Written by Joshua M Kastner
A mission team from Harding University traveled to New Albany, Ind., during spring break to lead a youth rally and to meet the needs of the Cherry Street Church of Christ.
Juniors Megan Youngblood and Joshua Corder led the mission trip. TheCherry Street Church of Christin New Albany said that they had a need, and so Youngblood and Corder decided to lead their team to the area.
The team consisted of 16 men and women who did not know each other beforehand, or anything about what the trip would entail. But they would find out soon enough.
When the team arrived at the church, the members were divided into groups. These groups were to stay at different homes of the church members at night and commute back to the church and other locations during the day.
“I really have no idea what we are going to do, but I know that we will be doing some good,” said team member Andrew Riley.
The first day the team met with its official leader for the week, one who would give them direction. His name is J.R. Satterfield, an elder at Cherry Street, and he handed out the daily assignments to the team.
The team got to work right away by visiting a nursing home and singing to the elderly. They also helped clean scrap metal out of the church’s garage, which helped raise $200 for the church.
In the next couple of days, the team did various tasks to better the community, such as moving furniture inside of an old school building and planting flowers in front of a home for underprivileged youth.
It wasn’t all work and physical tasks, however. The team had the opportunity to go to different schools and perform skits for the students, eat lunch with and have recess with them. Although this was a lot of fun for the team members it also did a lot of good to see those children happy to see a positive influence having fun with them.
The team continued to bond as the week went on, and they were no longer foreigners to each other.
“I never really knew what missions was all about, but then after spending a few days with strangers, I mean friends, I mean family, it’s impossible to not feel the love of Christ working in me now that it is,” said team member Chris Ngu.
The purpose of the mission trip was to run a youth rally for the church on Saturday. The team set everything up and had about 40 youth from the church and in the community attend.
The children played interactive games and enjoyed biblical skits that the team had set up.
“Any child that was shy at beginning was well out of his shell by the end of the rally,” Satterfield said.
The kids also participated in Bible classes, where they were given the chance to open up more spiritually and discuss the deeper issues with the team members.
“I really don’t want the week to end; we did a lot of good and grew so close to each other that I’m not ready to go back into the world of school and homework,” said team member Ashlee Lichtblau.
