There were 12 youth and 3 adults that packed into 3 vans for a week long mission trip adventure to Caldwell, Ohio with Lutheran Social Services from June 15th through June 20th. We stopped for dinner at the Pizza Hut in Cambridge, Ohio where we met up with the four youth and two adults from St. Paul Lutheran Church from Amherst, Ohio. We traveled to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Pleasant City, Ohio, which would be our home for the week.

The group was split into 4 teams in order to divide the work each day. There was Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Devotionals that different teams were responsible for each day on Monday through Thursday. The team preparing lunches for the day was sent to Safety Town on that day, as we provided volunteers to help out with Caldwell’s Safety Town of over 60 children each morning.

There were various worksites throughout the week. We helped an older couple scrape down and repaint their garage, shed, fuel tank and outbuilding along with trimming many bushes and shrubs in the yard and fixing the clothes line. Our group also painted a two-tone trailer home, helped with a Community Give-Away at a church in Cambridge, worked in a food pantry, and weeded for the Center Free Methodist Church outside Sarahsville and for an elderly gentlemen nearby the church. It was amazing to see how our group worked together and how both churches began one large team working for Christ to help others and to grow together.

The evenings were filled with cookouts at the lakes, showers (if you have ever been on a mission trip, you will understand the importance of these!), games, shopping at the Super K-Mart, walking to the Shake Shack for ice cream and sodas, and discussions on how God was working within us and among us. On Friday the adults led the whole group in a final Bible study and devotional time on the playground by Safety Town. From there, we drove to see Big Muskie, the bucket from an old excavator that helped mine much of the area, that our whole team fit into with much room to spare. It was on to the safari in Ohio at the Wilds, where we boarded open air safari busses and toured the 10,000 acres and saw many amazing creatures.

Thanks to all who prayed for the trip and especially for all the participants with their hard work, generous attitudes and willingness to learn more about Christ and how He works among us. Working, playing and sleeping together in such close confines for 24 hours a day for 5 days straight can try the hearts and minds of many people, yet they learned to deal with their frustrations constructively and help each other. There is no greater training ground than a week long mission trip, where God causes you to work together with others in close confines for the entire time and we even took away their cell phones and iPods!