This summer Pure Group lead the student ministry from Church of the Apostles in Coppell on a 3 day missional journey (aka mission trip). Our Goal was to reach people in the DFW metroplex: our own back yard. We helped build a youth building, fed and hung out with Refugees and served at a back-to-School outreach event, the trip was Awesome.
The first day was Thursday August 12. Everyone met at Church to load up the vans. We traveled to Oak Cliff to help build a Youth Facility for Spirit and Truth Church; It was a blast. Our jobs for the day were texturing and painting. Jordan and Freddy rocked the painting and did an amazing job. Together they finished the whole exterior of the building before lunch. As for the rest of us we got to work inside, (without the luxury of A/C) texturing the ceilings and the walls. It was great; texture and tape were flying everywhere. Amanda, Peter, Jackson, Kevin, and I were tearing it up. Halfway threw it got a little crazy when the building started having electrical issues and we had to take off half of the wall to fix it, and then put it back on. After a hard days work, we "dinned" at one of the best burger place in Dallas...Wingfieds. Their Burgers are bigger than persons face and definitely a highlight to the event.
Then we traveled to the West End Plaza where we "Bought Jesus a Big Mac". This was probably one of the best things we did on the whole trip.
We bought Big Macs and asked God to send us to someone who needed food, prayer, someone to talk to or even a friend. The responses were amazing, some wanted to talk, some wanted food and some only wanted prayer. It was a great finish to an already great day. God used us to help build a place for his children to worship, and then he showed us how we can worship on the street with strangers. Thursday was a great day.
Friday we all got to the Church early to make lunches. The plan for the day was to go to an East Dallas apartment populated with refugees from Angola, Burundi and the Congo. We spent all morning making lunches, packing crackers and chips, planning out games and songs, and throwing peanut butter and jelly at each other, I mean making PBJ sandwiches. After making about 300 lunches we packed the Van and headed out. When we arrived at the apartment complex we were accosted by a couple hundred kids. It was an amazing experience to feed and play with the kids. Their biggest want - attention, and they would do almost anything to get it from you, like take your hat, play with your hair (Lindsey and Amanda), climb on you, or just about anything they could think of to make you give them 2 sec of your time. We played soccer, climbed on trees, played tag, and just hung out for about 4 hours. It was a true God moment for all of use, to be able to share the love of Jesus with these kids.
After escaping a MOB, I am not joking the kids formed a mob, we headed back to Oak Cliff on a mission for Stone Soup. We took the students to Fiesta Market (an unknown place for most of our suburbanites), gave them $3.00 for each member of our team (the local average for dinners in the area we were working) and told them they had to provide a healthy, eatable dinner for the whole crew: that means plan, purchase, cook and clean up for it - all without adult supervision. The hardest part about the whole thing was getting teenagers to agree on what they wanted for dinner. But after 30 minutes of shopping they finally came to a conclusion - jambalaya. Next they had to go cook for everyone and they only had 1 hour to do it all. We learned a very valuable lesson that day, If Jacksons in the kitchen, NO one else is in the kitchen. When it was all done everything was great, there was just enough food to go around and it tasted pretty good to. God used us that day to spread his love to the refugees, and showed us how we don’t have to leave to country to help people in need. We also learned and felt what it might be like to live and eat like a low income family.
On the last day of our trip we were able to serve and be a part of a back-to-school event at Reconciliation Outreach in east Dallas. We took 3 inflatables and had a mini carnival. Once again we got to play with kids all day and share the Love of Jesus with them. The event was designed to give back to the community; we gave away lots of school supplies, and also provided free food. It was a great afternoon. We ended around 1pm in the 104 degree weather and called it quits.
The Ultimate Goal of the trip, and all mission trips, was to grow the Kingdom of God and I truly believe that in part, we accomplished that this summer. From praying with people on the street, to letting kids climb all over us, to working together to make a family meal, to running inflatable’s for an outreach. We did something this summer that was beyond ourselves, we served others, and shared the love of Jesus. This year’s AYM Mission trip was Awesome, and I truly believe we grew the Kingdom of God.
--Aaron Wilfong, Guest Blogger
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