait to go back next year...
Kyle Ingraham:
Hello, my name is Kyle Ingraham and I am here to tell you about my experience on the Mission Trip to Prestonsburg, Kentucky. This was my second Mission Trip, and this one was equally as exciting as my first. We started off meeting at the church, and after we said our goodbyes, we left on our journey to Prestonsburg. The car ride started out with talking and laughing, but not soon after we all fell asleep. About an hour later we woke up again played some Catchphrase and talked, then fell back asleep. The cycle repeated itself for most of the trip. After some stops for food, and some unwanted detours, we arrived in Prestonsburg. We were all pretty excited, and some maybe a little nervous because it was their first mission and they didn't know what to expect. To be honest I don't think anyone did. Each year we have tasks, and sometimes we don't always know what we are doing. Some of us didn't know how to use a jigsaw; some of us had never put down linoleum, or hung gutters or done any type of landscaping. It was going to be an interesting week.
That night we were divided into teams, each team had three or four of us kids, and a leader or two. The group I was assigned to be in was Aidan, Luke, Ian and I with Bob and Joe as our leaders. Our job was to replace gutters, fascia boards, and to reset a toilet for a woman named Hazel... I'll give you two guesses to which of those tasks I did... I guess it's because I was the go to plumber from last year's mission trip, and I happened to save the town, but that's a story for a different time. For those of you who have never reset a toilet, it is in no way fun. But that's one of the wonders about being on a mission trip, experiencing new things, no matter how disgusting they might be. But it is all worth it, the best part about the mission trip for me is the look on the people's faces who we helped. They are like kids opening a new present on Christmas, their face lights up, and it's an amazing feeling to know you helped someone that needed it. I saw and felt that mostly at Evelyn's house; Evelyn's house was the second house I worked at. Our projects were to fix her bathroom floor because it was rotting out, and fix a hole in her porch roof caused by a fallen branch. It's crazy to think that something so small can have such a big impact on someone's life, or even a community. One other job that was done was to build a step so the church was more accessible. A step, just one step made a difference. That proves that sometimes, most of the time, little things can matter more to someone, like Evelyn. Fixing the floor, which was the more serious of the problems, was too complex of a task for us to do, but Evelyn did not care, she told us to forget about the floor, because it would make her day if we fixed the roof. As we worked on the roof, she was sitting on her porch the whole time watching, every few minutes asking if we wanted any water, and worrying that one of us would fall off a ladder. Thankfully no one did. She was one of the nicest ladies I have ever met and to see her so happy after we were done was a major highlight of the week. It is truly God's work, and it's the most rewarding part.
Another crazy part about mission trips is the way our attitudes change. If you ask either one of my parents they will tell you, they will ask me to mow the lawn, and I'll complain, or clean the basement, more complaining, and I always expect something back. Like money, I want to get paid for my hard work. But not on the mission trip; I reset a toilet, didn't complain, fixed a roof, didn't complain, last year I crouched in between two fiberglass showers and sweat copper hour after hour... I might have complained a little then, but still, we could be asked to do literally anything and not a single "I don't wanna" or "do I have to" would be said. Most parents can agree that doesn't happen at home. But on our mission trips, we just do it. And we do a pretty good job if I do say so myself. Every year there are new challenges, and every year we do what we can do to make the lives of people better. I can tell you that what we do in Prestonsburg is amazing, and life changing and it is... but seeing it and experiencing it is so much cooler. I guess since Father Bill does it I'll do it to... You have homework!!! This might be directed more towards kids, but do something you are asked to do, without complaining, eye rolling, or fighting back. Oh, and don't expect anything in return.
Aidan Manning:
Good Morning. So in case you haven't noticed, a group of teenagers goes missing once a year from our church for one week. You may always find yourself asking where are they, and what horrible things are these teens up to? Well fear not, because we are on a mission from God to help the people who need it. Five minutes is not nearly enough for me to explain all that goes on throughout a mission trip week, but I will do my best so here it goes.
We take the long car ride 10-13 hours depending on if we get lost and how bad, then when we finally get to the church (St. James in Prestonsburg, Kentucky), we go eat and then plan the week, then sleep. Then comes the worst part, the time at which the brave youth leaders have to wake us up at 7-7:30 in the morning. Brutal, we know. Then we split up and go into our groups for the day and go work until around 4:30-5:00. Finally, after a long day's work we go and take showers (which are awesome because after a whole day of working the guys smell pretty bad). Now comes the fun part - dinner.
Now that seems rather boring, because quite frankly, it does at times but we always manage to keep occupied, and without our phones I might add. You may be thinking, now let me get this straight you get a group of teenagers to wake up early, get them ready for a whole day's worth of work, and then they do not even use their cell phones to keep themselves occupied!? Well it is true we manage very well. During the time we work during the day it consists of people being very sarcastic towards one another and jokes galore. Most of them people would not understand because you HAD to be there and I mean had to.
Usually a day flies by and then the next one is upon us, or some days, the ones that usually contain a lot of boring noiseless or quiet activities, the ones without the sound of electric saws hammering of nails, the occasional word that slips out while in a fit because something went wrong.
Mission trip jokes now are some of the best remembered things from any mission trip because they just made all involved laugh hysterically, or a moment that can be joked about. For example Bob was climbing up a ladder to the attic that had somehow come out of the wall because of me, and before he went up there I said "Bob, the ladder's broken." He still went up there. Then when he was at the top, the ladder broke away from the wall again and Bob was stuck inside the attic and it was not exactly heaven on earth it was very hot and smelled funny.
Another moment from this past mission trip involved Kyle Ingraham and his mother's new gardening gloves, I was not personally there but I have heard it over and over again and this is how it went. Kyle needed gloves for this mission trip so he asked his mom if he could borrow hers, she said yes but only if he did not lose them. Well guess what Kyle went and did, you guessed it right lost the gloves. Kyle put them on top of the car that Bob's group had taken and Mr. Ryan had to go get something from the store. Mr. Ryan did not realize that the gloves were on the car and took off, well Kyle freaked out and started to run down the road when he found out that his gloves were missing from their spot. He ran down the street at full speed and only found one of the gloves.
Did anyone know how hard it is to get paint off when applied to you by someone else? Well Sarah Ditch and I found out how hard it is. We were painting a porch and we decided to have a paint quarrel (because it was not big enough to actually be considered a fight), and neither of us moved but still we consider it some sort of dispute. It took us both all week to get the paint off of ourselves and it was a rather painful experience to say the least.
There have always been funny moments on all of the trips but one that really still makes me laugh includes one of my friends Andrew Schuetz. We had made a line about the 2010 mission trip saying that "Only in Kentucky," because some odd things happened and we have no idea how. So this event started as any other, normal day, we were doing some yard cleanup on a house that the priest of St. James was going to move into. Andrew saw this thing that he swore looked like a snake and started shouting about it being a snake but it was not a snake, rather an oddly large insect.
Also on that mission trip Kyle Ingraham managed to save the town by capping a pipe that was leaking. Sadly though, after all of our moments on the 2010 mission trip it ended in frustration because the house we had spent all week cleaning up it had a big problem - all of the pipes had holes in them. So naturally we were all very cheerful about it and said ok well let's build a house in a day. Which we managed to do somehow, we had to find somewhere, anywhere for the new priest to live so we went into the church and changed an old nursery into a house somehow. Believe me there were tempers flaring, words being said, arguments breaking out about what we should do, but in the end the house was built. We managed to put up between 6-10 walls inside of a building for another building, I mean who all honestly does that? Well after all the anger had passed the people involved in building the house within a church were tired and all fed up with everything so we went to bed and woke up in the morning just as we had always done.
A mission trip is a vacation with friends; it is fun, enjoyable, frustrating and even sad. In the end though it all turns out the same everybody's ok, tired and glad yet sad to be returning home. I will never forget this group regardless of where I am in life, they have had such a profound effect on me in my faith and in many other aspects as well.