I cannot
believe this week is almost over! The Family Mission Trip 2017 has flown by,
but you know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun! That has
certainly been true for our time together this week; we have
worked hard and played hard!
Wednesday, we
served at a local assisted living facility in Brunswick by having a car wash
for the residents. We loved meeting the residents and help them by cleaning their cars. Our students and families were rock stars
while washing the cars, paying attention to the smallest details so that they could to do their very best
for the residents. We left the work site and
spent the afternoon having lunch in the park and exploring Fort Frederica on St.
Simon’s. It is a gorgeous place filled with history. The kids loved dressing up
in colonial outfits and checking out all of the cool areas of the fort.
Thursday morning,
we had a special opportunity to tour the beautiful and historic Christ Church, and then we went to serve at Magnolia Manor, a nursing home we
have come to know and love over the past several years. We did arts and crafts,
painted nails, sang songs together, and visited with patients in their rooms.
There is something so powerful about seeing many generations of people sharing
with one another and loving one another. My favorite moment of the morning was
when one of the residents requested her favorite song, Jesus Loves Me, and
every single person, from the youngest to the oldest, belted it out with all
their hearts. After our time at Magnolia Manor, we spent the afternoon at Pier
Village enjoying the beach, climbing the 128 stairs of the light house, shopping, and playing on the playground.
Before heading back to Epworth for the night, we stopped for dinner at one of the top
rated BBQ restaurants in the south, Southern Soul BBQ, and it was delicious!
During our
big group times each evening, we continued with our theme for the week, Come to the Water.
Wednesday night, we focused on John 14:27 and Philippians 4:7. We talked about
how water can often be peaceful or give us moments of peace. We shared
with each other about times it can be hard to have peace or a peaceful moment
in our world. There is a lot of chaos and craziness. It seems like there are
more people that don’t get along than there are people that can get along with
each other. But Jesus tells us that even though the world isn’t peaceful, we
can still find peace in Jesus. He tells us that He is in charge of the whole
world, so we don’t have to be afraid. We know that even when life is hard or
difficult, Jesus is with us, so we can have peace.
We continued
discussing this Thursday night and recapped what we learned all week. We talked
about how just like water, God gives us life, cleanses us, and gives us peace.
Yet, there are also times that water is so powerful that it can be scary like
in a bad storm. During our big group time, we read the story of Jesus and his
disciples being caught in a bad storm while they were traveling by boat. We
were reminded that even in life when we feel scared or overwhelmed like the
disciples felt in the storm, Jesus is with us. Sometimes we are like the
disciples in the story we read and think that God is not paying attention to
the storm and we get scared, but this Bible story reminds us that that God is
with us, God won’t ever leave us, we can trust God, and God is more powerful
than the storm or hard time. We ended our last group time with special prayer
stations for each family to do together.
Everyone was
sad when our time was over for the night. We had such a fantastic week and I
have loved seeing how God has worked in our families in awesome ways this week!
I’m already looking forward to next year!
Here are a
few pictures of our awesome team from the past two days!
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