Mission Trip

This year Summer, Colton, Larkyn, and I headed out to Jackson, KY for a week.  This mission trip with our church served the people in one of the poorest counties in the United States.  We partnered with Happy Church and Thirst Missions to love the kids in the area. 

After driving 2 days, our team of 25 arrived Happy Church.  The boys stayed in the sanctuary on air mattresses, and the girls stayed in a house on the property called Emmy's Place.  In our orientation on Sunday evening, we learned about the devastating floods in recent years and also the positive impact Happy Church has had in the community.    They are truly the hands and feet of Jesus and everyone in the community knows who Happy Church is and the ways they have brought hope.  The biggest focus of Happy Church is kids of the community.  Happy Church weekly brings kids in the community to events via large church vans, telling them about Jesus, giving them hope (both spiritually and materially), and teaching them life skills.

  

Our mission as a team was two-fold.  In the morning we served happy church by completing various work projects such as landscaping, weeding, building a fence, painting, cleaning, and cooking.  This allowed the staff at Happy Church to pour more time and energy into loving their community rather than on necessary tasks. 

 In the evening we put on skills clinics for the kids in the community.  Our team of students chose things they were passionate about such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, art, robotics, theater, piano, and drums and created clinics for the kids in the community to come and learn, and then Happy Church vans picked up kids all over the community to bring them to the church to eat, play, and learn with our students. 

 It was amazing to watch our students rise to the challenge in leadership, pouring their time and talents into creating fun clinics for these kids.  It was also very eye-opening for our students to see how others live, and also to learn from them as we watched how people in the community adopted kids in their community without question, adding them to their already full trailers when the drugs and pain of the community took hold of many of the kids' parents.   

On Thursday we helped with a community school supply/backpack giveaway by giving lunch to those that came, and that evening we helped Happy Church put on a carnival for the community.  Our students had fun running carnival games and It was so sweet to meet families of some of the kids that we hung out with all week at the skills camps.

One morning, we visited a senior center.  They had such interesting stories as we chatted about their lives, attempted to beat the reigning beanbag champion, played bingo, and sang hymns.  The highlight was definitely chair aerobics!

At the end of the week, the team enjoyed hiking out to natural bridge together and going out for pizza and ice-cream, before we started our 13 hour drive back home.

I am grateful for the opportunity we had to serve together as mom and kids this summer.  I am also grateful for our church providing such amazing community for our kids to grow up in.  I absolutely love the ministry of Happy Church to the community in Appalachia and pray the Lord's blessings over their continued ministry there.

*more pics