This year, we participated in our fifth year, as a church, in a local mission trip, called workcampNE. The main focus of these week-long trips is to serve those less fortunate. This involves doing home repair and cleanup with several other youth groups. (Head to workcampne.com for more info on this ministry, and if you want to take a group, just mention I sent you.) All the locations we serve are located in the northeastern US, specifically New England. This year, we served in the Brandon, Vermont, area and Hopkinton, New Hampshire, areas. Our high school students served in Brandon, and I ended up doing both weeks, due to being the evening speaker.
The main theme was based on the Old Testament Bible book of Nehemiah, and stressed that God wants to use us to rebuild. As I walked through this amazing book with the students during the evening worship times, I tried to pass on a bit of what God had been teaching me. We talked about how Nehemiah needed to match God’s heart, the Jerusalem people came together to serve, they had to overcome adversity and oppression, the people made a commitment to God, and Nehemiah provided accountability. I did my best to connect that with our lives today. I put a lot of time and effort into these messages, but what I did not plan was how God was going to show up in a big way and do something so much bigger than me and my plans!
Our 28 students had an amazing time during their trip. We had several make some big steps closer to God, and some are even starting to explore the idea of going to Bible college and work in full-time ministry. That is awesome enough, but something happened the second week that floored me. One of the home-owners (residents), who had stated she was dabbling around with Johovah’s Witness, ended up accepting Jesus and welcoming Christ into her life! She said the things that impacted her most were the students working on her home and the worship time in which she participated on Thursday night. This definitely was a huge highlight for the two workcampNE trips!
I thank God for wanting to use me this year at workcampNE, and I look forward to seeing what He continues to do through this ministry in the years to come!!
Steve Cullum 