The summer after my junior year of college, I decided to participate in the summer missions program again like I had the previous summer when I went to Mississippi. NAMB (North American Mission Board) is the organization that helped sponsor my trip. This summer, I felt God calling me to something bigger and challenging me to go for it. I decided to sign up for a summer-long mission trip! I signed up for a few different places and Brunswick (which was my first choice) was the winner! I was so excited to spend my summer "at the beach" right next to St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island. The trip itself was more challenging than I ever expected, but it was also more amazing than I ever expected.
I moved down to the Golden Isles for the summer at the end of May. My mom and my brother accompanied me and that definitely eased my nerves. Although this trip was much different than my previous two, I really wasn't that nervous. I was so excited and ready for whatever the summer away from home brought. Of course I missed my family and friends, but Brunswick and my team soon became a comfort and a home for me.
Only half of the team was there for the first few weeks of training and we started off by going to missionary summer training in Toccoa Falls, GA. It was a long drive up to North Georgia (where I had just come from the week before), but we made it a fun drive filled with car games and good conversation. Our training went well and the time allowed us to get to know each other more as a team.
When we got back from the training, we visited Savannah for the day. I have always loved Savannah and really enjoyed getting to see the town. We needed to become more familiar with the city because we were going to be visiting it many times over the summer.
The rest of our team finally arrived (there were 6 of us in all) and it was time for the groups to start coming beginning in early June. Our purpose for this summer (I probably should have mentioned this earlier) was to have teams of churches come and visit each week and we would aid them in ministry. Each week over the summer, we would have new teams come in and we would each be assigned to a team. In the mornings, we would take our teams to different neighborhoods/apartment complexes around the community and host a VBS for the kids. We would break for lunch and resume ministry in the afternoon. During the afternoons, each team would do a different outreach activity around the area. One team would go to the nursing home and play bingo or sing for the elderly. One team would go to the St. Simons pier and make balloon animals, as well as, do face painting for the kids walking by. Another team would go and do beach ministry which included anything from playing beach games with the tourists to passing out water bottles to families on the beach. Each Sunday while our teams left for the week, we would go to local churches and share what our ministry was doing, as well as, introduce ourselves and our leader to the congregation.
Our job as the summer missionary helpers was to assist with anything and everything. We went everywhere with our team each week and really bonded with them. We helped and guided each activity and also participated in each ministry ourselves. We built great relationships with all the local kids we met during VBS each week. That was the benefit of us being there all summer; we were able to build long-lasting relationships. The schedule above is what a traditional week looked like for us, but there was so much more that happened "off-schedule".
We helped a local church who majorly lacked VBS volunteers one week and ended up helping run the VBS each night after a full day of ministry. Super tiring, but so fun! We hosted a summer revival for middle school and high school students where I got to share my testimony. I had never written my testimony before and this was the first time I had taken the time to capture my story on paper. I was beyond nervous, but so glad I had the opportunity to share my story with these young students. Our team helped out with World Changers, as well as, SuperWow on Jekyll Island. One week a church was short volunteers to take their youth group to Fuge camp, so myself and another team member spent the week with the youth group at camp which was awesome!
I had an amazing summer in Brunswick. I had a blast with my team and we became really close. It was hard to leave them when everything came to an end. We had so much fun together and I can say it was one of the most fun summers I've ever had. I am always the responsible one and the one who rarely lets loose, but that summer, I did! I was silly, goofy, and even loud and obnoxious. It was really good for me to let loose and have some fun for once while doing ministry, who knew?! I learned more than I could even write down from that summer and grew in my faith so much. I studied a lot of scripture and built friendships that I still have today. As I am writing this, my mind is filling up with so many memories from that summer. With every mission trip especially the long ones, there are always challenges and struggles, but they only made me stronger throughout the trip. (One of them being living in a house without air-conditioning during a scorching South Georgia summer...can you say melting?) Before we left for the summer, we got to go on a weekend trip to Disney World and that was the icing on the cake for me! It was a blast and a perfect end to a summer where I let God have control...and He turned it into something wonderful.
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