On July 25th three youth leaders and 13 young people from Good Shepherd headed out on our very first mission trip. None of us really knew what to expect during our time in Yakima. We knew that we would be working on houses and helping run programming for local kids. We knew that we would be sleeping on air mattresses in a Methodist church with 60 some other Christians from around the country. We knew that we would be leaving behind our iPods, cell phones, blow dryers, our families, our own schedules, our own wants, and our own space. We knew it would be hot—much hotter than we were used to—and we knew we would have the chance to serve others with our hands and with Christ’s love. But what we didn’t know far outweighed what we knew. Going into this trip we had no idea how we would bond as a group. That we would create our own little community, our own traditions; traditions like heading over to the Blue Sky market each day after finishing at the job sites to pick up strange new kinds of soda and tortillas so fresh that they were almost too hot to hold. We had no idea that we would make new friends with Catholic kids from Seattle and Presbyterians from Vegas. We had no idea that we would have the chance to celebrate Zach’s 16 birthday and several days later be taking him to the emergency room after his fifth bloody nose of the week. We didn’t know that we could go days working in the hot sun painting and still have good attitudes, or that we would have the chance to appreciate someone else’s culture and to see how Native Americans relate to “Creator.” We had no idea that youth leaders would have the chance to wash our youth’s feet following the example Jesus set for servant leadership and how emotional it would be for us. Most of all we had no idea how much this trip would affect us. We came back with memories, with passion for service, with cleansed spirits; we came back ready to go on the next trip. We would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who helped make this trip possible, to our youth’s parents, to all those of you who donated items for or shopped at our garage sale, who had your trees pruned, or cars detailed.
Although you weren’t on the trip with us, you are a part of what we did that week and without you this would not have been possible.