Over the summer, I did something I never thought I would do. I went on a mission trip with a group of troubled teens from Troubled Teen Search, a Christian boarding school. These struggling students came from different backgrounds and places like California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. When I first heard that I was going to get to go on the trip, I was really excited. I was mostly excited because I was going to get to go to L.A. and Mexico, and I was going to be away from the academy for ten days. But I didn’t know that it was going to be a life changing experience that I would remember for the rest of my life. ZES helps troubled teens ages 13-18. For free information please call today!
My excitement faded a little bit when they told us what we would be doing on the trip. I still really wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure about some of the things we were going to be doing. They told us we were going to L.A. for five days to prepare us for Mexico. They made it sound like we were going to be sitting in a bible class for five days straight, but it wasn’t like that at all. There was a little bit of that but it was nothing like what I expected it to be. There were a lot of really cool people that I got to meet there, and it was an opportunity for me to get to know God a little more.
While we were there we got to go on an outreach. We basically went to a park and started telling people about God. I’m not much of an outgoing person, and it was kind of hard for me to talk to people about God, but after a while I opened up a little bit and it ended up being a lot of fun. There were a lot of little kids, who were there, and we ended up hanging out with them, and we even did a puppet show for them. I never thought I would see myself at a park telling people about God, but it was really cool and I would do it over again.
On the fifth day when it was time to leave for Mexico, I really didn’t want to leave. It felt like I just got there and it was time to go already. There were a lot of really cool friends that I met there that I probably would never see again. We were all kind of sad to leave, and I thought that there was no way that the second part of the trip could be any better than the first. We were going to Mexico in the middle of the summer to build a house in 100-degre heat. How could that be any fun? I just wanted to stay in L.A. for the rest of the summer.
It did take a lot of work to build the house, and it was really hot there, but I was so glad that I got to do it. We built a house for this for this family who had nothing, but they were still satisfied with what little they had. It helped me to realize that I don’t need to be complaining over little things, and it helped me to be more grateful for everything that I have. It was also really cool seeing how a house was built, and when we were done we all had a good feeling of accomplishment. The whole trip ended up being really awesome, and it couldn’t have gone any better than it did. Hopefully next summer I will get the opportunity to go on another mission trip.
