- July 20, 2018
Twenty-five teens and young adults joined forces for this year's youth missions trip at the end of June. They traveled to Houston, Texas, to help Arise Baptist Church reach their community and complete some work projects. They also had the opportunity to help a nearby church with their VBS, where 9 children came to know the Lord as their Savior!
The group left the church on Monday afternoon and arrived in Houston late that night. We are thankful for several parents who drove them to the airport and picked them up after the trip!
On Tuesday morning, they met the staff and interns at Arise and got started on their first task: canvassing neighborhoods to invite people to a Family Carnival at the church on the upcoming Saturday. Arise uses the event to reach the community and invite children to their Vacation Bible School at the end of July. In 4 days, the team handed out 15,000 flyers and easily walked 500 miles of neighborhood streets. In the hot weather, it was quite a task, but they did it with smiles!
They all enjoyed good fellowship with the people of Arise throughout the week. On Wednesday, the whole group sang "O God My Joy" for the midweek service, and got to pray with church members.
On a typical day, the group would split up after lunch and spend the afternoon working on a couple different work projects for people in the church. The first was at the home of "Uncle Lewis" and a single mom named Ashley. Their downstairs carpet had been water damaged, so the team emptied 3 rooms, ripped the carpet out, swept and prepped the floor for the church later to install laminate flooring. They also painted the walls in those rooms and the kitchen.
The second work project was at the home of Mr. Larry. His house had to be completely gutted after Hurricane Harvey, and the church has already helped him rebuild most of it. The exterior trim still needed to be finished, so a group scraped and stripped it, then repainted. It looks much better!
Go to the next page for group pictures and the carnival!