Missions Road Trip

Evening devotions and worship time.

During Spring Break in March, I went as a leader on our student ministry’s first annual missions road trip. I worked as an assistant/intern to our new student pastor from November until May, and part of my job description was going on trips like this (and helping with the planning!)

We had 36 people go on the trip (six of those were leaders.) The group was mixed ages, from 6^th-12^th grade. We all met at the church on a Sunday afternoon. We had a little orientation meeting, went over the basic rules, and our pastor gave a little talk/reminder on why we were going on the trip. Then we all piled into the bus to head out!

Each day, we tried to plan something fun for the kids in addition to whatever ministry we were doing. Sunday night, we were supposed to go to Winter Jam in Fort Worth. But sadly after standing in line for about 30 minutes, we found out that the concert had filled up. Instead, we went to UNO’s and had a big pizza feast for dinner and just had fun talking and laughing.

Then we drove over to the church where we would be spending the night. We had a girls’ wing of the church and guys’ wing. We all set up our sleeping bags, and then gathered in our meeting room for devotions and worship. There were no showers at the church, so everyone got ready for bed quickly and after quite a bit of talking, went to sleep. ;-)

The next morning, we pulled out breakfast food (pop tarts, fruit, breakfast biscuits, granola bars, etc.) and lunch things for the kids to pack for later (sandwich items, more fruit, chips, etc.) We had the same set up for the entire trip. Once everyone had gathered, we did morning devotions and talked about what we’d be doing ministry-wise that day.

We piled into the bus and drove to Mission Arlington! This organization offers several different social services to the community. When we arrived, we talked with the founder (a sweet elderly lady) and she told us we would be passing out flyers at apartment complexes to promote their “Rainbow Express” event happening every day later in the week. The “Rainbow Express” is a mobile VBS they do for children that live in these lower-income apartment complexes.

We hadn’t come prepared to walk in the rain, but considered it a good introduction to missions work for the students. ;-) We split into teams of 3-4 people and went through two different apartment complexes. It took us a couple of hours to do it. Our clothes were soaked through by the time we finished (and the temperature was only in the 50’s.) We were eager to get back on the bus, dry out, eat our sack lunches, and get our next assignment from Mission Arlington.

Apparently, another group withdrew their offer to help Mission Arlington due to the rain. So guess which group got to hit 2 more apartment complexes? Yep, we did! I was so impressed at the students and their positive attitudes. It definitely caused me to keep my mouth shut from doing any complaining (wet clothes is one of the things I hate most in life.)

When we finished, we started our drive towards Austin. Due to the rain, we had to change our evening plans (which originally involved eating at a food truck and watching the bats swarm at Congress Bridge.) As we tried to brainstorm what else we could easily do with 36 people at the last minute, we stopped at a Wal-Mart so students could have the option to buy dry socks and cheap shoes.

When we arrived in Austin, we went straight to Mel’s. They had a restaurant there, a bowling alley, and an arcade. We figured the kids could eat and then bowl. But instead, we had one waitress for our entire group and they didn’t bring out the last meal until 30 minutes after their closing time at 11 p.m. When we realized it was going to be a long time before the food arrived, we bought the kids cards to use in the arcade since they couldn’t bowl. Again, I was so impressed by their patience. The rest of us adults were just in disbelief that it took so long to prepare relatively simple meals.

After we were all back on the bus, we headed to the church where we’d be spending the night. We had team devotions and worship time before everyone dispersed to go to bed. This church had showers, and everyone wanted to take one before we left the next morning. About half the group showered that evening (it took awhile to rotate through because there were only 4 shower stalls.)

I was up bright and early Tuesday morning to make use of the shower, hopefully before the hot water ran out. I got about halfway through before it turned cold. :-P All of the guys showered after the girls finished and we packed lunches. Then we went to a local McDonald’s for breakfast. Our pastor had a connection with the owner, and she had donated free breakfasts for us! It was nice to have something hot. :-) After that we loaded up the bus again and left!

Our first stop was at Mobile Loaves and Fishes Farm. This was where two of us leaders stayed with almost all of the high schoolers. ML&F is a sustainable agriculture farm that benefits homeless people. The products that come from the farm go to help several other inner-city homeless organizations, and in the future, homeless people will have the opportunity to work on the farm and learn vocational skills.

The farm is still being built up, so we were there to help! It was buried in about 4 inches of mud due to the rain from the day before. We definitely weren’t prepared for that, so we had to embrace the dirtiness! (Even knowing we wouldn’t have another shower until we got home. :-P) A few of the guys helped dig holes to build a gazebo. Some of the others worked to scrape the bark off the trees that were being used for posts. The rest of us cleaned up brush from a ditch and built a decorative/functional wall from it.

The rest of our group was at Street Youth Ministry in Austin. They spent time playing music, teaching, and doing arts and crafts with young homeless people at the center. Their ministry was more relational, while ours was definitely hands on!

When the bus came back to pick us up at the farm, we had to dig through the suitcases to find clean socks and shoes to put on. Then we rejoined the rest of the group. We drove down to San Antonio after that. We went straight to . . . a trampoline park! It was very fun, except for a few minor injuries. I was thinking about how gross we were going to be after all of that sweating and no showers. :-P

From there, we drove over to the Riverwalk part of town for dinner! We split up into groups and then spread out. My group ate at a Mexican restaurant. By the time we finished, it was time to meet up with others where we had been dropped off.

The church we stayed at that night was HUGE. We stayed on the level that was for 5^th and 6^th graders. We had a longer team debrief and devotions time before heading to bed. As a leader, I got very little sleep on the trip!

The next morning, we had our breakfast and packed up our things. Then we went over to Children’s Hunger Fund. We heard a little presentation on what CHF does and what we’d be doing to serve that day. We had three different groups. One group packaged up bulk dry noodles, another group had an assembly line packing boxes, and another group sorted donations from Samaritans Purse to put in gift boxes (soaps, lotions, hand sanitizers, other miscellaneous hygiene items, and toys that were removed from Christmas shoe boxes.) It was so much fun to volunteer there! We were able to get quite a lot done quickly because of how organized they were about everything.

After that, we turned the bus north and headed home. We made a quick use-the-restroom-and-buy-snacks stop at Buccees. We also stopped at Common Grounds coffee shop in Waco, Texas. That may very well be my favorite coffee shop in the whole world. It is SO GOOD and if you’re ever in Waco, you must stop there! It’s right off the Baylor University campus. :-)

We made it home in the early evening. It was a fast-paced, exhausting trip, but it was so much fun. It was my first domestic missions trip experience, and also my first time going as a leader. I was definitely stretched, and learned a lot about doing ministry in the United States!