Jeremiah Project 2022

And so it began, at 7.30 on a warm Sunday morning in July. The first Mt Pisgah Youth Mission trip in a few years. The car was ready, my bags were packed, all that was needed now was for our 3 intrepid students to turn up, and of course, they did.

We spent a week based in Romney, West Virginia, where we were hosted by the Jeremiah Project, who have been serving the area for many years. While we may have been the smallest group at camp that week, we made our presence known as we were split up across different work teams for the week for the various home repair/construction work we would be doing. High Schoolers were at the same site each work day, Middle School work crews rotated through different sites each day, and through the week we built and/or repaired decks and ramps, entry steps, painted, silver sealed roofs, replaced skirts on trailers and much more.

Wrapped around the actual work was a program of worship, conversation, devotional time, games and of course food! (I can neither confirm nor deny the amount of ice cream consumed that week…) Mission trips have to me one core purpose – to make the link between what we read/learn in the Bible and at church and the way we live our lives. It’s very easy to see James 2:14-26 and the link between faith and deeds come alive when what you talk about one evening is put into action the following morning.

God was clearly at work throughout the week, amongst the small but faithful community of Mount Carmel UMC, in the words spoken in the student-led lunchtime devotions, the conversations in the dorms (“I’m going to read my Bible” was an actual quote one evening), the worship and more. I know all of us came back at least slightly different people.

Thank you to everyone who supported us in any way – prayerfully, donating (thankfully not needed) COVID-19 test kits, financially or in any other way. There is so much more to share than can be done in a few words here. If you’d like to hear more please join us on the evening of Sunday September 25^th when we’ll share some of our favorite stories from this year and also look forward to next year’s trip!

We joined the (very small) congregation of Mt Carmel UMC for worship on the way to Romney.

Replacing a deck of course means taking the old one apart first…

It wasn’t all hard work!

Most mornings were dry enough to gather outside for morning devotions before heading to the work site. After time together we also had 15 minutes or so quiet time to ourselves spread out around camp.

While we go to bless others, so often they bless us in return, and it would have been rude not to eat the last piece of peach cobbler!