Our middle school crew in front of our home first first day (I am hoping a girl emails me a end photo...)
World Changers
Last week I spent the week with 250 teenagers in Corpus Christi for a World Changers project.
This was our church's first time to do WC (though it was our youth leader's 12th). WC is a well oiled machine of purpose, service in Christ's name, hard work and lots of fun; its run by NAMB and has been going since 1980.
About 20 of our youth and five sponsors left our church on Monday at 7am, we took two vans to CC and got there for lunch at Whataburger on the Bay. Then to our host church/school. The guys had a wing and the girl a wing of classrooms. We shared with another church from New Mexico and were wall to wall airmattresses. That afternoon we had meetings, dinner and a service with music and preaching. Lights out at 11 and there was never any fighting because the kids were so exhausted.
Up and at 'em each day at 5:50am for breakfast. The first morning we had a great send off where we all formed a huge circle for prayer before leaving. Then at 7 we hopped in the vans and headed to our various worksites. Unexpectedly I ended up driving 10 middle schoolers around in a huge white rental van (I was kinda glad no other adults were in the van to see me hit curbs and my bad parking jobs, its a lot bigger than a camary). Our worksite was a home of an elderly couple; we redid their front and back porch, built a fence and painted the whole house. We had two crews because of the many jobs, so there were 20 youth and five adults. Mike, a guy from our church, was our crew chief, he is in construction so it was great that he knew what he was doing. Each morning we got after it hard while it was cooler. The kids really did a great job, though it was interesting to see the different personalities of goof-off, leader, those who got 'hurt' a lot, hard workers with initiative and hard workers who have to be told exactly what to do every time. Though we had all eaten breakfast the first morning was slow and we were all hungry around 9:15, the next days we ate more and knew more what we were doing so it was better-I forced myself to eat a huge breakfast and ended up snacking so much less than when I am with the girls. The first day lunch came, provided by a local church. Awesome tacos with veggie plate and chips, queso and cake. We all lined up and got one taco; by the last three people we ran out of plates and thought that was kinda strange but just used the tortilla for a plate. After all were sitting down eating, another car pulled up with lunch! Since we were two crews two different churches brought up lunch each day. We had a fabulous time with first lunch and second lunch, splitting them all so it was a great smorgasbord. After lunch, we had a short devotional led by a student. The kids really opened up and took it seriously. Then after that with full tummies and a hot sun shining down the work really slowed down. The home where we worked on had window units and cats. In the back there were lots of wires and some leakage of we don't know what. The first day every kid who went to the back would say loudly-it smells like cat peep back here! On the way back that day I (and the other crew encourager in her van) after praising them said the only thing that needs to change is that have established that it smells in the backyard but since many family members are in and out and they might be able to hear through the a/cs we never again need to talk about cat pee smell at their house as it might seem rude. And what was great, they never again did, they actually listened and did what I said! Each site at a portopotty (called a Skid-O-Kan for some reason) and it was fine though some kids won't use it. One of my jobs besides encouraging, supervising and delegating was telling them to drink a lot of water.
We ended at 3 and because they had done a great job, we took them to McD where Mike or I bought them a sundae or drink (they after all had paid to come and work while we as sponsors had not). Then in the evening we took showers in the disaster relief shower trailers, 5 mins in and out for boys and 8 mins for girls. Our group always got there when the line wasn't that long but some had to wait for 1.5 hour! While the Jr High were mostly painting, the High schoolers were roofing, up on the roofs all day in the hot sun! After showers was dinner, worship and church group devotionals. The preaching (by our youth pastor) always held their attention and really applied to the service they were doing, the need for God to be our strength and the need to continue living like this when returning home; they even did a great job of making the songs apply. The next two works days followed the same (even including McD). Wednesday evening we all got in vans and headed to North Padre Island with our church groups. We ate Jason's Deli on the beach and played in the water. There was a rip tide warning so we were supposed to stay at our knees, well I was 'supervising' my jr high girls and with many others we got pretty deep. After a leader had to get one kid who was kinda carried away, the head guy pulled us all back on the shore and then we ended up staying just to our knees. 250 kids on a beach is hilarious-the flirting, the whining to go out further, the feeding and catching of seagulls (seriously). We then wasted time at a souvenir shop before heading back to the school where we changed and then our youth group went to McD again. Thursday was a concert of prayer, we entered prayerfully with our group and sat on the floor (as I helped clean up from dinner I had the heads up and brought my beach towel). There was rain on the screen (very trendy) and the leaders led us in some hymns and prayers, beginning with the project, then our lives and cities and the last slide was a light point map of the world where evangelicals can be found. It made me cry to see the darkness in the 10/40 window.
Thursday afternoon our crew finished our home and it looked wonderful, the kids felt awesome seeing the beginning and then end result, by the end we were limited by ladders and kids who could reach to paint, so I ended up doing a lot, it helps to be 6 foot. We had also grown closer to the homeowner who had lived there for 46 years and in CC for all 80 years of his life. At first he kinda just watched us, we gave him our leftover food, by the end he was helping some and joking with us. The kids really enjoyed that. Friday morning we had nothing to do so the leaders sent us to other sites to help clean up. It was bad, there were high schoolers sitting around doing nothing (I don't know if they were running out of things to do, were on break or just not working) and they didn't really have much for us to do, so we were requested to pick up paint flecks from where they had scraped it. Our kids got such a bad attitude and won't do much of anything. Finally we went back to our site, gave our family a sign we had signed as well as a Bible in English and one in Spanish and to say good-bye. We hung out until the church lunch came, mostly sitting but also playing a couple of games and the devotional. They kids were down and I was thinking after having such a great week it was horrible to end on this note. They had joked that if we finished we could go to the beach (all morning the kids kept asking me tons of questions-where are we going, can we go to the beach, can we change, can we go back early for showers...? I just kept saying I don't know!). Well we were still on call in case any group needed us so we had to stay in our work clothes (for me overalls) but we decided to drive down the sea wall since it was so close to the church. We stopped at a park to look, which turned into going down the hill, then climbing on rocks, then taking shoes off. We decided to go a little further and found a sandy beach. We looked hilarious, most of the kids took their shoes off and rolled up their jeans, many got pretty wet including one totally dumped. We headed back to the church and were first in line for the showers. The kids mood drastically improved, including the ones who didn't really like the beach and that evening they were again talking about the great first three days instead of our horrible morning. That night I was in line for dinner and another sponsor said, there was a group who got to go to the beach today! I said guilty and told her the story. We talked about one of the great lessons of the trip is that LIFE IS NOT FAIR. We worked hard and got to go to the beach; they worked hard and kept working hard until their project was finished Friday evening. The teenagers on the roofs who were the dirtiest were often the last in the shower lines. Some groups got Chickfila for lunch (not me), while others got two lunches, while others got awesome homemade Mexican food, while others got PB&J. Some classrooms had more room to walk (not ours) while others had bathrooms inside (ours). Mostly life isn't fair in our favor; most serving were born into smart, loving, believing, middle to upper class home in America. So even though life isn't fair God doesn't ask to do things out of fairness but out of his love, calling and gifts.
Things I learned/were reminded:
Teenagers are not as scary as I thought.
Life is not fair, but God is good and Christ is full of mercy and grace!
Dr Pepper is a miracle.
Its great to see the end result to your hard work.
We like to work and be busy and get stuff checked off lists and life is hard when we are in a time of waiting.
Its great to be low maintenance on a trip like this-no makeup or razor touched my body for the week and I actually packed inside the limits (unlike most girls :)
I love industrialized cafeteria food: overcooked green beans, two times in one day-bring em on!
The kids are going through tons of real things and family situations. I really got to know the girls during our post shower & prelights out times in the room, and it was awesome seeing them seek Christ in the situations.
Car idling is my biggest pet peeve! Its like finger nails on a chalkboard to me; and there is a lot of idling in June in CC while rounding up a ton of kids. Sometimes however even I enjoyed the a/c of an idling car.
God is reopening my world to more varied acts of service. I hadn't done a construction mission trip since half my life ago. I also had never worked with teenagers. But it was great to serve in a practical open way.
Working with youth is fun as you get to play Big Booty again, and be inspired and sing all out praise during the service times, and though I had heard the points before, they are totally applicable as an adult. God is always calling and sending and loving no matter how old you are.
How different Caleb and I are. He being the introvert, they mostly stayed home even though several had offered to feed them dinner. The girls did a lot more learning of their letters but also watched more tv (because they weren't running around seeing other people).
While the girls missed me they also love hearing my stories of helping the people, working on the houses and being with the teenagers.
And like most trips, I am sure I was blessed as much or even more than those I went to help-the teenagers and even homeowners!
(A note about how I ended up on this trip: Caleb and I had hoped and planned on one of us going back to London, but the trip didn't make. We were/are sad. We hosted a home for DNOW this spring since the youth group was desperate and had a good experience with that. One Wed evening in my ladies' Bible study that meets in a youth room I saw a sign for all the summer youth trips, and thought, "How long will I not have a job while my husband is off in the summer, while I am young and healthy? I should see if they need a sponsor for a trip." I went home and talked to Caleb and he was cool with it, I emailed the secretary who promptly emailed me back with dates asking my preference as they needed female sponsors on all, World Changers worked out with dates and I love missions, so by Friday I was signed up-wow that was fast!)
I would go again, hope it is happening when our girls are youth and recommend it to others. It is a great experience especially for a kid's first mission trip. You help someone in need, tell them and others about the love of Christ, see the results of hard work (wow what a refreshing concept!) and have a great time while making new friends.
World Changers shining the light for those in danger, sharing the love of our Lord and Savior. You can change your world, go out and change your world!
We are not the most spontaneous family. This weekend we are going to Aunt Jan's house, we started the planning in May. For India day in Aug, we set the date in midJune. 
Lydia and Caleb walking around again while Gloria and I swam, I have my arm in the air and Gloria is in her floatie.
