While it definitely has and is a mecca for golf, vacation and tourists... there is a bit more to Hilton Head than just posh fairways and pristine resorts and vacation home subdivisions. 

For starters, there's the Gullah people. 

From the little I know and have heard, it's a small, probably largely unknown people group that is of direct lineage of black slaves from pre-Civil War times. From what I saw, most of the Gullah people are living in poverty and serve as a stark difference from the high-class and wealthy establishments and visitors that now have overtaken the island and completely transformed it over the last 60 years or so. 

While there does seem to be a lot of churches on the island, it seems like wherever there is poverty... it is usually accompanied by a need for hope and a Jesus kind of love that pursues and is active without need of reciprocation.

The trip I helped lead over Memorial Day weekend was a short weekend trip of painting a house, visiting a nursing home, visiting a Gullah church, and going to the beach to have some Holy Spirit lead ministry & conversations with complete strangers. 

Us two leaders, (and Adventures in general) stressed listening prayer and learning how to follow when the Holy Spirit leads.

Adventures' participants singing up front at a Gullah church; St. John's Baptist Church

It was great to see the kids, and leaders alike, step out in faith and simply talk to strangers when God told them to. (The previous blog, "It could be worse", is a story of one of the kids obeying God's lead on the beach one day.)

I know for a fact that the kids in this youth group were stretched and taken out of their comfort zones as they listened and let God use them during the 3 short days on Hilton Head Island.