Mission Trip To New Orleans

I was on my way to church with a few of my best friends, a typical Wednesday for me, at least, that’s what I thought. As I was laughing at a joke someone had made, my youth minister called. He asked if I would like to go on a mission trip to New Orleans this summer. Just like any other teenager, I jumped at the chance to go somewhere new, especially New Orleans. Therefore, I told my youth minister that I would love to go and to let me know the dates so I could take a week or so off work. I was so excited to go to New Orleans, but little did I know, I would have one of the greatest spiritual experiences of my life. “Mom, we have to go now! They’re probably waiting on us!” I shouted across the house as I grabbed my duffel bag from the counter and walked out the door. My mother looked at me and shook her head as she made her way outside. Since I was waiting to get into the car, I double-checked to make sure I had everything. As I waited impatiently, I realized that there was one thing that I forgot. I threw my bag onto the hood of the car and ran back into my room, sighing in relief as I found my customized Bible. I rushed back to the car, almost tripping over my own two feet, and then we were on our way. After what seemed a very long drive, but was really only ten-minutes, we finally made it to the church. I hastily made my way out of
the car and waved goodbye to my mother, who was waiting for me to give her the okay. I gave her a thumbs up and made my way to the porch of the church. When I opened the door, I was greeted by my youth minister and a few of my fellow church buddies and then we were off to the races, so to speak. Finally, we made to New Orleans. I was practically bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement as we pulled up to the housing residence. The house was beautiful. It was a decent size house that had about four floors, each room paired with a window. The house was painted an enticing sky blue color and had a very lovely wood porch. As I looked around, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one staring at it in awe. We were quickly ushered inside and shown our rooms. I was put in a room with one other person, whom I didn’t know very well. I had just finished putting up all my little knickknacks when we suddenly got called down for dinner. After we ate, everyone settled down in the living room and had a quick Bible study, and then were advised to go to bed, for we had an early start in the morning. The next day was eventful to say in the least. The first thing we did was make our way to the morning church service, where I was to help with the kids. At first, I wasn’t really looking forward to helping with some snot-nosed kids, because I wanted to sit and listen to the service, but after I spent some time with them, I realized that by doing this, I was still doing my duty as a Christian, and I was still learning things, just like these kids were. After church let out, we went and helped the people around the block tidy up their yards. We did this by picking up sticks and trash, raking leaves, and mowing. We even cleared out some of the abandoned lots, all while singing along to some catchy old church tunes. Finally, we went back to the house and ate lunch, which we had to eat fast, we still had tons of work to do! As we went back outside, we decided to split up into two groups. One would go and clean out the sewer grates and the others would go and finish up some of the empty lots. We did this for pretty much the whole week, except for the last day. The last day was when I had the best experience ever. On this day, we had a church service the whole time, right up until we had to leave. It was during this church service that I helped a few of the people, whom I now call friends, give their life over to the Lord. I was happy knowing that I helped them in the best way possible. It filled me with such an amazing feeling, I felt like I was on top of the world, and I couldn’t wait to get back home to tell my mother what had happened. Before I went on this trip, I was just a normal, everyday teen.
I was someone who stayed inside, was always on their phone, and always wanted to procrastinate on everything. Now, I’m someone who helped 3 people come to know the Lord. I also learned more than I ever thought I would about Christ and what he did for us. If someone were to tell me how close I would end up being to Christ and how much I would have loved this trip for that very reason, I probably would have laughed in their face. Like I mentioned above, little did I know that this trip to New Orleans would end up being one of the greatest experiences of my Christian
life.