Youth Missions
Commitment Date for all Summer Mission Trips is March 15
Souper Bowl of Caring Update
Thank you Kirkwood for helping us raise over $300 and more than 55 non-perishable food items, which will be donated to Echo! What a great success to help fight hunger!
Sr. High Summer Mission Project
This year we are headed out, And not too far away! June 21 through 27 we will be in Philadelphia working with the people at Broad Street Ministry. They are an emerging church community who, emphasize hospitable outreach, passionate civic involvement, courageous discipleship, and creative expression in their many ministries. We will be working on a variety of projects through out the week. Click here for more information about their ministry!
Jr. High Summer Mission Project
Those Jr. Highers are at it again!!! They are volunteering a part of their summer to Mission work in Virginia. We are spending August 2 through 8 with the folks (and other Jr. Highers) at Jeremiah Project, who specializes in Jr. High work mission trips. Here’s a look at what the youth will be doing:
The youth and adults who participate in the project spend the week performing home repair tasks such as porch construction, house painting, wheelchair ramp construction, yard work, and other jobs. A strong emphasis is also placed on interacting with the persons for whom we work. This is designed to help us see that all people have many types of needs, including the visible, physical needs. Families are referred to us by agencies or individuals, and the family
requests the type of work needed - this way we meet their needs as they see them. ~Jeremiah Project
Want a closer look?Click here!
2009 SH Mission Trip By:Erin
Broad-Minded:
Another Mission Trip in the
Life of the Church, with your youth working hard. Except this was not
just any other mission trip. A mere three hours away we traveled to
Philadelphia to the district of the Arts on Broad Street to a Ministry
for the homeless and unwanted people who are our neighbors. We spent
our week with the Underdogs of our society; we talked, played and served
God not for these discarded people but with them.
Through our small work groups
we worked or engaged in relational ministry. In the Urban gardens and
a special program called Work to Ride, where children from Philly have
to earn time and lessons on horses by making good grades and working
in the stable, some of us weeded, stirred compost, raked path-ways,
weeded some more, used a compost toilet and harvested fresh produce
for donations to the hungry and to supplement the poor diets of those
living in the surrounding areas.
Others worked in Food services
like Philabundance or Manna working to prepare meals for hungry, or
those with acute or life-threatening illnesses to provide nourishment
for those in need. While some of the students “worked the line”
to package frozen prepared meals and slopped “slug” (Mushroom and
Barely Soup) into pre-measured containers others scooped froze pasta
into bags that had to be weighed to precisely 2 lb bags.
While we worked many days we
also were encouraged to sit and talk with the homeless and connect them.
Which we did! Yes all of us sat and shared a meal with someone who is
homeless, hungry, or an addict. Through organizations like my Brother’s
House, New Jerusalem now, and Broad Street Ministries No Barriers dinner
and Breaking Bread now we engaged our neighbors in conversation and
shared our lives and our love with them.
Art also played a large role
in our week at Broad Street. In the City of Murals we were never lacking
paintings, mosaics and music. Some of us worked in Broad Street ministry
to create wall are in the church. Our talented kids even provided extra
musical entertainment for a meal.
Pat and Gino’s and Rita’s
Italian water ice were the stops for our free-time, but you won’t
hear the kids mention that when the talk about the trip. You’ll hear
how these rejected neighbors of ours have changed their lives, how they
think and treat these underdogs of our culture. While we worshiped,
served, talked, and listened we saw and were Christ for the least of
these. The friends we made on the trip will not soon be forgotten like
Crosby who said we were “a nice group that was accepting
and fun to hang around.” You have blessed us so richly that we cannot
begin to thank you all for the grand mission experience we shared at
Broad Street Ministry, where we became part of their mission to be “Broad-Minded.”
Here’s what Brian, one of our youth, said about our Trip: While we were at BSM we were not encouraged to just give food or money to the homeless, we were encouraged to talk with them and let them know that they weren’t unloved or forgotten. We came into their lives and showed them that someone cared for them and loved them, not by showering them with money and food, but with conversation and kindness.
2009 JH Mission Trip By:Claire
Jeremiah Project, Winchester VA, 2009
By Claire
Jeremiah was better this year than the other years. I missed working for familiar families in Romney and knowing most of the staff. I even missed the great big cabin’s we had, with our own little pod that we didn’t have to share. But there are a few things I will not miss from the 2 trips to Romney that the camp in Winchester does have. Amazing things like AIR CONDITIONING, and awesome food! Kirkwood sent 7 people to the Jeremiah Project this year. My Dad, Erin Bowman, Helen, Briana, and I were all at Winchester for the final week. Natalie was in Winchester as a young adult staffer the week before we came, and my sister Caitlin was a staffer in Romney, WV (without air conditioning/amazing food).
The arrival was a little scary, what with the screaming staffers that were really excited to see us, and the junior staff boy wearing a grass skirt. We were the first church there. Helen, Briana, Erin and I shared a cabin with girls from Brandermill United Methodist Church. Helen and I knew these girls from our trip to Romney last year so we got along very well. The work teams we got were all awesome! This year’s theme was SpongeBob! Our team names had to include: a character from SpongeBob, a tool and (because of the new Transformers movie) end in “bot,” “tron,” or “gon.” My team was The Larry Chainsaw Bots. Helen’s was The Squidward Screwdriver Bots, Briana’s was The Pineapple Nail Bots and Erin’s was The Plankton Saw Bots.
The next day we were off to work. As we discovered in previous years, it’s not just doing the work that makes the family happy, it’s the interaction. When Natalie was in Winchester a week before, she had to carry a refrigerator into a home. The four kids and two adults were having a lot of trouble lifting it and getting it in. Luckily two men appeared and helped them. But before anyone could turn around and thank them they were gone. It was decided that they were angels.
My sister Caitlin was a site leader at the Romney, West Virginia JP Camp. This camp was called “Big Week”, as it was only for big churches (25+) and big projects. Caitlin said it lived up to its billing. Caitlin’s site was so big she had 2 crews and another site leader with her. It was a challenge with all of those kids swinging hammers, post-hole diggers, and other weapons. They built a lot of big, long wheel chair ramps, one for a person who had not been outside their home for years!!
Helen’s work team got to work across the street from one of my job sites with my Dad as site leader. They were building a fence. Helen and her team had to find a way to stretch the metal fence tight between the posts. They ended up using a garden hoe and a lot of pulling. Helen dug some post holes (a JP favorite activity). The lady they were working for was so happy to have her new fence which her small dogs could run around the whole yard in. The family they were helping was so nice that they gave them a lot of extra food for lunch.
This was Briana’s first mission trip, and first trip to Jeremiah. She did great, in spite of finding herself between Helen and I (Hoops and Yo-Yo) (“…this is better than reality TV”), and really had a lot of fun with her work team. Briana’s team got a lot of painting jobs at JP. She painted inside and outside, and climbed on a lot of ladders and roofs. It seemed that each time my or Helen’s team came to a site to scrape and prime, Briana’s team came the next day to put on the final coat of paint. This included climbing up on a roof and painting over the edge.
Erin led the Plankton-Saw-Bots work team with another Youth Pastor from Burke Methodist Church. Carl Perez was quite a character, and really made things fun for Erin and the kids on his team. They got to work with my Dad as a site leader on day 4. They were given a tough job of lowering a porch roof about 2inches to allow the water to run-off better. My Dad had told Erin the night before that this was a good job for 4-5 adults, Erin wondered on the way to the site how it would get done with 5 Jr High Students. The JP Tool Coordinator was shocked when Erin and Carl’s team not only completed the job, but finished before lunch!
My first job in Winchester was scraping the wallpaper, paint and plaster off the ceiling and then repainting it. We eventually had to sand the plaster, which made dust go everywhere. We covered everything because the man we were working for had a beautiful mural on the wall painted by his father, with flowers, trees and a castle. He passed away last year at 101 years old! I love hearing their stories.
Free day was Wednesday and we did what we do best on free day…CANOEING!!! Helen and I didn’t fight this year, thanks to Briana’s counseling. We did however express our feelings by pushing each other off rocks. I felt better after that. Many pictures were taken and although we got wet (unlike last year) the pictures did not! We rowed through the Shenandoah River for seven miles. This year was an upgrade. The water was deeper, so we didn’t have to get out and push unless we crashed into something (Gosh Helen, STEER!). We even upgraded from hot rocks by the river to nice picnic tables for lunch! Our free day would not be complete without ice cream. Thanks to Helen’s Mom and Laura’s Mom (missed you this year!) for treating us. We stopped at Pack’s for ice cream. A Jeremiah at Winchester tradition, Pack’s is this amazing ice cream trailer. In some ways it was better than Romney’s Dairy Queen!
On Thursday night Helen, Briana and I made it to the quarter finals before losing in the JP water balloon volleyball tournament. There was something magical about that night as we celebrated our families whose homes we were working on. Some of them even stayed to worship with us. That same night, we dipped our fingers in red paint and put our mark on the wooden cross. Then we did communion. This was to show us that we should have been on that cross, and that Jesus died for us even though he didn’t know us.
All week we had a devotion and “quiet time with God” every morning before work, and we had a devotion everyday at the work site after lunch and then we worshipped in the evening. This year’s theme for worship was kingdoms. “Who’s Kingdom Are You Living In?” In other words, who are you putting your faith into? Are you really putting your faith into God or are you putting your faith into sports, music and arts, friendships and relationships, academics, or video games and computers? The bible verse of the week was Hebrews 12:28. “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and so let us offer God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.”
Thanks to all of Kirkwood for allowing us to go to Jeremiah again this year, Thanks to Erin for putting up with us in the cabin all week, thanks to my Dad for driving, and to the Hall’s for letting us use their van again!! To Briana and the rest of the Jr high for next year we hope you get to go back.
Jr. High’s
Sundays 3:30 to 4:30 pm
Led by: Michael Hock and Erin Bowman
Regularly assisted by: Eryn Rhoades
Fusion
Sundays 5:30 to 7 pm
Led by: Erin Bowman
Regularly assisted by: Tim Bowman & Michael Hock