Summer of 2008

Last summer Theresa, the youth minister, and I were talking. She brought up the question of how she should tell the congregation about out very sucessful mission trip to Kentucky and how to introduce the fact that we will be going to Maine this summer. I told her that I thought it would be nice if insted of her giving the sermen, if she had 4 or 5 youth memebers speak about what the mission trips meant to them, and then she could show the slide show that was genously made by one of the kids on the trip.



Well, I guess she liked that idea.. this was what I wrote and read...



This year was my third year going on these mission trips. I knew from the start that once I went the first year, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Each year when I got home, I would always get ask the same question from family, friends, and the congregation. “How was the trip?” and I always give a short answer back, like it was so much fun or it was great. I have never gotten the time to really tell anyone how the trip was. Until now.

There were a few things that changed this year on the Kentucky trip that made it much different from the Louisiana trip. First off, we drove, 16 hours, and about 12 hours in, everyone lost cell phone service, and it stayed that way. Because no home had that immediate connection back home, we all got to get closer on this trip

I was lucky enough last year to help with the planning of the trip. But when it was time to get to the workgroups I had to look the other way. Because Theresa knew exactly where I wanted to be. Each year we have 4 or 5 smaller workgroups with around 15 people on each site. We have done various things like redoing a bathroom in Louisianan, demolishing a house, putting in installation, and there is always painting to do. But there was one site that we had each year that I never got to be a part of. And Theresa told me I never would because of how easily and how often I get injured, but this year I got up there. I was on a roofing site.

The top of that roof was hot, really hot. On one of the days it was over 130 degrees. And I’m not exaggerating. We checked, we brought up one of those huge outdoor thermometers to the top of the roof and 5 minutes later realized that we broke it. The max temp. was 130, and it was starting to go back around again.

Our workgroup got that roof re-shingled in time to go help another one of the worksites. They were putting up the frame for a new house. By the time we got there they were finishing up the walls and getting to the roof, so I got on two roofs this year. And Thresa told me I would never even get on one.