2009 Sr. High Mission Trip

It feels good to live life on purpose! To wake up with a single focus: to bear witness to God's love in Jesus Christ by doing work that will make a real difference in the life of another one of God's children; to believe that God is at work in a certain place and to jump in and participate in what God is doing; to use the gifts of time and energy and money to help a hard-working single mother and her two children escape a dangerous slum and become established in decent, affordable and attractive housing in a safe neighborhood community. This was our experience on the Senior High Mission Trip, working with Habitat for Humanity to build houses in the Oshara Village development in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Our group worked on four houses at the Habitat site. Here are a few of the jobs we accomplished:

• Dug trenches and built forms for footers.
• Poured concrete footers.
• Using surveyors equipment (transit, plumb line, tape measure), pulled corner points to align next layer of foundation.
• Laid foam insulation along footers and braced to square.
• Poured concreted in insulation layer.
• Dug trenches and built forms for three sidewalks.
• Poured and finished sidewalks.
• Wheelbarrowed gravel into yards over weedstop and leveled.
• Measured, cut, and hung drywall.
• Leveled ground, laid out dimensions, and built forms for a two car parking pad.

While the older members worked at the Habitat site, our younger members (under 16) worked at various sites around Santa Fe. At the Food Depot, we...

• Bagged 420 lbs of bran flakes into 1 lb. bags, weighed, sealed, and labeled them.
• Sorted through dozens of produce crates, repackaging the good and throwing away the bad.
• Sorted a massive bin of apples to be sent to surrounding food pantries.

At the Bienvenidos Outreach Center, we...

• Prepared lunches to be served to the homeless men who eat at the center each day.
• Assembled food boxes to be distributed to families with children.

At Westminster Presbyterian Church, we...

• Washed windows.
• Cleaned out overgrowth on church grounds.

Our scriptural focus for the week was the life of John the Baptist. We identified with John's sense of call to be a witness to the coming Messiah. We admired his total commitment to the mission of proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah and announcing the coming of God's Kingdom. We considered how we might also be "the Voice" that calls people to "prepare the way of the Lord." (note the t-shirt in the picture, the artwork of our own Nicky Snyder!) We listened to John's preaching about the Messiah separating the wheat from the chaff, asking God to preserve what is good in us but to burn away whatever is useless. We imagined John in prison, disillusioned, when Jesus turned out to be a different kind of Messiah than John had expected. We asked God to help us let go of our own expectations and so be open and ready to do whatever work God may call us to do. We found hope in seeing how John's ministry had an impact long after his life was ended, and we considered how God might bless our week of work so that it lives on as a blessing to others.

I cannot imagine a mission trip being any more perfect than this trip to Santa Fe. From the advanced planning in meticulous detail (thank you Rev. Allison!), the firm but flexible leadership provided by Emily Mohr (time to get on the plane Emily!), the loving and fun leadership of the other adults, the maturity and hard work of the youth, the amazing daily meals prepared by Kris Scott (unbelievable!), the fellowship on the worksite and back 'home' at St. Johns UMC, the sense of accomplishment in doing work that really matters, the awesome grandeur of God's creation, and the Spirit of Christ that permeated our trip (an answer to the faithful prayers of the whole GPC family), this trip was truly a work of God!

So on behalf of the Senior High Mission Trip participants, I offer a heartfelt THANK YOU to the Congregation of Glenshaw Presbyterian Church for allowing us the privilege of representing you in doing Christ's work in Santa Fe.

Your servant in Christ,
Rev. Mike