Minutes by Minute

Well the previous week has been amazing, as I shared in the other blog I posted today. I've never worked with a more loving team and host church on a mission trip. This evening I sit in the Kingston TGI Fridays with Brian Zeschke, a friend of mine and one of our assistant trip leaders. Tomorrow Brian and I will embark on our final mission trip of the summer. We're bringing three small teams together to form the group for our mission trip to the Old Harbor Bay Baptist Church. Old Harbor is east of Kingston about 20 miles and is a heavy fishing town. The church building where we'll be staying is newer (built in the 1980's) and has a great sleeping arrangement. We've got 8 people from Lester Park UMC in Duluth, 4 from Mercy Seat Lutheran in Minneapolis and two college students (friends of Josh Ruiter) from Iowa coming together this week. The team will focus on a VBS at the Old Harbor Bay Baptist Church and work on painting and doing light fix-ups on three homes ...

The past week has been memorable. I told my staff yesterday that our trip with St. Andrew's Anglican Church serving with the Staceyville circuit of Baptist churches was everything a mission trip should be. The church was a youth group from Arkansas with four adult leaders. They're an extremely evangelical and charismatic group of Christians who were sold on our vision and purpose from the very beginning of the week. In order to give the proper description, i'd say they have the tradition and structure of the catholic church (everything the catholic church does right) while also having the vision and purpose of a protestant evangelical church. The group leader, Mike Cavallo, is one of the best youth pastors i've ever met. His students follow him and look to him as a leader who leads by example and has a great heart for God. Talking with Tito and Cassie, my staff for the week, we decided that this was one of the biggest differences between this and other mission trips we...

It's been a challenging week in Montego Bay, Jamaica. This week I worked with the Westgate Hills Baptist Church and two different groups. One was a Presbyterian Church from Georgia and one was a non-denominational church from Connecticut. The two groups didn't unite during the week. One was young and eccentric, the other group was mature and reserved. Things just didn't come together the way I pictured they could. The week had a lot of potential and our teams just didn't seem to connect with eachother or the local community in the ways I expected them to. The host pastor, Reverend Dr. Heckford Sharpe, seemed offended by the fact that our teams didn't have money to contribute towards the construction work at the church. There seemed to be little effort from Reverend Sharpe to create genuine relationships in order to establish a long term partnership between his church and our groups. On the flip side, a number of good things came out of the week. One of our te...

It’s the night of Thursday, July 16th. I’ve just finished leading my second largest mission trip, a team of 47 people from Mississippi, Illinois, and Maryland; three churches who came together for a week of ministry in the communities of Orange, Chatham, and Somerton Jamaica. The week went surprisingly well. I was nervous going into it because of complicated plans the fact that three different teams were coming together for the ministry during the week. It was a mountain that I was preparing to climb and something I was anxious for, but also tentative. All three teams had a great week. They all did VBS’s (at three different churches) and we worked on a construction project at the Bethtephil Baptist Church in Chatham. The project was pouring a cement floor for the new addition of a handful of classrooms. Our team worked with a church member named Mr. Thorpe during the week, who was a great guy. Josh Ruiter headed up the construction groups and did a phenomenal job in his...

It was about 9:30 PM on Friday, July 10th, 2009 when I got a phone call that nearly changed my life forever. I was leading a Praying Pelican Mission trip and about to go into my orientation meeting. We had three groups coming together for the week and the plans came together in the last days. The week was looking great and I was ready for our meeting. My fiancé, Emily, called and was clearly shaken up. I remember the words, “They took everything, they took it all, it’s all gone.” She frantically explained that she and three of our other staff members were robbed at gunpoint outside of our apartment in Montego Bay. As the four of them arrived back at our apartment after a staff meal and meeting, three men approached them from the other side of the road. They all had hanker chiefs over their mouths . They began asking for a few things and our staff didn’t think much of it, because this was not uncommon in Jamaica. The strange thing was that they were nearby our apartment. After our staf...

Emotionally there's been a lot of ups and downs this week. Tonight I sit in our staff lodging room at the Sandy Bay Primary School and reflect on what God has done. I sit in the dark as the teen guys from Browncroft Community Church serenade the ladies with love songs. The current song is Edwin McCain's "I'll Be". Leading a team of 67 people sure has been a challenge, but it has been an experience i'll never forget. Nelson Jenkins is one of the most passionate youth pastor's i've ever met- I tried to recruit him to come work for PPM. He has the heart of someone who simply loves people, but especially youth- and has a desire to see them grow. I got feedback from Nelson today about their trip. He said they'd return, but only go on an international mission trip every three years. He also said he wished there was a bit more service work the team could have done for a couple of the days. It was a task trying to keep everyone busy and really jus...

Well it's Thursday morning, July 2nd. It's the dawn of my biggest challenge as a leader yet. I await Browncroft Community Church from Rochester, NY. The team consists of 67 students and adults, 43 females and 24 males. They arrive today at 1:27 pm. The simple goal for today is to get the team in safely and get them settled into our temporary lodging site, the church of Fletcher's Grove. We'll only stay at the church for one night. On Friday afternoon we'll move all of our stuff over to the Sandy Bay Primary School, right down the road from the church. That will be our lodging facility for the week. We will be ministering at two different churches in two different communities. There's another church up the hill in Montpelier where we'll help with construction and do some sports outreach with young people. At the Fletcher's Grove Baptist Church we'll also help with construction. There's a third construction job at the Sandy Bay Primary School that ...