Newport Day 3 (Revisited)

As chance would have it, we had all three bloggers from last night in the same place at the same time this morning with a chance to rewrite their blogs, so they did! Here are their stories, enjoy!

With my first mission trip being at Oklahoma, and my most recent one being at Minneapolis, I know what makes a mission trip easy or challenging. So far, I had spent the last two days at a local farm. I have seen many things ranging from horses eating all of our lunches to watching Hal (farmer and a good example of my Godfather in 20 years) shoot a possum at point blank range seven times right in front of me. This is by far my favorite work site so far in my mission trips. I did things outside of painting a house or pouring mulch on a local playground. I had to be pushed outside of my comfort zone with challenges like clearing out a rodent and spider infested scrap pile, and sorting out and rewrapping barbed wire.

Throughout the week, I have heard heart-warming stories of little toddlers and senior citizens in assisted living. I for one have no such story, we went to a farm all day and had fun, but I never really saw what life was like outside of my worksite. I was focused on trying to get projects done that couldn’t even be close to finished after two days. I haven’t experienced a fluffy heart warming story that I’ll tell to all my family members when I tell them about the trip. I have had a great time so far, and I have come to realize that mission trips are more than sweet stories, sometimes they consist of laughing with friends and pushing your limits. –Jacob Stebbe

Today, we went to a man named Hal, and he owned a farm. He had a plethora of jobs for us to do from weedwacking to sorting stuff behind a barn. Even though I got poison ivy working along the fence, Hal seemed incredibly grateful for the  things we did for him and his wife. Hal was a very wise and nice man who helped addicts with their problems. His patients would either come to his house for counseling or he would go to them. Both days we worked for him he gave us lemonade at lunch and told us stories of his life with a lesson behind them. Today, though, he gave us more than jobs to do. He gave us his food because his horses had toppled our cooler, spilling the lunches everywhere, leaving only the Cheezits bags intact. While it hasn’t felt like a real godly trip yet, every last bit of hard labor we’ve done has been worth it. -Matt Nieland

On the first day my group Wicked, had to separate since the thrift shop only need a few volunteers. So half of us went to Feed my Sheep; a food pantry/soup kitchen/church. The soup kitchen reminded me a lot of the restaurants. At first I and a girl from another church up north, Jackie both organized the food pantry. We got to know each other pretty well! After that I was moved to the soup kitchen and I was able to serve people their food and drinks. I felt like a waiter.

So as I continued my job I meant a man who really opened my eyes. This man volunteer once a week.  He told me how we would go and travel around the States and world to do missionary work for a couple weeks or even for a couple months. He told me he went to Romania to Ireland to Arizona. I was amazed by how active he was at his hometown but also all around the world. He showed me that I can still do mission work, no matter where I am; at my hometown or even a whole different state. -Emily Buckler