Day 7: Time to Unwind

Joni

The last day of YouthWorks is always bittersweet. Everyone is looking forward to being home, but they are sad to leave the people they have spent time with for the week. It's also hard to come out of the high of a mission trip where you're always thinking about God and his plan for you, and coming back to reality. 








Fortunately we got to soften the blow of our last day by fulfilling one of their wishes:




This year's YouthWorks theme is "The Good Life" - not what people usually mean by it: eating good food, drinking a lot and spending a lot on things for themselves. This type of Good Life that Miley Cyrus, Kanye, Weezer and One Republic all talk about may feel good for a short while and for a few people, but it doesn't bring God's best for all time and for all people. 

God created the world good and wanted humans to enjoy it and to love one another and to love Him. The Good Life we talked about this week is helping to restore our world and the relationships we have with God and others to the way it was supposed to be. A quote from the YouthWorks blog says, "Jesus came: to restore the good life we are intended for—not a luxury we horde, but an abundance we share." And that's why we serve others, that's why we put others first and try to treat them like Jesus would. 




As we travel home today, we ask  your prayers for safe travel and good processing for all the participants about what they learned. You can show us support by asking members of the team questions like these:

  • How did God speak to you this week and in your serving? 
  • Who are some of the more difficult people you encountered while serving and how did you deal with them?
  • What cool things did you learn about your teammates?
  • What was the most difficult part of your work this week?  
  • If you were to go back, which service would you want to do again? 
  • Tell me about one of the people you prayed for this week.
Blessings to you all!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life in a Large Urban Community

Image
Here's an excerpt from our mission team training book: "Life in a big city keeps moving. It's always morphing into something different, which can make serving in the city difficult... Because urban areas are such diverse environments, it's not hard to feel flooded with all the sensory influences. The sights, sounds and smells of the city can easily overwhelm the most seasoned traveler. Population densities are much higher in the city, so there are more people, more shops, more cars... more everything. As we serve in urban areas, we may encounter cultural and ethnic diversity, various levels of poverty and the challenges that come from a lot of people living in a small area. But we will also experience how this blend creates unique pockets of community within the larger city. Because of this abundance of factors, we'll find that the stereotypes we've held about people -- or certain kinds of people -- may not hold true. Let's join together and con...
Read more

Day 4 (Tuesday): Serving and Playing

Image
Tim So today it was the second day of serving the people at the soup kitchen. It was cool, we served about 900 people, and some guy accidentally urinated on himself. We prayed for him, and I hope he’s doing well. Anyway, after that we ate and then went to Belmont Park, which is an amusement park, like Boardwalk. Wesley and I won 3 big basketballs and we were happy. I scammed them lol. Sorting plums at the San Diego Food Bank San Diego Food Bank feeds an average of 400,000 per month Some of the plums were really cool shapes (some people hated them) Eating Dole Whip Hannah and Cierra doing a ropes course "Option Night" means fun at the Boardwalk
Read more

Day 3 (Monday): First Day at Service Sites

Image
Ada Today, we helped out at the boys and girls club. We saw really cute kids like Isabella, Sophia, and Isaac. Later, we went to the senior home to eat lunch. The funny thing was that we forgot our cooler with our lunches. Thank goodness there were cup noodles in our car. It was really fun [[; I named all the leaders and made friends with them. Sunshine, Flower, Daisy, Kangeroo, and Jay.  Large Group Gathering (LGG): discussion groups Yasmine Hi, today was our first day working for the community,   we started off the morning helping at a boys and girls camp. Joni told me that the camp was for kids who   had a bad background, we loved playing with the kids, though there was some bullying. The afternoon we went to a senior home. It was a lot of fun talking to all the seniors. A little later we went to the Mexico border, but I stuck my hand through. We went down to the beach later, but we didn’t get wet.  Hannah Also, someone was mopping the...
Read more