March 17th, 2013

Recently, about half of the Kaleo program and I returned from a two week missions trip in Downtown Vancouver. While we were there, we had the many opportunities to serve in all sorts of areas. Our trip was broken up into three different periods. For the first period we were able to serve at New Beginnings Baptist Church. For about the first 5 days of the trip we lived at New Beginnings, while also serving in their children’s and youth programs, and during the day we would to odds and ends construction work. The church would run a program called Say Yes. This was an after school program for k-6^th graders that would be held 3 days a week. In the program we were able to play with the kids, eat snacks with them, and help them with their homework.  It was great being able to connect with the kids from around the area. Some of the odds and ends construction we did was build a retaining wall and knocked down a wall to enlarge the Sunday school run to about twice the size.  The next 5 days we were working on the road side of East Hastings Street. There were worked at Potters Place Mission and there we held two services a day. At these services we would lead those in the audience in 30 minutes of worship and then 30 minute message. after we would serve food. During the meals we would talk to those in the audience, let them tell us their story of their life and pray for them. It was such a life changing experience. We then spent the last days of our trip at New Beginnings, on the second trip to New Beginnings we did many projects called home makeovers in which we would go into houses of people of the neighborhood, often times houses of single mothers, and do whatever they would like to have done in their house.

                On this trip many things happened, one of the funny stories that sticks out to me the most is while we were working at Potters Place Mission on East Hastings. We were working in storage rooms of the mission, moving around food and organizing shelves. All of a sudden we see a mouse and in Levi’s interest to see what all the screaming was about he accidentally squished the mouse under his foot, a few minutes later we see another mouse this time Levi purposely squishes it and there is more screaming. Once all the excitement died down and we hadn’t seen a mouse in a little while, Denver lifts a box above his head to put it on the top shelf, suddenly, a mouse falls from the box and lands on his beard, scratches at his chin and falls down his shirt to the ground. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, everyone was screaming and laughing at the same time, it was great; nobody wanted to really touch the boxes after that incident.

                One of the most difficult moments for me during the whole trip was during one of the house makeovers. A few of us went to a house of a single mother and she wanted us to clean the upstairs of her apartment. We went to the upstairs and there was trash everywhere, just completely coating the floor and fruit flies swarming because of the trash. It was hard to see this home and as the children of the house were up there offering to help us I almost cried. It was one of the hardest things I had to see but learning that this mother, although a new Christian, didn’t know any different in her life and that is why she lived in such conditions it became easier, I was happy that we could help in any way possible.

                I could see God working in many ways during the trip. One of the ways I saw God working was through the power of testimony at Potters Place Mission. When anyone from our group went to the front to share their testimony everyone in the room became attentive. They could see themselves in each one of the testimonies and many times people in the crowd would say, I went through something similar in life, and through that they could see how God worked in and changed the life of the person giving the testimony and through that they could see hope in Jesus.  It was amazing. I think God also used me in the times of worship.

                God really confirmed in me my passion for leading worship.  There were many opportunities on the trip for Levi, Denver, and I to lead worship and I just had so much joy every time we would lead. There was one set in particular that I didn’t think went that well but after we finished a man from the congregation looked at us with tears in his eyes, and said thank you, thank you so much. It was amazing to see how God used us in that situation to touch that man’s heart. Altogether the missions trip was unforgettably spectacular.