We went on a mission trip to Arizona with the youth group a few weeks back. Ten days, 52 hours roundtrip (50 hours of which were probably on I-40), highs in the 90s-100s, and a lot of bonding time. At first, I was dreading the 50 hours of travel because I hate being in the car, but the hours actually passed fairly quickly thanks to games, books, and hilarious kids. The trip was perfectly timed-- about a month after we moved here-- because it allowed us to get to know the kids much more quickly. Think the jumping-right-in approach versus slowly-freezing-as-you-walk-into-the-pool.
On the way into Arizona, we stopped at the Grand Canyon. Mind-blowing.
After sight-seeing, we headed a few hours south (I think) into Arizona to an Apache reservation. We spent the week clearing out the yard of a woman in the church. It was full of dead grass, a mountain of trash (literally) and was not at all child-proof for her three kids.
(This is the after. Picture 3ft. high grass and a mountain of trash, and that's your before.)
We also helped with a bus ministry that traveled through various neighborhoods, picked up kids and took them to a playground for a quick lesson, snacks, games and toys.
The snack of choosing: Kool-Aid mix and pickles. By far the most sour, bitter, makes-me-wanna-throw-up snack I've ever tasted. And the local kids ate it like it was no big deal. I'll never understand.
It was a great ten days. Deric and I were both thankful to have an opportunity to get to know most of the high schoolers pretty quickly and see them out of their comfort zone and working hard to share Christ. The trip, like most mission trips, renewed my thankfulness for the life I have and reminded me to reach out to others in any way I can.
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