AUGUST 2015
TIOGA COUNTY COMMUNITY PRESS
PAGE 8
Local Teens Return from Mission Trip By Norma Paisley
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While most teens are enjoying their summer vacations going away with family and visiting parks and other entertaining venues, the teens from Warren Center Baptist Church in Warren Center, Pennsylvania, were on a mission, a mission trip that is. The industrious group of eight girls, seven boys, aged thirteen to eighteen, and five adults headed to Union Beach, New Jersey, to spend the week of August 5th through the 11th helping victims of Hurricane Sandy. That’s right, nearly three years after the super storm there is still devastation, and many families are still displaced and unable to return to or remain in their homes. The reasons vary but most have to do with the homes now showing distress from the flooding that wasn’t apparent in the months after the storm. Many simply can’t afford to fix the damage; others can’t afford to move out in spite of the damage but are being forced out due to code violations. More than helping to demolish, clean up, repair or rebuild, this group wanted to share Christ’s love with those who might feel forgotten or hopeless. The teens held various fundraisers to earn the money to go on the trip and joined with TEAMeffort® Mission Trips, an organization that has many mission sites throughout the US.
The group stayed with St. John’s United Methodist Church in Hazlet, New Jersey, about two miles form the worksites. A local organization, Gateway Church of Christ, works with the local population and provided the tools and materials needed for the worksites. The teens did everything from busting concrete, and loading and disposing of the rubble, to cutting trees and overgrown brush, to cleaning gutters. Within days the teens had transformed what had been an overgrown, debris-strewn property back into a clean, neat lot with a mown lawn. The teens, wanting to do something as a special surprise for the homeowner, set about digging and building a flowerbed around a tree in the yard using their own funds. The homeowner shared her surprise and heartfelt appreciation as she told the teens that her husband had planted that very tree years ago. Her husband died just before Sandy came and destroyed her home. The work was demanding, hot, and tiring but the spirit of the group was undaunted as they joyfully headed to the worksite each day. The average amount saved by homeowners due to mission groups performing physical labor on the worksites is $30,000 per site.
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