This was my first time leading a trip with Adventures and my conclusion after one week of serving alongside a youth group from the Vineyard Church in Ohio is: I would definitely do it again!
I didn’t know what to expect going into the week. I honestly just tried to do what was expected of me and prayed it would all work out. Naturally, I am an over-thinker and detail oriented. However, since it was my first time leading a trip with Adventures, I just hoped the week didn’t look like the chaos going on inside of my mind.
The week was incredible. Truly. God moved in so many ways that can only be explained by His hand guiding our group and placing us in the right places at the right time. One of the things I found most challenging with leading is finding the balance between doing set ministry work and free time for the youth. My co-leader, Austin, and I didn’t want to constantly have the kids working and hinder them from making fun memories together at the beach, or just playing games and diving deeper into their friendships. The first and second day we gave the kids a few hours of free time, but as the week went on, our kids communicated that they would like to do MORE ministry work and have less free time. Y’all. Our kids wanted to serve in the community more than they wanted to play at the beach. We were shocked. And of course, super excited to plan more activities for them to serve in the Hilton Head community.
I was in charge of setting up volunteer opportunities with various ministries on Hilton Head Island. The week consisted of our group serving at various sites, including: a food pantry called Holy Family, with kids at The Children’s Center, with dementia patients at Memory Matters, with special needs kids at SOAR, a nursing home called BLOOM, a church daycare called PELC and various projects around the church grounds. My job was to contact the ministries, confirm or schedule days/times to serve, select the students for each site, coordinate transportation and complete follow ups. It was fun and exhausting.
I love love love to serve. And usually on mission trips I am one of the first to jump at the opportunity to get my hands dirty and work in the community. However, I found it interesting being in a leadership role on this mission trip because serving looked very different than it has in the past for me.
Aside from setting up ministries, I was also in charge of grocery shopping (and oh my goodness teenage boys can eat!), meal prep, cleaning, running kids around if needed, making the daily and weekly schedule, leading devotionals, and incorporating fun activities. I loved being in a leadership role, but definitely learned some lessons along the way.
Lesson One: have grace for yourself! The week will not go perfectly and that is okay. When something doesn’t go as planned (if a ministry cancels on you, if a kid gets sick etc), this is the perfect opportunity to go back to God and ask Him to show up in a miraculous way. I had to do this many, many times throughout the week, and God never failed to show up. I had a few ministries cancel on me, and I would pray and God would give me ideas of how to fill that time to be productive with my kids. Sometimes, we would have a really good worship and devotional night planned, and all those plans would go out the window in a matter of seconds. That’s okay. Seek God and see what He has in mind for the time set aside.
Because we had a few cancellations during the week, this gave my group the opportunity to clean up the church grounds (and the staff was SO THANKFUL!) and also clean windows and visit with an elderly man in the community two times who shared the history of Hilton Head Island with my kids and encouraged them in their walks with the Lord
Lesson Two: be open to how God wants you to serve. One of the ministries asked for my youth to have a lesson and songs prepared to teach a small group of kids and be ready to serve as teacher assistants throughout the day. However, when I went to check on the youth serving, they were outside doing yard work. Plans changed, the serving looked different than expected, but everything still worked out. The center was greatly blessed by my youth cleaning up after a recent storm had rolled in, not a single person serving complained, and I was able to bless them with popsicles in the heat.
Lesson Three: be intentional. There were so many times during the week where I was physically drained and just wanted to zone out and scroll on my Instagram. For real. But the Holy Spirit daily convicted me to be fully present with my youth. Instead of checking out, I sought times to be engaged with my youth. We played games (I beat them so many times playing Bananagrams – thank you mom for my love of vocabulary), had deep discussions about current struggles, prayed together and more. One week is a very short time, but there is so much growth available if you say “yes” to the opportunities God has for you.
On Wednesday, our entire group went to the beach and we had three of our youth get baptized. I am so proud of those kids for saying yes. They all shared a little of their background and explained what baptism means to them and why it’s important to them. We were literally all in tears. Then we worshipped on the beach and our songs drew in vacationers, so we were given the opportunity to share the gospel. And then another of our youth decided to give his life to Christ as well. It was so cool. Two of the youth also rededicated their lives to Christ and three more are planning to be baptized in the near future. I gave my life to Christ at 18, so seeing these younger kids take the gospel seriously and be fully committed to Jesus is so humbling. I am honored to have served alongside these incredible people and would joyfully do it again!
