Mission trips can open eyes, soften hearts, empower service, change lives and draw people closer to Christ – something area churches embrace.

New Friendship Baptist Church of Auburn took 23 people consisting mostly of its youth group to Thomazeau, Haiti, for nine days in June to help build a church and share the gospel to boys through a basketball camp. Nearly 50 boys ages 10 to 15 years old participated in the camp, which included stations with instruction on passing, dribbling, shooting and defense. As a part of the station rotation, boys heard the gospel shared by New Friendship Associate Pastor Tony Chaudoin and youth intern Daniel Beaty.

“It was awesome because the whole community came out and watched it and a local person came up and set up concessions. We didn’t even know they were going to do it,” Chaudoin said. 

The idea for the basketball camp was born through a fundraiser event, Hoops for Haiti, which took place in March to raise money for the youth group’s mission trips. The Haiti trip costs about $1,400 per person and requires a year of advance planning, Chaudoin said. He remembers during the fundraiser thinking that they needed to do something like this in Haiti. The church has been partnering with a church in Haiti for more than two years and that’s among the reasons why New Friendship decided to take the trip to Haiti.

“Christ commanded us to go and share. We partner together as churches and we work together,” Chaudoin said. 

New Friendship is planning on going back to Haiti next summer and to Ecuador in December.  It also took a trip to Memphis, Tenn., for a street reach vacation Bible school event. Also, it is currently working on two homes in Auburn.

Teens busy over the summer

Broadway United Methodist Church has been very busy with its youth over the summer, taking 42 junior high students to Chattanooga, Tenn., to work with children, clean hiking trails and go to a nursing home to interact with patients. Forty-five of the senior high students went to McDowell County in West Virginia to help with home repairs. 

“A lot of times they get to meet a lot of people with different cultures and backgrounds so that they get to see that people live differently outside of Bowling Green,” said Christy Allen, Broadway associate minister to students. “The whole purpose of the trips are to be focused on others. We’re going to see what God is doing and to see how we can be a part of it.”

Both trips cost about $300 for the students to attend, but the church also did an intergenerational trip, taking 20 people between the ages of 14 to 70 to Honduras, which cost $1,400 per person. Broadway has missionaries from the church who live in Honduras and members of the church go every year and do whatever work needs to be done, Allen said. 

The missionaries have a compound where they house about 45 orphaned or abandoned children that live on campus full time. They have a school for those children and others who can’t afford it.

“In the morning we worked on a new building for the school, built a barn for the cattle and we brought with us school supplies, clothes and other things and spent time doing crafts, games and other things with the children and heard their stories,” Allen said. “I think it’s important for us to realize we’re a part of a global community and God is working with everyone around the world. It’s important for us to see different things so that we have a better understanding of struggles we all face.”

Providing clean water

The Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green has been involved in Living Waters for the World – a Christian ministry that provides sustainable clean water in 25 countries. Over the years, the church has installed six water systems in third-world countries, mostly in Guatemala, with an installment in the Cayo District of Belize this spring.

Kelly Goad is the water team leader and deacon at The Presbyterian Church, and he lead the project to install the water system in Belize. He said it took three trips to Belize to make sure everything was set up and prepared for the installation of the water system, such as surveying the area, making sure there is a water source, determining what water system to use and preparing the people to construct a building where the water system would go.

This last trip, five people went to install the system, with Goad being the team leader. Each person was responsible for paying their own airfare, which cost up to $800, and the project’s overall cost is between $10,000 and $15,000, Goad said.

Goad said the team is required to check on the water system every year for three years. The estimated total cost of a mission team’s participation over a three-year span is about $24,500, which includes costs of training, system materials and travel expenses.

“The reason clean water is our global mission is because there are 680 million people who do not have clean water in this world and three million children die every year of water-borne diseases,” Goad said. “That’s why we want to do clean water. We want children to stay healthy, stay in school, get a good education and hopefully work themselves out of some of the poverty.”

The church has plans to do back to Belize in March or April to check on the water system and look into possibly installing another system nearby.

Members helped Navajos

Greenwood Park Church of Christ went to Tuba City, Ariz., and partnered with a church there to serve Navajos in different capacities. Greenwood Park Youth Minister Brian D’Herde said they started planning for the trip about eight months beforehand and did the majority of the planning five months out. He took 25 people, mostly teenagers, to Arizona for seven days.

D’Herde said he decided to take the youth to Arizona after running into missionaries at a conference. Since he’d taken a group at his former job to the area before, he knew the need existed.

“The overlying reason is because Tuba City and the majority of the Navajo reservation is almost like a third-world country there. It’s very poor with high unemployment rate and a lot of them live off the government,” D’Herde said. “There’s also a gap in the relationships between Native Americans and other (American) teens and families. It’s not a good relationship because of the past.”

The cost of the trip was budgeted around $700 per person including airfare. The church plans to take the youth out of the country next summer to Baja, Mexico, to do some work with a group called Baja Missions that supports new church congregations throughout Baja with each congregation being planted, built and supported by U.S. congregations.

Integrating faith and skills to change the world

A mission experience can forever change the lives of those who go and those who are served. Allen said during Broadway mission trips, they ask the students to reflect on what they learned so they can have a better understanding of what’s happened in the community or country they visit. 

“It’s a way for them to integrate their faith and own personal skills and gifts and learn how to care about other people,” Allen said.  “They can be a part of changing the world for the better and their own hearts and perspectives.”

— Follow faith/general assignments reporter Simone C. Payne on Twitter @_SimonePayne or visit bgdailynews.com.