February 14, 2014
The Story about How We Decided to Go to Washington, Illinois
for our Mission Trip this Summer
Every fall we meet as a
youth ministry with all the youth who are interested in attending the mission
trip and discuss what we might do. We pray together for God’s guidance. We
discuss last year’s trip and the positives and negatives of the trip. We ask
everyone if they have a recommendation for next year’s trip and we make a list.
This year we decided a
few things at our initial meeting on October 13th. We decided:
1.
We would not return to Puerto Rico this year
2.
We would like to invite our friends from Ponce, PR to
join us wherever we go.
3.
We wanted to return with a short list of 3 places and
they would include; an international location, a domestic location, and
possibly a location related to disaster relief.
Our next meeting was on
December15. On November 17, a tornado hit Washington, IL and destroyed 800
homes. I called Brent McLaughlin because I knew his family was from Illinois
and that Josiah, Sierra and Keenan had spent most summers up there. Brent told
me that his parents lived in Morton right next to Washington and that they
attended 1st UMC of Peoria. He also sent me a link to the Peoria UMC
website.
At our meeting on
December 15 there were three locations which we had researched as possible mission
trips destinations; Jamaica, Washington, IL and Fort Collins, Colorado. Jamaica
is, well, beautiful and Gavin Knight is from there. Fort Collins, CO had experienced
flooding and DOOR network was going to be doing relief work through August. All
three locations were presented to the youth and discussed. Josiah McLaughlin
talked about his family connection to Illinois and how cool it would be to help
the people there. The youth voted for Washington, IL.
Then we discussed what we
might do in Illinois. Having lived through Hurricane Andrew in 1992, several of
our adult leaders had insight to share about the rebuilding. We knew that the
homes would be rebuilt by contractors and would be underway by the summer. We
brainstormed ‘other’ things we could do which included:
1.
Put on a Vacation Bible School for the neighborhood
2.
Build Fences for the homes
3.
Build Swing Sets for any family who wants one
4.
Paint Something. (we love to paint)
5.
Paint a Mural somewhere. (we also love to paint murals)
It was decided that Swing
Sets was our favorite idea. As experienced mission trip people, we knew that it
was best to ask the people you are intending to assist what they need for the
best possible result. I was tasked to contact the people of 1st UMC Peoria and
see if this trip could happen. We prayed about this as a group and decided to
contact them after Christmas.
On January 7, I called
Dan Phillips who is the Missions and Outreach pastor for 1st United
Methodist Church of Peoria. I told Dan that we would love to come help the
people of Washington this summer on June 14-21. We already knew our time frame
and I was hoping they could host us and give us an idea how we could help. Dan
told me how Crossroads UMC had been sheltering people and serving meals and how
they and some other churches were working together. It was a great initial
phone call and I decided to mention our ‘Swing Set’ idea. Dan liked it.
Over the next few weeks
the details started to come together. Dan kept in touch with me and 1st
UMC Peoria confirmed that they would host us in June. But this ‘Swing Set’ idea
started to take on a life of its own.
A group of pastors, youth
pastors and leaders from three United Methodist churches were meeting and
working together to focus their efforts on the rebuilding in Washington. On
January 20, Dan sent me an email stating that the churches were going to focus
on ‘Swing Sets’ this summer. They would host teams for 7 weeks and see how many
swing sets they could bring to the people of Washington.
Hope Swings Washington
was born. Check it out: www.hopeswingswashington.org
We are so excited that
our idea has galvanized the community there and we can’t wait to go on our
trip. Our goal is to find sponsors for 10-15 swing sets. We will be doing our
regular fundraising to raise money for the youth to attend the trip as the cost
will be $800 per person. We currently have around 25 youth interested in
attending. We also have about 5 swing sets verbally sponsored. Dan and his team
are deciding on the best swing set to be the model. They want something under
$500, made of wood and expandable for the future. We will know shortly the
exact cost to sponsor a swing set and will get the word out.
In the meantime, keep
supporting our youth with your prayers, encouragement, attention and
sponsorship of the 100 Car Wash-a-thon on February 23. Thanks
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