Today’s blog from the Mission Trip Team comes from Avery Smith. Avery is a 9th grader on her very first mission trip. You can hear more from her, and the rest of the Mission Team, today in worship!

Going on this trip, I had literally no idea what to expect (this was mostly because my parents told me nothing about the trip). I was definitely pleasantly surprised. Getting to work with kids at a summer camp was so inspiring because I went into it expecting to “fix” them but they fixed me. There were some hard times, like when all three of the vans got towed, and being the most exhausted ever from playing Werewolf (mafia as a card game) until extremely late and then having to get up unnaturally early (7:00 am, I know, the devil’s hour*). There were also some more serious moments, like getting little snippets into the kids’ home lives, realizing that they really have it so much harder than we do and realizing that they are so many people that we see on the street or anywhere, maybe we wave to them, maybe we say hi, but that’s it, we have no idea what is happening with anyone… why a kid threatens another kid, why people leave their homes to seek refuge here, why people are so close minded that it sometimes makes you not want to get out of bed. Of course, the most memorable moments were the happy moments. Learning a kid’s favorite food, getting a hug from someone you’ve never even met, having a kid who had just promised that they “weren’t even tired” fall asleep on your shoulder and then proceeding to pass out with them because, let’s face it, kids are pretty exhausting. This sounds like a cliche even writing it, but it was a life changing moment. It’s inspired me to work harder to make connections, to learn about other people. I can’t wait until the next mission trip, and although I want to try a new way of serving as well, I would go back to Baltimore to hang out with those kids in a heart beat.

*going back and proof reading this, I don’t know if I should include a joke about the devil in a church blog post but it’s just gonna happen