June 18-25, 2008, 48 students and adult leaders from Hope journeyed to the beautiful island of Jamaica.  During this week we visited children at the Garland Hall orphanage and painted part of their building.  We provided respite for the house moms at Westhaven- a place for abandoned disabled children.  We painted the dormitory, put on a sports camp and visited with the boys at Copse Place of Safety, a home for troubled and abandoned boys.  We painted a rail car for use as a new medical facility at Riverside Church.  We painted and taught VBS at Copse Basic School- a primary school for kids in the neighborhood.  We helped prepare and clean up for meals as well as doing maintenance projects around YWAM- the youth for a mission campus at which we stayed.  And finally, we helped paint one house and build another at Jabode, a Habitat for Humanity-like building project site. 

 

This experience was amazing and eye opening.  The Jamaican people have an enormous passion to share the love of Christ with everyone they meet.  And despite some severely impoverished living and working conditions they also treat one another as extended family; coming together as community to provide meals and build homes for one another.  It makes you truly appreciate all that we have been blessed with.  Not just things of “extravagance”: the lake house, nice clothes to wear for work or school, a couple of cars in the garage, money to go see a movie, etc., but the things we truly take for granted: a pair of shoes, food to eat at all three meals, a roof over our heads.  These are the items that are coveted there.

 

It was a fulfilling and truly spirit-filled week for all of us.  In addition to the mission work, we had daily worship, large group sharing time and small group time as well as some fun at a local beach.

 

We want to thank each and every one of you for your financial support of this trip and of the student ministry program, for your donations, for your prayers and for your words of encouragement.  We would not have been able to do this without you.  A banquet to thank you is scheduled for September 13^th at 6:30pm at the South Campus (see more information in the Real Life section of this edition of MILK).  Please come to see some of the thousands of pictures we took and listen to some amazing stories of our mission trip to Jamaica.