Teen Mission Week

It's been a busy week.  My two teenagers have been gone, participating in Teen Mission.  Teen Mission is a local mission's trip.  Area churches band together with their youth and volunteers to help local residents with service projects.  They try to help elderly, handicapped, and other local groups with things such as painting, building decks or wheelchair ramps, landscaping, etc.  Every evening the churches band together to have a service.  The kids shower at the local high school and sleep at a different church.

My husband with Jasmine and Laura after the pool party

My girls love the week.  They make some awesome friends and are changed by serving others, by being the hands and feet of Christ daily for one week.  The evening services hold what they call "Yay God" confessions where the teens and leaders talk about what God did during the day.... Not what they did.   The evening services are also open to the public.  On Wednesday evening we had about a dozen Chinese exchange students from the local college arrive for service.  How exciting! 

Kim (center) practicing for worship

It's not all work and no play, however.  There was a swim night at the local pool. The teams head to the beach the final day.  And, for the comfort of parents, modest swimwear is a must.  Usually that means shorts and tshirt a over swimsuits. 

Laura, on the front page of the local newspaper, for a Teen Mission article

My husband was asked to play bass in a couple of the worship sets with Kim, my oldest daughter.  Kim and her husband, Caleb, are youth pastors at one of the churches that participates.  Our family got to see more intimately the heart of this mission by meeting many of the leaders.  We weren't disappointed.  These leaders have such a love for Christ, for these young people, and for the community.  It touched me greatly to know that the churches represented had many members praying for the teens involved in Teen Mission.  This crossed denominational barriers and left only room for Christ.  

Pictures from the week will follow in a separate post.  They are usually released after the work week is finished.