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I recently had the honor of helping chaperon a youth group retreat for my church. One of the last activities was a worship service where the youth went through several stations. One of the most powerful stations was a crude cross made from two logs found in the woods and held together with duct tape. Each youth was to write down something in life that they are struggling with and would like to give up to God on a piece of paper. Then they were to nail that piece of paper to the cross.
More from the Nailed Series:
It was a pretty amazing weekend. Makes me look forward to this Summer’s mission trip even more.
I recently had the opportunity to help chaperon a retreat for my church’s youth group. Here are some cruddy cell phone pictures and a few real camera pictures of the events:
I might have said last week that this random Wednesday collection was going to feature Maddux. Next week’s collection will feature Maddux.
A couple weeks ago I had the great pleasure of helping chaperone the youth group from my church on a mission trip to Minneapolis.
As you have undoubtedly heard, my point and shoot went kaput on this trip, so I didn’t get as many photos as I wanted. However, with the pictures I had taken and pictures contributed by Sarah and Maddie I was able to put together this video of the trip to show during the church service on Sunday.
Of course, if you subscribe to this blog via email or RSS feed, you will have to go to the website to watch it.
One note on the video. I do think it ended up being the perfect song for the video and I really struggled with the song until I ultimately settled on this acoustic version of Live Like That by The Street Prophets.
I think this song and this version of the song worked perfectly for the video. I played with the original radio release, but I decided it was too hard of a song for our congregation. But I found an acoustic version of it on YouTube performed by The Street Prophets for KLove radio.
While searching for the perfect song I listened a lot of the Matt Maher station on Pandora while walking Naima.
Originally, I was going to go with Matt Maher’s Hold Us Together.
Then I changed to Brandon Heath’s Give Me Your Eyes.
Then I changed to Jason Gray’s Remind Me Who I Am.
Then I changed back to Matt Maher’s Hold Us Together.
But once I found the acoustic version of Live Like That, the choice was obvious, even though I love all those other songs.
Even though, you’ll see these pictures in the video, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip:
Bible Study on a Hill
What 1 Ton of Rice Looks Like Before We Got There
What 1 Ton of Rice Looks Like When We Are Done with It!
Maddie Boxing Rice
Kiley and Sarah getting their hair done at Mary’s Place
Emily During Bible Study
Paige, Kiley, Grace and Erica Ready at Feed My Starving Children
Finishing Up at Feed My Starving Children
Blessing the Food Packs at Feed My Starving Children
Sarah, Grace, and Alan Making Boxes at Emergency Foodshelf Network
Jacob and Marshall Boxing Meat at Emergency Foodshelf Network
Erica, Gabe, and CJ – the end of the frozen meat line at Emergency Foodshelf Network
Bagging Noodles at Emergency Foodshelf Network
Erica, Maddie, Amber, and Kiley Sorting Clothes at ARC
Brenton, CJ, and Jacob Sorting Clothes at ARC
Gabe and Jake Organizing Clothes at ARC
Marshall, Jake, Alec, and Alan Working the Back of ARC
Sarah Styling in ARC
Minnehaha Falls
Breakfast!
Andrew During Bible Study
Alec and Grace Draining the 1 Ton Bag of Rice
Emily and Amber Weighing Rice at Second Harvest Heartland
Sarah Sealing Bags of Rice at Second Harvest Heartland
Paige Sealing Bags of Rice at Second Harvest Heartland
Steph and Ryan Sealing Bags of Rice at Second Harvest Heartland
Erica, Amber, Sarah, Emily, Maddie, and Grace at the Global Market
Ammie and Paige Playing Sorry at Mary’s Place
Jake and Kids Showing Off their Creation at Mary’s Place
Brenton, Sarah, Grace, Emily, Amber, Erica, Jacob, Paige, Steph, Jake, Ammie, Allan, Ryan, Yours Truly, Gabe, Jake, Alec, Maddie, Kiley, Sarah, Andrew, CJ, and Marshall at the Sculptue Garden
It was an amazing trip and I hope I asked back for next year’s mission trip.
A few weeks back I was one of four lucky adults that got to chaperone my church’s youth group on a mission trip to Kansas City. It was truly one of the best weekends of the year for me and I sincerely hope that I get asked to chaperone a trip again in the future.
The Sunday after the mission trip I spoke before the congregation about my experience. I was operating on about 45 minutes of sleep because the night before was Sara’s graduation party. I got home at about 3 in the morning. I was also dogsitting Jupiter and any time I remotely dozed off he was waking me up for various reasons.
This is an approximation of the speech I gave to the congregation. Only it is better (I hope) because I’m not about to fall asleep.
The Kansas City Mission Trip was an amazing experience and there are two things I took out of the trip.
The first thing was perspective. On Saturday night during our debriefing we watched a Nooma video that gave some extremely startling statistics:
It would cost 20 billion dollars to provide basic nutrition, heath care, and clean drinking water for the entire world. 20 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, until you put it in perspective. 20 billion dollars is how much money Americans spend on ice cream every year.
1 billion people in this world survive on less than 1 dollar a day.
Did you eat this morning? 800 million people in the world won’t eat today. 300 million of those people are kids. Every few seconds somebody dies of hunger.
1 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water.
Those are worldwide statistics and they are horrible, but here are a few statistics that hit a little bit closer to home.
In Kansas City on any given night there are 13,000 homeless people. To put that in perspective, Boone is a town of about 13,000 people. There is an entire town of Boone in Kansas City every night that doesn’t have a home.
In Kansas City there are 350 beds for the homeless. To put that in perspective, on a good day, there are about 350 people here during this service worshiping. So think about it this way, everybody in this church would have a place to sleep tonight, but everybody else in town would be looking for a place to sleep. Underneath a bridge. In an abandoned car. On a friend’s couch. If they are lucky.
Many of those people won’t find a place to sleep. That is why when we worked at the Faith Hope Ministry on Saturday, many of the people were there to sleep. They were sleeping there during the day, because there wasn’t a safe place for them to sleep on the streets.
Here is another statistic about the homeless in Kansas City that breaks the heart. The average age of a homeless person in Kansas City is 7 years old.
I can’t imagine what life would be like if I was 7 years old and homeless. What was your greatest concern when you were 7 years old? Mine might have been missing the Duane and Floppy Show. It wasn’t where I was going to sleep that night. It wasn’t when I was going to eat again.
Another part of the perspective I learned on this trip was extremely shallow. I apologize for the shallowness of this observation.
I wouldn’t make it as a homeless person. I just flat out wouldn’t.
I don’t look the way I do because of lack of exercise, although I’m sure that contributes, I like food. I like good food.
I could not survive on the food that the homeless are thankful to have. Even the “good food” that was served at the Faith Hope Mission was tough to choke down.
Our final stop on Saturday night was at a Family Shelter. This shelter had been receiving food donations of expired food from an area Trader Joe’s.
This is perhaps my favorite memory from the trip.
One of our jobs was sorting the food that was too moldy to eat from the food that was moldy, but a person could eat it. The look on our youths face when Andrea handed them a package of strawberries that were covered in mold and told them it was edible… it was priceless.
The truth is that there were going to be people getting that food and those people would be THANKFUL to be getting it.
Perspective.
It is a reminder that everything we get is a gift from God. Everything. That car that you are driving. Gift. That house you are living in. Gift. Those clothes on your back. Gift. That food in your belly. Gift. That air in your lungs. Gift.
The second thing I took from this trip is that this church has an awesome youth group.
I don’t pick the word awesome randomly and I don’t mean it the way most people use the word. It is true that the members of the youth group are many of those things. They are cool. They are neat.
I mean awesome in the truest sense of the word: our youth group is awe inspiring.
The work they did was awe inspiring. The compassion they displayed was awe inspiring.
They inspired me to remember what it truly means to be a Christian. To serve others and always remember the questions: “What can I give? I have been blessed. Who am I going to bless? How can I be more generous? How can I step into my divine responsibility to give?”
I can report to this congregation that without a doubt that the Fair Stand will be in very good hands in 2035.
Here are a few pictures from the trip:
I just want to close this journal entry with two Bible verses that kind of sum up the way I think of the trip:
“Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
-Deuteronomy 8:17-18
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, TO BE RICH IN GOOD DEEDS, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”
-Timothy 6:17- 19
In particular this passage from Timothy is one of my favorites in the Bible. Along with Psalm 139 and Ephesians 4:29.
Editor’s Note: Since I wrote this blog, I have been asked to chaperone the mission trip to Minnesota next year.
I did portraits as a Youth Group Fundraiser for my church about a month ago. Here are a few pictures from that night.
In unrelated religious fundraiser news, a photograph of mine will be included in a silent auction during the Sacred Heart Carnival.
I don’t really know many details about the event, besides that it will be on February 4 in Boone, I presume.
If you are around Boone on February 4 and want a chance to own a piece of my art, here is your chance. I will provide more information as more information becomes available to me.
