“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them…When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do, they have received their reward in full…But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” -Matthew 6:1-4

This week the EM staff and team from Fleming Island, Florida are learning about what it means to be humble as we serve together. This morning during team devotions, I stumbled across one of my favorite portions in Matthew. Chapter six talks about how we can keep our hearts in check as we serve people around us. Although I try to keep pure motivations when I’m serving, too often I focus on myself. It’s a strangely easy trap to get caught in during mission trips, a time when we are supposed to be focused on others.

Sometimes when I’m serving I think about how uncomfortable I am, or how tired I am. Even worse, I think about how my actions are making me look—Are others impressed by my efforts? Do they think I’m spiritual enough? Will people remember my name at the end of the week? Will I get credit for doing the little things? And when I start asking these selfish questions I have to remind myself, serving isn’t supposed to be about me.

The verse in Matthew 6:1-4 snapped me back into place this morning. As a servant, I must be humble. In fact, I shouldn’t even let my left hand know what my right hand is doing! Going on a mission trip or serving on a mission team is not about me.

Today I’ve made an intentional step toward humility. When I’m doing things merely to make myself look good, when I’m serving others so that I get a warm feeling inside—I stop. Because the truth about serving is, I should be invisible. When I step out of the spotlight, others can see God’s work more clearly.

Atlanta, GA

Heather D. Moline

July 2010

Stepping out of the Spotlight

Note: Experience Mission is sending our many more great trips to Atlanta and many more great communities throughout the summer of 2011 and are now posting trips for 2011! Check out our website for more information at www.experiencemission.org.

We’ve had two teams come and go, and saying good-bye has been difficult both times. Thinking about all of the different people we’ve met so far (not even half way through, mind you) astounds me. I think about “Mike the Pilot” from Texas, and his good-natured approach to life; I think about Cheryl from Nebraska, who is ever the optimist and a hard worker, who asked for nothing and gave everything she had. I think I’ve probably met some of the funniest people in the United States as they’ve come in through the Experience Mission trips. It makes me sad to think that I probably won’t see them again, but I’m joyful that they got to do so much for the Portland community while they were here.

This last week, the Nebraska/New Jersey group (lovingly dubbed ‘Nebrersey’) got to work with the Wayside Soup Kitchen, a brand new connection we made the week before. They learned the “ways of the warehouse” from Matt (a great guy who’s expecting a baby soon… baby names anyone?) and we helped grow food to be used in Wayside’s kitchen, a new venture being pioneered by Jake, a volunteer coordinator at the soup kitchen. Betty, the sweetest elderly lady you’ll ever meet, donated the garden where the food is being grown and she was extremely thankful for the teams to come in and give a boost to the project. She said “thank you” by giving us lemonade and muffins! We spent the morning on Monday building trellises and planting beans, hopefully growing a crop to feed lots of hungry patrons at the soup kitchen.

We continued our work with the Portland Housing Authority, trying to make the low-income housing a better place to live. We also returned to Preble Street’s food kitchen and made breakfast with Sean, who is working in the area as a Jesuit Volunteer. The kids missed the group from Texas a lot, especially Rondo, but they quickly grew to love the Nebrersey team. I don’t know if the teams can really realize it, but the relationships they’ve built with the kids here have really made a difference. Lives have been changed for the better, and they continue to be changed by lasting impressions made during the one-week tenures of the groups.

This week has been the EM Team’s week off! We needed it, and we’ve been utilizing it by seeing the sights, being lazy, and getting a -little- bit of work done on the side! We went to Portland Headlight, Peak’s Island, and a ton of other amazing places. We’re praying to be refreshed for the next four weeks of teams, and that we won’t become weary (of each other!) before our time is done here. Thank God for all the things he has done thus far, and thank God for all of the things he will do for Portland, Maine.

by: Chuck Zimmerman

July 2010

For more information about Experience Mission visit us on our website at www.ExperienceMission.org

You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LiveYourMission or become our fan on Facebook.

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.” -Romans 12:9-10

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church Group

Week one of work in Atlanta has officially begun. Throughout the week the large group from Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas has been running kid camps, digging trenches, and navigating the highways of south Atlanta with one goal—to build real relationships.

The students of Memorial Drive’s youth group are no strangers to hard work. Many of the students have served on mission trips both domestically and internationally, so the team came ready for a week of physically demanding work. Although they have tackled several tough, meaningful projects—painting and digging an irrigation trench at the Initiative for Affordable Housing’s newest worksite, most of their Atlanta projects have been an exercise in developing relationships.

Trevor, a summer intern at Memorial Drive, spent Monday morning playing Bingo and chatting with an elderly man at Hapeville Care Home. Although the conversation seemed difficult and forced at first, Trevor was persistent—he wanted to be a real friend to the wheelchair bound man with a fading memory. He succeeded.
One of the adult leaders, Mary, said that she was impacted by the kids at the Kroc Day Camp because of the way they responded to a Bible lesson. The kids seemed genuinely interested in the skit and story that the team presented—grasping pieces of truth from the simple Bible message. When the afternoon ended, the team was sent off with a round of hugs from the campers. Another success.

Despite the successes of the team, they admit that doing relational ministry is difficult because you don’t always get to see the results. In fact, sometimes it might feel like you’re failing. Unlike a building or painting project, you don’t always get to see the difference you’ve made in the life of another person. You might walk away from a kids’ camp or a nursing home wondering if you made a lasting impact. But one thing the EM staff and Memorial Drive team has learned this week is that building relationships is rewarding work. At the end of the day, loving people and reflecting Christ into their lives is what matters most.

Atlanta, GA

Heather D. Moline

June 2010

Note: Experience Mission is sending out many more great trips to Atlanta and many more great communities throughout the summer of 2011! Check out our website for more information at www.experiencemission.org.

Kids paying attention

It’s crazy to think we’ve only been in Portland for eight days.  We spent the first week doing a crazy amount of preparation for our first team, who came from San Antonio, TX.  They’re a great group of people, eager to jump in and help as much as possible.  Mary, one of the team leaders, loves dancing and singing with the kids, teaching them new songs, and getting the ‘tough guys’ to join in as well.  Callen, one of the guys, comes up with hilarious songs each day to teach the kids Bible verses.  Everyone is offering a little piece of something bigger and greater than themselves, giving the kids here a memorable experience.  As summer staff, Christine, Michelle, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group, and I have no problem telling them that to their faces.  On Monday, we went to the homeless ministry on Preble Street and we volunteered our time to cook breakfast for hundreds of homeless patrons.  We made great friends, initiated relationships, and made a stinkin’ good breakfast, if I do say so myself.  The work projects we’ve started this week include:  General maintenance in the Root Cellar (the non-profit we are working with), working with the Portland Housing Authority (painting low-income housing for the poor as a beautification project), and eventually we’ll be working with the elderly, helping them around their homes when they can no longer help themselves.

The staff at the Root Cellar has been great; the amount of food they’ve been trying to force-feed us has left us feeling extremely blessed.  We were shown around the kitchen by Peggy, assisted in work project planning by Becky, and told the best ways to work with the kids by Clark.  Cori Lyons, a former EM Staff Member, came to help us prep last week, and her experience was invaluable.  Without all of these people around us, well… let’s just say we’re glad we’ve had them along for this crazy ride so far.

Looking forward the rest of the week and the crazy songs that Callen, Oscar, Jeff, and I can come up with, we pray that God lets us be as effective as we can be.

Team Portland

June 2010

For more information about Experience Mission visit us on our website at www.ExperienceMission.org

You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LiveYourMission or become our fan on Facebook.

Beautiful Sunset

We’re here in Portland, Maine for our second day of preparation… and we’re already beat.  We were given the grand tour of the Root Cellar, a great non-profit organization that emphasizes community development in a Christ-centered way.  We’ve also been ‘hoofing’ it around the streets of Portland, getting familiar with our missions field.  A couple of things we’ve learned:  Brick sidewalks are sweet, seafood gets steadily more awesome the closer you are to the ocean, it can actually hail in sixty five degree weather, and this community is a thriving and changing place.  We’re excited to be working with the different populations in the area, ranging from Iraqis to Sudanese to Rwandan immigrants, all of them very unique, bringing something versatile and endearing to the community.

The shops in the area reflect the true ‘melting pot’ culture, and walking the streets is always a joy.  We’re also working with a church in the area;  it’s smack dab in the middle of all the shops and busyness, and it’s a quaint nod to churches of Portland antiquity while still remaining purposeful and relevant to the surrounding area.  It’s been great listening to Stuart and Keith, the caretakers of the church, tell us about how people in the community have provided things for the church as they’ve needed them, and how appreciative and amazed they are at how God provides.  It’s always fantastic seeing real, genuine Christians striving to make a difference in their given communities, and it gives me hope that we can really mesh and involve ourselves deeply to perpetuate lasting change while we’re here.

My prayer for the teams this summer is that, while they are part of just a week long short-term missions trip, they could really show this community a little piece of the kingdom of heaven.  I pray that as individuals, we will do good deeds selflessly, pointing in the direction of Christ as our inspiration for our actions.  Every relationship we build, no matter how short-lived, will have a lasting change if we build them in the mindset of one who follows Christ.

Our team (Michelle, Christine, and I) is very excited to be the conduit for a glorious exchange of love and energy in this community, and we anxiously await the arrival of our first team.  All of this to say… Hello, Portland.  Get ready.

By Chuck

June 2010

Experience Mission is offering Summer 2011 mission trips to Portland and other locations in the U.S. and abroad. Visit www.experiencemission.org or call  360-732-0986  for more information.

Christian Mission Trips: Team Pearlington reporting again from the heart of the south where our short term mission trip teams continue to take huge strides in the post-Katrina rebuilding effort. This week, First United Methodist Church of Dallas and Roseville Christian Church made significant progress on five different worksites, while making a lasting impression on the community.

The Bennett house continues to take shape before our eyes. Where only six weeks ago there was only interior framing, there is now beautiful hardwood flooring, an enormous front deck with a split staircase and porch cover, and exquisite interior tiling. However, perhaps the most stunning of all the work at the house so far is the brilliant orange and pink stripes that make up Miranda Bennett’s room. The Summer Staff is thrilled with the progress that has been made on this house, and we are pushing hard to finish it in our two remaining weeks in Pearlington.

The other “top-to-bottom” project that we have been working hard to finish this summer is Nick Narvaes’ house. This week, the team at this site put up siding, finished the deck and handrails, built a hip roof and nearly finished shingling. Nick’s vision is finally starting to come to life thanks to the hard work of this summer’s teams.

This week, we also had a youth mission trips team at Phillip Willis’ house, painting a shed, building porch covers, planting a row of shrubs and staining two decks. Mr. Willis works at Stennis Space Center, where he helps manufacture a variety of important parts for integral weather watching systems. He was deeply grateful for all of the love and support that the teams were providing for the community and for him.

This group also started working with Joe Vincent and his daughter, Jessica. The Vincents are a passionate family who haven’t let personal tragedy bring down their commendable character. The team that worked with the Vincents helped by completely demolishing the interior of Jessica’s home, which hadn’t been restored since the floodwaters nearly completely destroyed her home in 2005. The Vincents are excited about working with future teams because of the efforts poured forth this week.

Along with all of this, teams spent time all over town putting the finishing touches on several work projects that were started last week. From finishing a porch cover at Billy Raines’ house to painting at Joe Vince’s house to staining a deck for Tommy Joe and his mom, this group made a huge impact on the community of Pearlington this week. We were sad to see them leave, but we have faith that the final two weeks of work down here will be just as amazing and productive as this one.

With Love,

Team Pearlington

*Note: Check out Experience Mission’s website at mission trips for information about upcoming Summer 2010 mission trips.

Team Atlanta just finished our first week of mission trip teams! The week prior to this, Landon, Kat, and I had been inundated with information about the upcoming summer including, housing and food details, the different sites we would be working at, and the Salvation Army. We were overwhelmed with all of the things that we learned, but it was so important that we went over everything before the teams arrived. A short lecture about the Salvation Army really allowed us to see and be able to participate in their vision. For me personally, the only thing I really associated the Salvation Army with was the different thrift stores, disaster relief, and the people collecting money at Christmas time. I had no idea the extent of their mission.
 The Salvation Army first began in 1865 by a man named William Booth. It consists of churches all around the world, and each church is called a Corps. The Corps we are working with specifically this summer is called the Kroc Center. This is named after Mr. and Mrs. Kroc who are the owners of McDonalds. They donated a bunch of money to the Salvation Army, and this money goes towards building community center churches like the Kroc Center all over the United States! They view their church as the hands and feet extended toward the community opposed to it just being the actual congregation. They believe that before you can meet a person’s spiritual need, you have to meet their physical need. They would not be able to do many of the ministries that we’re participating in this summer without all the amazing church groups that come here to serve! We are so blessed this summer to be working alongside such an amazing group of people, who really are sold out to serving and honoring Jesus Christ.
 Our peaceful and well-planned Monday soon turned into a time to put into practice the many things our team has been learning. Three different churches from Indiana, Kansas, and Florida pulled into our beloved Kroc Center at varying times throughout the afternoon on Monday. We had to be flexible and switch a few things around, but God was still in control in spite of all of our mistakes. We welcomed our mission trip teams in with a delicious dinner of hamburgers followed by a short orientation. By the end of the day, we were all very thankful that the teams had arrived safely and excited about starting our week out.
 Throughout the week, our teams were able to be involved in six or seven different sites. The Florida team worked on a foreclosed home with Kat. The Kansas team was also able to do some work at Sol Luna apartment complex. The Indiana group was able do some painting at Capital View Apartments. The Kansas and Indiana teams were involved with two different day camps at the Kroc Center Corps and also at the Jonesboro Corps. The Florida and Kansas teams were able to weed and plant flowers at Hapeville Manor nursing home, as well as, visiting with the residents and Carlton. We also were able to run two different kid’s clubs. One of the kid’s clubs was located at Capital View apartments complex. The Florida and Kansas teams both had the chance to share their love with the kids there. The other kid’s club was located at Colony South, which is a predominantly Hispanic trailor park. The Indiana group had the opportunity to stay all week here and really invest in the children’s lives.
 The first day of a mission trip is always the most interesting because everyone is learning to be flexible and getting oriented with what it will be like for the rest of the week. Not only was it the first day for our teams at the sites, it was also Team Atlanta’s first day with the different kids clubs, outreach locations, and construction projects. It was difficult at first to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but by the end of the week, everyone had a hard time saying good-bye. God was really able to use our weaknesses to do His glory.

-Danielle
June 20, 2009

Note: Experience Mission is sending our many more great trips to Atlanta and many more great communities throughout the summer of 2009 and are now posting trips for 2010! Check out our website for more information at www.experiencemission.org.

Urban Mission Trip: This is week 3, but we do not have any mission trip teams this time around, so the three of us Experience Mission summer staffers have become relaxers/interns at the Root Cellar, probably more in that order than the other way around. One of the staff members of the Root Cellar has opened her house up to us and we have stayed with them this week. It has been very refreshing.

The weather is still very poor here. It is frustrating considering this is now July! God is good though, and I have faith that it will be great weather next week for the next team.

Some bad news, on Tuesday night Cori and Laurie went out on the town while Jeff selfishly watched a baseball game at the house. While they were out Cori’s purse/handbag was stolen from her hands. A guy just ran up and took it. The bag had Cori’s phones and the EM money we had for this week. It was very unfortunate. Multiple people reminded us that it was stuff and not people being hurt, so everything would be ok. We owe a lot to the great people God has put in our lives here in Portland.

Today, we received a phone call, and Cori’s personal phone was found at a restaurant. We went and got it. I don’t know if God has more stuff for us to find, but that was a good boost for the team.

Thank God for relaxing time, thank you everyone for your prayers and we hope we can count on them in the future.

For more information about Experience Mission visit us on our website at www.ExperienceMission.org 

You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LiveYourMission or become our fan on Facebook.

Short term Mission Trips: Week two is well under way, and I am in the Root Cellar writing this as the newest youth mission trip team walks by the window, completely covered in mud. I do not know why they are currently caked in mud, but they all look happy.

We on the Portland team have been extremely thankful for last’s week group. They taught us a lot and we became a part of their group.

This week’s group is different, and we can only be thankful for the new opportunity. This mission trip team is from Connecticut, and there are 12 adults chaperoning 25 high school kids, which is quite the transition for us from a group of thirteen total people.

This group has been around the block before, there resume is impressive as this same group of kids and adults have done a mission trip every summer for years, including trips to Louisiana and Kentucky, but this trip is a little different for them. Usually they have one common goal, and that was usually centered on a building project. Here in Portland, we have really tried to stress to them the importance of the kids and the relationships here. The work done here is important, but is second fiddle to the Root Cellar and the people in the community.

This group has adjusted well; this is a different type of stress for them. It has been good to see these guys tired after hours of piggyback rides. They are used to being exhausted by physical labor, rather than screaming (delightful) children.

I am very thankful for their flexibility. Please pray for good weather tomorrow, as the entire group, 40 of us and hopefully 40 plus kids, will head to the beach for beach day. It will be a good time to connect and hangout with the kids.

Please pray that the Kid’s Club develops relationships and that this group can see the fruit of their newfound “labor.”

*Interesting in participating in a short term mission trip? Check out our website at www.ExperienceMission.org for upcoming Summer 2010 mission trips.

Rural West Virginia: At the beginning of last week, we traveled to a community in West Virginia that had recently suffered a flood.  There we found out about a woman named Edna whose house had survived the flood but sustained a lot of damage.  She is a mom who works and goes to school.  We decided to take on the project and help her rebuild her house during our upcoming mission trips.  In the process of this, we met her mother, Dot.  Dot was always there during the day helping the team while Edna worked.  I had the opportunity to take a break from helping at the Timothy Jones house and painting the Lions Club caboose to visit the site one day.  While I was there I talked with Dot for just a moment.  She is such an awesome lady!  So many of the students on the trip saw Jesus in her every day.  I told her how they shared their “Joy, Junk and Jesus” moments from their day every night.  They said that whenever they needed something she was right there ready to help out.  When I told Dot why they saw Jesus in her she smiled and told me what a blessing our presence there had been.  She said that FEMA had called the day before and offered Edna a trailer but she was able to turn it down because she had “some wonderful missionaries sent to rebuild my house.”  It is amazing to see how a group of kids from Atlanta came to Gary, West Virignia and were able to help Edna and how she in turn was able to give the FEMA trailer to someone else who needed it more than she did.  We are looking forward to meeting more and more people like Dot and Edna as the summer moves along and we execute more mission trips.
-Crystal, Trip Coordinator, Gary, West Virginia 09

Note: Experience Mission works in rural locations like West Virginia, but they also work in urban locations and international communities. Check out all of the places we’re serving this year and the new communities we will be in next summer as well; all at www.experiencemission.org.