Belfast Bulletin: Growth and Transformation through Mission

It is hard to believe that it has been eight months since Karl and I left home to embark on this year of mission in Belfast. These past eight months have been filled with moments, happy and sad, exciting and boring, comfortable and uncomfortable, which have strengthened my faith, helped me to grow as an individual and helped me to build relationships which I will forever cherish.

Some of these moments, the ones freshest in my memory, took place on a Whitehouse Youth mission trip. Over Easter, I went on a mission trip with our youth group to Tremont, Illinois - a town in the states which I would never have imagined myself being in. Never the less, the mission trip was a wonderful experience! For ten days, I lived in community with eight youth and three youth leaders from Belfast and three young children and two youth leaders (the parents of the three children) from the United States. By living in community, we learned how to serve one another through preparing, serving and cleaning up meals together, we gained patience as we shared two showers among the group, we learned how to go without when the hot water ran out after the first six showers, we learned to love and care for one another when we were missing home, and most importantly we used all the time we spent together to bond as brothers and sisters in Christ’s family.

If any of you reading this have ever been part of a youth mission trip (either as a youth or a leader), you will probably agree with me in saying that the change and transformation that can happen as individuals and a youth group is amazing during a mission trip. There is something to be said for taking a group of youth to an environment different from their home in order to allow for true growth. Our trip was filled with awfully busy days topped off with meaningful, late night devotions. During the course of the trip, we went Easter Caroling, prepared a Seder Meal, helped at a local food pantry, visited a women’s correctional home, cooked scones for senior citizens, took part in the local churches’ youth programs and cooked an Ulster Fry for the community…that is just the community involvement side of the trip. We played really hard too! We took in a baseball game, went shopping at Bass Pro Shop, had play days at the farm, visited the Abraham Lincoln Museum…the list goes on, but you get the idea. I was extremely tired by the end of each day, but went to bed smiling about that day’s events and looking forward to tomorrow’s. During the trip I witnessed great transformations as our eight youth grew closer to one another, served with willing hands and hearts, gained patience, explored their faith in a deeper sense than ever before and developed into young disciples.

Not only did the youth grow and learn about themselves on the trip, I too experienced growth and learned a thing or two. A couple of days into the trip, one of the youth from Tremont loaned us his guitar for use at the cabin (our accommodation for the trip). I have been learning how to play guitar during this year, but lack the confidence to play and sing in front of people (ask Karl, I rarely play for him!). One of the other leaders on the trip is learning how to play guitar too, so he wanted to work together and try to learn some songs to play with the kids. Not long into messing around with a few songs, I found the courage to play and sing in front of the group. Another growing moment of the trip was learning how to not be in control of every situation and be OK with it. The nature of mission trips is that you have an itinerary, and the itinerary will always change – the schedule was completely out of my hands, and I had to just roll with it. Lastly, a joy of working with youth is that they are filled with contagious energy and just love to have fun. For the 10 days we were away, I had the opportunity to let my guard down and to just have fun with the group! I came home from the trip refreshed and re-energized to work with others in the church to continue nurturing our youth into disciples for the church.