Reflection on Serving Others

Top right pic is Mandy's crew at Union Mission. Top left one is Joy playing on a game show at the host church. Third is the Trinity Crew!!!

Day 2 on this mission trip has been great! After breakfast and devotional a we split up into several groups and went to mission sites. Dave has Nate and Joy from our church and 7 other youth from Nashville TN with an adult leader. They served a facility called Covenant House in the morning and Mary Snow Westside Elementary School in the afternoon. Dave is going to blog about that tomorrow so stay tuned for his report!! (Very exciting!!) I took Ashlyn, JP and Bella in addition to 3 other youth from Nashville, TN with their adult leader to Union Mission. This place is amazing! It serves people from the entire state of West Virginia. Their main focus is feeding people but they really have a full service mission site. They have many locations in Charleston. Just to name a few things they do there: homeless shelter for men, shelter for woman, shelter for woman with children, rehabilitation for both men and women, food pantry, food distribution site (for the whole state), thrift store, pallet business, craft section from pallet area...and literally the list goes on and on. Everything is ran from donations only. There is no government help of any kind. This is incredible to me because this mission has been going on for over 100 years. When you walk into the main building you can feel God here. Every building we entered to work in...you feel and hear people talking about Jesus. The testimony that a 21 yr old male gave us brought me to tears at how God has delivered him from a life that no one should have. Please pray specifically for the volunteers at the Union Mission to keep up their strength and stamina, our youth for continued seeking of the Lord in this experience and for Dave and I that we may have the right words and actions to help guide our youth this week. Many Blessings, Mandy

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The Blog: Hello from the big ole city of Charleston!! We traveled approx 6 hours and it was a blast! I learned so much useless information in our amazing game of "Would you rather". Some of our youth would rather swim with sharks than swim with snakes. Some would rather walk 3 years with Jesus or 10 years with the apostle Paul. So my question for you is would you rather not sleep for a week or not eat for a month....and so on and so on until the whole book was read. The mission host church is Canaan UMC and this place is humongous! The congregation is only about 60 in attendance but you can feel God working here. We were greeted by some gentlemen that were very welcoming. Please pray for our mission team specifically in relationships with the other church groups and the city in which we are serving. Many Blessings Mandy

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
~Gandhi

6 Ways to Sunday:  Service
By Susie Riley

SERVICE: noun / serv·ice
1.  the action of helping or doing work for someone. 
synonyms:  favor, kindness, good turn, helping hand; More assistance, help, aid, offices, mnistrations
2.  an act of assistance.

Depending on the dictionary you are using the word "service" can be a noun or verb with up to 20 different uses. I believe the meaning above is best suited for my purposes.
  
As a young person just beginning to serve, it honestly was not always what I wanted to do. Coming from a family where doing community service was very important, I had little choice. For me my service to our church and in the community has been a discovery of myself. The act of doing for others has helped me evolve and grow in my faith. Through service I feel I have become a member of the community of Christ, not an individual who is out to save the world but a piece of a very large puzzle.

Jesus set the perfect example of how to love and serve those around Him. At baptism, we promise to serve others. We can serve others as Jesus did in many ways, helping family members, sharing the gospel with others, performing simple acts of kindness and giving of ourselves when it is not always easy.

Trinity United Methodist Church attracted me because of their commitment and spiritual connection to service. Jesus taught spiritual maturity is never an end in itself. The journey includes service to others. It is important to practice what we believe in order to avoid spiritual stagnation.

Through my service, I started to see aspects of my life, past and present, somewhat differently and with a much greater sense of understanding and gratitude. Trinity is blessed to have such a service oriented congregation and I feel grateful to be one small part of that!