Wonder Voyage 2009 Summer Blog

2009Serving..sure, we all serve one time or another, but for me, helping the kids at Mi Escuelita went way deeper than basic serving. When we first got there it was a very simple, cute church, and i thought “okay, this cant be that hard.” when we actually started though, we got our tour and we saw this one poorly painted room. I thought this must be one classroom. I was way wrong. As the coordinator was telling us this was the one room that all 25 kids learned in, i realized this was one of the most eye opening moments of my life. I have so much, and realized that my bedroom was bigger than this and its just for me! This entire trip has been making me realize that i do take a lot for granted and don’t know much. I am helping others, learning, and helping who i am also!

Today was rainy to say the least. With the weather outside giving an all new meaning to the term sideways rain, it seemed our hike to the hill of angels would have to be put off. Surprisingly, when asked to vote on what we should do for the day, an overwhelming majority voted that we hike today, hoping that the ominous clouds held the rain for the few hours our trek would take. Alas, it was not so. When we started off, there was only a slight mist. Mist turned to a drizzle. Drizzle turned to rain. Rain turned to a downpour. With ”gale force” winds, as Peter called them, blew the rain in every which direction. The number of sheep was astonishing to say the least, with entire hill sides covered with white wool (although their leavings were not so majestic). During our hike, Hunter started a soldier impersonation, and in under a minute, everyone was firing their walking stick rifles at enemy sheep and calling air strikes into their water bottles. After about 3 hours into our 2 hour hike in the Welsh bog, we arrived back to Ffald-y-Brenin.

After a sitting around the fire to dry off, Elyse, Zac, Fiona, Astin, and Adam made us a wonderful dinner. The announcement of the winner of the battle of kitchens was a few. minutes later, and after much debate, we tied.

The most interesting moment of today was when we were at the middle of the hike. We were on the angle hills, and it was raining torrential. We were hiding on the dry side of the rocks, which soon was proven nonexistent. The rain was piercing through our jackets and ponchos, and the clouds were streaking past at amazing speeds. As we sat there, Shawn told us the story of the hills original name, fairy’s” hill, and the native people’s equal fear and admiration of the place. It was truly amazing

Today, we had the privilige of hanging out with the kids of the Shiloh Village apartments. Volunteering at IBC for the past two years ive heard several stories from students about the amazing joy the kids at Shiloh exibit when the students visit. Pulling up to the apartment, my heart grew in excitement thinking about the kids we would hang out with. The pouring rain outside could not hold back the students from rushing to their favorite kids to invite them to play. The kids ran, some with no shoes, to a gazebo as we did crafts and played soccer. The students, only a few years older than the kids, talked about life and loved the kids as adults. The students showed the kids the love of God and though the kids didnt give anything away to the students love was exchanged between the kids and students.

Each new day holds new adventure with moments of exploration and wonder. Our day today did not disappoint us . Mike Heinz from Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas  shares his day with this description.“Today our team faced several challenges in the The Big Easy. We began by reflecting on who God is in our life through an artistic challenge. After presenting our creations from beads, crayons and paper plates, our trip leader Ken brought the day into focus. He read 2 Corinthians 5:18 and discussed the idea of reconciliation with us. He asked us to MIND THE GAP. It’s an expression that came up throughout the day as we sought to broker the relationship between God and lost men.Off we went to the New Orleans Mission organization near downtown to put this concept into practice. We divided into work groups for gardening, housekeeping, mass mail prep and flyer delivery to local businesses on Magazine Street. I loved watching our students work with diligence and good attitudes. You would have been proud! Next, we went shopping for groceries for the Stone Soup competition. Team one cooked tonight and made breakfast for dinner. They called their team BRINNER= breakfast for dinner compounded Team two will cook their meal Thursday evening and promises to be an interesting experience as well.After our BRINNER, we caught the ferry from Algiers Point over to the French Quarter. We had begnettes at Cafe DuMonde and finished with an encounter time on the levie of the mighty Mississippi. Their Ken asked us how we MINDED THE GAP today. Several students commented on how they felt like they helped the people at the New Orleans Mission. By working on the various projects, they freed up the staff to focus on the spiritual needs of the people. So cool! (Tomorrow night we will give each pilgrim their “boxes of love” sent by our Church family; they miss you a lot and it will encourage them greatly!)The days have been hot and humid with some rain showers but the team has kept their focus and given themselves fully to the work set before them.

The team from Mt Ararat Baptist Church has arrived safely here in Belize, and has quickly settled into a community rhythm here at the Youth with a Mission base near Belmopan. After a good night’s rest and some time to get to know our hosts, Santiago & Liliana Valencia, the team jumped right into an afternoon of service at Cayo Christian Academy. 

The team helped both inside and outside, cleaning and organizing classrooms and shoveling, hauling, amd spreading aggregate for an outdoor dining hall.  All of it was hard sweaty work, but once the students heard the story of the school and the children whom it serves, everything seemed totally worth it.  Miss Dana, the school’s principal let the group know how much the work means to the school, every shovelful of dirt had a purpose.

This Mt Ararat team is in for a great adventure this week in Belize.They were originallly slated for a Honduras journey, but have responded to the location and schedule changes with amazing flexibility and great humor.  After hearing the story of Cayo Christian Academy, the team knows they are here for a reason.

Our first day plunged us into the tropical beauty of Costa Rica, where we came close to Howler monkeys, various species of heron, crocodiles, iguanas, tiny bats and a plethora of other creatures. We floated down the Corobici River, a peaceful ride that involved animal spotting, fresh pineapple and trying to understand our tour guide. We were all awestruck by the natural beauty of God´s creation in this place. Everything is so exotic that its almost hard to believe it´s real. It´s a sort of wildness we can rarely find in our big cities and busy lives.

The day ended with a soccer match in Copal (a nearby village), where we joined with a missions team from Canada to play against the local villagers. We had a fun time and were able to interact with the Costa Ricans. By the end of the game we had about half of the Costa Rican team playing for us- just to keep things even. It was a great day. We thank God for the opportunity to enjoy his creation and to meet new friends along our journey

After fighting the rain on their drive from Dallas the team from Irving Bible Church arrived safely to their new home, the Pilgrims Retreat Center in Memphis TN. This community center is part of a local church in the Cooper-Young section of town. There are constant outreaches happening throughout the day. The theme for this week is reconciliation and given the role Memphis has played in the Civil Rights Movement, and the role the Pilgrims House plays in the community, it is a fitting title.

Dinner was the first thing on everyones mind though, so immediately after unloading it was time to head down the block to Central BBQ for an original Memphis meal.

However, before heading back to the Pilgrims House the team made a quick stop at the Piggly Wiggly to pick up their supplies to make Stone Soup. The challenge for the week is for two teams of the youth to orchestrate two separate meals without any help from the leaders and on a very tight budget. It looks like it will be a competition between chili and tacos.

Throughout the week this team from Irving Bible Church will be face-to-face with the need for more reconciliation work. Serving in local homeless shelters, the local projects, and through the time they spend building relationships with the people of Memphis this week will be spent serving as ambassadors for Christ, learning what it really means to be reconciled.

Hello families back in Dallas. This is Kelsey writing after yesterday’s adventure in the “big city.

We started off our day in shoes none of us have ever imagined being in- the homeless. Asking for money proved to be a harder task than we thought as we tried to live the life that so many homeless people actually live. The story of a homeless man named Sam changed my perspective forever as he told me and a few others his story of his bad luck (thus binging him to the streets) with an attitude of thankfulness to the Lord.

We spent our afternoon at a church formed in the 1800’s called Plymouth not just listening to the story of a freed slave, but putting ourselves in her situation. The experience of the day was indescribable.God is so good at using others to reveal Himself.All there is left to say is “Until you see people, you will not care about injustice.” 

Today we took our pilgrims from Fellowship Bible Church to continue the work of gutting the homes still standing in the aftermath of the hurricane that struck New Orleans in August of 2005. We spent the day in the heat tearing at sheet rock and striping the house down to its studs exposing its foundational structure. I asked Caitlin a student pilgrim to share her perspective on the day.

“This morning we went to the Lower 9th Ward, the poorest part of New Orleans. The government was supposed to spend millions of dollars on a new levee, but it was never spent. We saw houses that only had the foundation. It made me feel so grateful for what I have back in Dallas. After we looked around we went to gut a house. The house was still standing but it looked like it could topple over any second. I was wondering why save the house but at least he had this; some people only had the foundation. We wouldn’t have gotten far though, if we hadn’t met some Belgium kids. They worked on the first floor while we worked on the second. We got almost the whole house done.

After we went and played cabbage ball which is like baseball but with a bigger ball. The Belgium kids played with us and were quite good for their first time. We had fun with each other.

Afterwards we came home and washed all of the rubble off our faces. What I took out of this day was to not store up your treasures here on Earth because they will be taken away some day. You should make your relationship with Jesus stronger. I was also grateful to have everything that I have at the moment: a house, family and personal belongings. Today has taught me a lot!”

Much like the work of gutting a house we are asking God to reveal what is in us that has been destroyed by our own hurricane and asking our heavenly father to help us strip back the debris so we can rebuild. The work done on the interior of a home or the interior home of our lives requires hard work. Our pilgrims seem to be up for the challenge

Todays my birthday! This morning we left Coleg Trefeca to travel to Ffald-y-Brenin (you gotta love the names). Along the way we stopped to take a hike to what appeared to be a beer waterfall, but was actually water dyed with resin from tree roots.

Surprisingly, we stopped at a grocery store for no apparent reason. We got out of the van and learned we were to divide into teams and cook dinner for the group for today and tomorrow. We had thirty minutes and fifty pounds to buy whatever we needed. The meals were to scored on taste, presentation, and welshness. We bought what we needed and when we finally made it to Ffald-y-Brenin my team was chosen to cook first. After three and a half hours we finished and ate the meal at about eleven. There wasn’t time for anything but sleep after words.