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Elizabeth Leever
Mr. Racic’s 3rd period
9/28/11
The Tenth Grade Trip Essay
The Fayetteville Christian tenth grade class trip was a good experience for me, and helped the Welch community. Every-other year FCS students take a missions trip to help them experience fulfilling the great commission. This year the Tenth grade traveled to the Appalachian Mountains to help the community of Welch, West Virginia. The town had once been the most productive coal producer in the U.S. with 10 different mines until the EPA shut it down. Now 75 percent of the town is unemployed; because of this, most of the families only have one member (if any) with a job and all the homes and stores are very dilapidated plus the drug usage rates are very high. These, I believe, are some of the reasons why the leaders of Fayetteville Christian School chose this area. Once we arrived at “The School For Life” we had some free time, but the next day we were divided into groups, and that is when the real work began. Some fixed a roof, others laid a sidewalk for an elderly lady, and my group helped restore a church.
We spent three days in West Virginia, all were very fun, but exhausting. On the second day, Monday, we worked roughly between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break in between. My Group worked on a century old church that had been abandoned for 10 years and had extensive water damage. My first task was to move a junk pile from one end of the yard to the other so it was out of the way. That was very disgusting! After finishing that most of my day was spent mixing concrete, and fixing the cracked, gaping, washed away foundation, and stairway. The Next day we cleared out the bamboo and brush from around the church so the people below could see the church, and finished up our concrete mixes on the foundation. This all was very hard work, but the two things that made my experience complete was getting to go inside the church, and sharing the Love of God with a young man who came by to help.
The trip was mostly about serving others, but when we were not working or playing we were eating and singing. After meals we had class devotions in the cafeteria, which I found very uplifting, but I also found irony in it all. During the first nights devotion we sang the same songs we sang in Chile, where I had my first missions trip, and I almost started singing them in Spanish. It was then that I realized that the building itself smelled like the orphanage, and was painted in the same type of bright colors. All of these memories brought to mind God’s grace that he showed me then, and his faithfulness throughout my life. It was a surreal experience. Then in a next devotional I had a spiritual awakening with God, something I had been wanting for a long time, and it felt wonderful.
The trip was not only spiritually reviving, and tiring, but also fun. On the first day we had the whole afternoon off, which I spent playing ultimate Frisbee, walking/fighting on the railway, and playing in the game room. The next two days were even better because after we had worked we had about 5 hours of free time. The highlights of these times had to be when a big group of us gathered, not planned, in the cafeteria and starting sharing dance moves. Another time of joy was when Daniel, Rachel, Shivy, and I had the piano room to ourselves and sang almost like angles or danced to the music. I find it funny that I sweated more during free time than all day at work. The FCS Tenth grade trip was profitable to the community, and I am glad I went. Our staff saw and need and they used us to fill it while giving us good life experiences to use for God’s glory. Personally, the time was very refreshing, and fun. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time there, and are not going back in the future. I also enjoyed getting a chance to know more about the people I school with, and experience showing God’s love to an unloving community, for that I am thankful.