Mission trip

One week from today, Third Son and I will be in North Carolina on a mission trip with some of the youth from our church. Eight of us (six kids and two adults) will all pile into a van and head for a week of service and of learning about all kinds of people, different from the people we spend most of our time with.

We'll be in a rural county, and some of us will be doing work projects such as helping with home repairs or cleaning up playgrounds, and some will spend our days helping at a day program for local kids. For our kids, raised in an environment where they can easily catch "affluenza," meeting the people we will be helping to serve will be eye-opening. But even more eye-opening will be our fellow Christians. Our kids, raised in a "main-line" church, have not met many people whose approach to Christianity is, shall we say, more evangelical than ours. Even in church, we're pretty low-key about our faith. We'll be a pretty small group mixed in with some large groups from other churches. Also, I'm pretty sure our general political persuasion will be a little (or a lot) to the left of most of the other people there (although I could be wrong about that.) So we're headed for a learning experience for all.

The other thing about this trip is that this is the first time we've gone without a minister from our church. At the end of the planned program everyday, we meet with "our kids" to debrief the day. I told the other leader who was going that I would lead those sessions, as he hates to do that kind of stuff. So if you're the kind of person who prays, pray that we'll all be open-minded (even me!) and pray that I will be able to respond as the kids need in our debrief times together....and if you're not the sort who prays, think kindly of us next week!