Kentucky Youth Mission Trip
June 2008

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Love your neighbor as yourself." Mathew 22: 37-39

Youth Mission Trips take place annually, usually the last week in June. The trips last one week and participants have gone to West Virginia and Louisiana.  In June 2008, 65 participants, including youth and chaperones, went to Harlan, Kentucky. Next year's trip will be the week of June 22-29, 2009. We will be going to Portland, Maine to work with refugee families from Sudan.

Sometime we help rehab a house, in this case a new porch needed to be built, one that is handicap accessible.

We were able to finish the porch by the end of the week. There was a strong feeling of accomplishment by this group, especially after meeting the woman who would be using the ramp.

This house needed to be painted; however, with the funds from our trip we were able to provide the materials and labor for a more permanent solutions.

One of our youth members, Kylie, works hard in very hot conditions, on a roof that really needed to be repaired.

This is the same roofing site as above. It takes many loving hands to break down the roof and put up a new one in two days.

This picture shows that we build relationships as well as buildings. Another roofing site crew called 'Roofing number 2 " took time during a lunch break to pose with the grandson of the homeowner. They often took turns talking and playing cards with this young man throughout the week.

Brad Hotchkiss, one of our adult team construction workers, checks the work done by our young people. They began framing a house and the whole house was framed in three days.

We live in community throughout the week. That means different groups take turns performing various daily chores. One of the chores is dinner preparation. Tim and Maggie are helping to prepare the meal for the evening. We were blessed to have two wonderful cooks, Carol Titcomb and Janet Giordano, who were the adults heading up meal preparation.

These trips have many goals:

o We want to foster team building and leadership skills among our youth.
o We want to help people in other parts of the country who are less fortunate due to poverty and/or natural disasters.
o We want to teach our youth about different cultures within our country.
o We want to increase the self-esteem of our youth through challenging work projects, under adult supervision and guidance.
o We want to teach about injustices in our modern day society and ways that we, as Christians, can respond. (Micah 6: "to do justice, and to love kindness").
o We want our youth to have a greater appreciation of the opportunities given to them in life.
o We want to build house and to build relationships.

Youth and Chaperones attending are expected to :

1. Assist in fundraising efforts, usually two or three throughout the year.
2. Contribute financially for part of the trip
3. Participate in mandatory meetings (Usually two throughout the year)