Will a mission trip enrich my child’s life forever?

A mission trip enriched my child’s life forever when my son, Luke, was eleven years old, and I took him to Jamaica. While attending a class at my church, I felt God calling me to take a mission trip. I decided to take Luke with me on the journey.

Luke and I discussed it because I wanted him to have a say in the things we were doing in our lives. He was excited and wanted to go.

We needed to write letters so we can raise the cash we need for the trip.

I told him that we would need to raise $2,000 by October that year if we wanted to go. We started by mailing letters to our friends and family, asking for them to support us on our journey. We also wrote a letter to our church, asking them for support.

Luke helped me write the letters and signed each one individually, just as I did. We went to buy stamps together, and he put stamps on the envelopes and mailed them. I encouraged Luke to open the mail every day because he was anxious to see if any responses were coming in. Checks started rolling in.

As I always told him in the past, I explained to Luke if God calls you to do something, He will provide you with the means to do it. Luke 11:9 says, “So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Luke could see this happening firsthand. I was so excited to share this faith experience with him.

Every day we would get the mail and open it together. One day when I pulled the mail out of the mailbox, I handed it to Luke and told him to open it.

We receive $500 toward our mission trip funds.

Luke opened a letter and said that we got a $500 check for our trip! I had to pull the car over and look. Indeed, it was a check for $500 from a couple in our church class, and that astounded me.

I told Luke that we had the $2,000 needed for our trip with the church’s support. I think Luke learned a valuable lesson because of that experience. If I hadn’t let him help with the letters and open the mail over the last several months, he would not have gotten to experience God’s blessings and generosity. This mission trip was already enriching my child’s life forever, and it hasn’t even begun yet.

An illness may prevent my son and me from going on the mission trip.

When October finally came, it was time to go on the mission trip. Two days before we were supposed to leave, I started feeling sick. When the day came, and we had to drive to the Baltimore airport, I had the flu. Luke wasn’t feeling the greatest either, but he only had cold symptoms.

We made it to the hotel without incident. We had an early morning flight the next day and figured that we had worked so hard to go on this trip; it would be a huge disappointment if we didn’t go. I had to trust God that we would both be okay and that God would heal us.

When morning came, I felt a lot better, and Luke seemed fine. When we arrived in Jamaica, the trip organizer was waiting at the airport to take us to the hotel where Luke and I shared a room for the week.

Day one of our mission trip was a bust.

After telling the trip organizer that we didn’t feel well, he suggested that we stay at the hotel the next day instead of going out to work with the rest of the volunteers. He wanted to make sure that we were better.

Day two of our mission trip was to the Jamaican School for the Deaf.

The following day we went to the Jamaican School for the Deaf to help them paint the facility. I taught a Bible class to the children at the school. Luke hugged the kids and laughed; I hadn’t seen him that relaxed in a long time. It was amazing! God was showing me His glory through the eyes of my son. This mission trip was further enriching my child’s life.

That night we attended a worship service back at the hotel. I felt so blessed to be a part of it all. Luke was shy around many of the volunteers who were with us at the hotel, but he wasn’t shy with the kids that we witnessed the gospel to during the day.

It was a battle to get Luke to dinner and worship every evening.

I had a hard time getting Luke out of the room to go to dinner and worship service because he was so shy. After a lot of coercing, he went. We sat with a group of people from the northeastern part of the United States.

Luke became good friends with an older lady named Ruth. She took a liking to Luke and got him to open up to her. It was wonderful! She must’ve been an angel God sent to open Luke’s eyes.

On day three of our mission trip, we got to meet our sponsor child.

The next day we went to meet our sponsor child, Mya. We gave her coloring books, crayons, paper, and chalk; she shared everything we presented her with other children in the classroom. These kids had much less than most kids, but they were so generous with each other.

Later that night, Luke told me he wanted to go home, sell his Xbox, and give them money. I knew how much Luke treasured his Xbox, so I knew that God made some real progress in Luke’s heart; this was the most enriching part of the mission trip. This forever changed my child’s life because he realized material possessions do not compare to people.

Before this trip, Luke and I had a strained relationship. We were now bonding again in ways I could’ve never imagined, and I felt so blessed!

I loved every minute I got to spend with my son and our sponsor child, Mya, to who I had been sending money for over two years. It was a real blessing to meet her in person.

My son is picky when it comes to food.

Since Luke was a very picky eater and was not eating much, we went to dinner at a restaurant. We were very excited about that. I got a sandwich and water, and Luke got french fries and a milkshake since this restaurant was famous for its milkshakes.

The owner of the hotel was an angel sent by God.

Every night when the owner of the hotel saw Luke, she would walk over and hug him. She was an older lady. She always asked Luke how his day went. Luke was shy with her and only answered with a word or two. He was very stiff when she hugged him. Luke amazed me by smiling, hugging her back, and talking freely with her by the end of the week. She had touched his heart.

He spoke of her often when we got home. She was such a blessing to both Luke and me that week. I will never forget her for her caring nature and how she shared it with us to make sure my son felt loved.

We spent day four of our mission trip at an orphanage.    

The next day we went to the orphanage. We had a Bible school class with the older children. Tom, one of the volunteers on the trip, taught Luke how to use his expensive camera. Luke took pictures of all the children. He was smiling from ear to ear, and I could tell how proud he was.

Luke felt so loved; I could see it all over his face. He loved each of the kids and would get down on his knees to help them color or complete one of the many crafts they chose to make. After Bible school, we ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with water for lunch.

That afternoon we went into the nursery where the younger children and babies were. We picked one kid up, and two more hung on our legs, trying to get us to pick them up too because they wanted human contact. There were only a few employees and so many children.

Luke sat down on the floor and had at least two kids on his lap and two more hanging on his back. We spent the afternoon reading stories to them. It was not something either one of us would soon forget.

After storytime, we went to visit the babies who were asleep in their cribs. We took turns holding a few of them. When it was time to leave, both Luke and I were crying. It was so heartbreaking that these children didn’t have any parents.

On our final day of the mission trip, we got to relax at the beach.

 On the last day of the mission trip, we went shopping. We ate at a restaurant and spent the afternoon on the beach. Luke went out on the trampoline in the water with Ruth and her granddaughter. He had so much fun, and he got a dark tan.

I stayed on the beach and took lots of pictures of Luke out in the water with his new friends. Since he was usually shy, it was a joy to see him laughing and smiling so much.

We head back to Pennsylvania the next morning.

When we came home, Luke kept telling my husband (Luke’s step-dad), Mike, stories about everything he saw in Jamaica.

Will a mission trip enrich my child’s life forever?

Yes. I saw this when Luke asked Mike if he could sell his Xbox and send the money to the people he met in Jamaica. It’s amazing what a difference this trip had made in him.

Luke hugged both Mike and me every day and told us he loved us. He was as different as night and day, especially compared to how distant and shy he was before the trip. He was a lot more outgoing and not quite so afraid to talk to people.

Have you ever taken your child on a mission trip? How has it enriched your child’s life forever?