Also, pretty sure I went to the place featured in this photo.
~
Hello!
I am back from the Bahamas, with darker skin and lighter
hair to boot! So sorry I haven’t gotten this out sooner, but I got a slight
cold when I returned to the States – not the best welcome! Neither was the snow
we got after being in tropical weather for a week!
I had such an amazing time, and this mission trip was
definitely a life changing experience. I was so blessed to be able to be a part
of an amazing team. We had a blast loving on the kids, playing with them, and
building up relationships with them throughout the week. We got a lot of work
done on the camp, and helped to prepare Camp Bahamas for the camp season.
There’s still work to be done there, but we got an impressive load accomplished
in the amount of time we had.
God spoke into my life this week so beautifully, in ways I
never imagined. I feel like He has picked me through and organized me. I feel
clean and fresh, and ready to do whatever work He has set up for me in the
future, near and far.
I feel like one thing God taught me on this trip had to do
with heart attitude; how your heart attitude is more important than the end
result, and that you can’t judge the end result based off of how you feel about
it. I do that – base results off of how
I feel about them. I base the state of God’s and mine’s relationship over how I
feel, maybe at the end of a prayer, or how close I feel to Him. Or how much I
feel like I impacted the kids, or how much good I feel like I did. It’s not
about that – it’s about your goal, and your purpose. If your purpose and goal
is to bring God glory, and to follow the path He has set out for you, then you
won’t fail, no matter if you feel like you do.
Some of the work we did this week included:
> Chopping down/hauling a small forest (I did more
clearing than machete-ing, unfortunately)
> Water sealing a small forest’s worth of wood, including
two docks, a ginormous set of stairs, and four or five cabin’s decks
> Organizing the three kitchen pantries and cleaning said
kitchen and dining haul
>Raking a field of dried grass
And other assorted odd jobs.
We would complete our morning and early afternoon work, and
then head over to the park for VBS. The first day we walked around the
surrounding neighborhood to spread the word that we were having VBS, but for
the most part for the rest of the week, as soon as we stepped out of the vans,
kids were either greeting us, handing us something, or physically attaching
themselves to us. They were smart and playful, and gave out as much love to us
as we did to them. After VBS we would head back to the camp for an hour of free
time, during which we usually jumped into the ocean, and then head over to
supper. The food was always so good, especially after being out in the hot sun all
day! After supper we would have a debrief of the day and plan out tomorrow, and
then would prepare the supplies accordingly for the next day’s VBS.
I made some amazing friends and wonderful memories on this
trip, and I hope my team and I conveyed God’s love to all of the kids as He
would have had us do. Thank you so, so much for sponsoring me so that I could
go and have this experience and opportunity! May God bless you!
~
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