How to Become a Missionary- Photostory

Mission Trip to Texas

This picture shows my youth group getting ready to perform a concert at one of the block parties.


This picture shows my youth group interacting with all the people that lived in the apartment complex that we were giving a block party to.


This is a picture of my backyard bible study kids. There are about 35 of them.


This is one of the girls at the 2nd block party we had.


This is me (in the green sweatshirt) sharing the salvation necklace with Maria.


This is me teaching that day's bible study to our kids.


This is Maria, who is 4 years old and only speaks spanish.


This shows us playing with our bible study kids.


This is a picture of all the equipment we need to manage the bible study.


This is a picture of the apartment complex we were assigned to.


This is a picture of me standing by Mission Metroplex (Rainbow Express), which is where we went every morning to get our assignments on where we were going for the bible study.


This is a picture of the gym, Lockwood Community Center, that we stayed in for the time we were in Texas.


This is a picture of Lockwood Community Center.
Over Spring Break, I went on a mission trip , aka Go Tour,with my youth group that was going to Texas. On this trip, I learned many aspects about a true missionary's life. We left early Saturday morning and arrived late Saturday night, in Arlington, Texas. We stayed at the Lockwood Community Center. Most of us slept in the gym, on the floor. A few stayed in a house about 200 ft away from Lockwood. We had two shower trailers and a girls' bathroom we could use. The girls' bathroom had one shower in it. When we got settled in at night, there was always a line of about 20 girls waiting to shower. You usually didn't actually get to sleep until around 1 or 2am. We got up Sunday morning at 6am to get ready for our first mission activity. We would be volunteering at Mission Arlington. We would also be managing backyard bible studies in apartment complexes around the Arlington area. So, Sunday morning, we got to scope out the apartment complex we would be working at for the following few days. My youth group consisted of 6-12th graders. We all had our own job that we were responsible for. I was a small group leader. That meant that I was in charge of reading the bible story, and explaining it. After we scoped out the area, it was time to go to a church service and perform. Even though this was a mission trip, we were also the student choir, which is why we call it "Go Tour". Our concert consisted of about 10 songs and 3 dramas. A few of the songs were "Strong Tower", "Lead me to the Cross", and "We won't be quiet". One of the dramas we did was called "Everything". It was about drugs, hate, greed, and other things you could get caught up in. The central character was a girl who had gotten caught up in everything and finally gave it all up because she realized that God loved her and wanted a relationship with her. Monday morning we got up and went straight to our backyard bible study sites. We worked with Rainbow Express, aka Mission Metroplex in managing the bible studies. It was there that I met a girl named Maria. She was 4 years old. Again, we were in Texas, and some of the population is bound to speak spanish. Maria only understood spanish. That meant that she couldn't understand anything that I said. Because of that, I thought that I wouldn't be able to reach her. I was so wrong. Tuesday-Thursday mornings, we did the bible studies. Another activity that we participated in most nights were block parties. We always did our concert at these parties. In this activity, we went to apartment complexes, passed out flyers that advertised the event, fed them dinner, had a concert, and then we mingled with them. This was my favorite mission trip.

On this mission trip, I learned several things. I guess the most important would be the fact that I learned to trust God with everything. I had to realize that although Maria didn't understand what I said, He would take care of her. He would touch her heart one day, just like He did with me. Also, one of the things that I learned from my past posts about some conditions in which missionaries are placed in is that it's not always comfortable. I mentioned that we were sleeping on the gym floor. We had about five showers for 60 people to share. Furthermore, you can imagine that when that many people are put together for that amount of time ( a week), people get cranky. You are literally with people every second of the day. You don't have any space. By the end of the week, we had several people that were sick because of these conditions. My favorite part would have to be the bible studies. I loved teaching the bible stories about Jesus and how God sent Him to die on the cross for our sins, so we could live with Him in Heaven for eternity. I felt like God had shown me that He was in control through it all. Another thing I learned was how crucial it was to have a quiet time. Our high school minister told us how important it was to be in constant prayer with God, so when a situation presented itself, we could use it for God's glory. This trip was just one more assurance that I felt God wanted me to be a missionary.