Trip inspires dream of mission work
Like most teenagers, 15-year-old Alex Morene was excited about starting his second year of high school, but he was a bit more anxious than usual this year. Of course, he couldn’t wait to see all his friends and hang out with the girls, but ever since a trip to Jamaica this summer, he’s been anticipating his sophomore year with a new outlook.
“I’m going to talk to them about the Lord,” said Alex, who attends Northeast High School. “Last year, I didn’t think about other people’s lives or their salvation.”
Alex’s change of heart and increased interest in his friends’ spiritual state stems from a missions trip he took this summer with the youth group of Lebanon Baptist Ministries . The trip made such an impact that Alex feels led to become a full-time missionary.
Twenty youth and adults from the church traveled to Montego Bay, Jamaica, in August for a week of sharing the gospel. Lebanon has a partnership with a church in Jamaica, Hillview Baptist, and sends missionaries to the region every other year. “We have a great relationship with these people,” said youth pastor Rodney Wright. In anticipation of the trip, the high school-age youth spent the months before learning about the Jamaican culture and people and fundraising through car washes, spaghetti lunches and letters asking for donations.
“We make them sacrifice their time to pay for it,” Wright said.
The youth volunteered in a Jamaican orphanage, hosted a soccer camp for children and made repairs around the local church.
“Even though a lot of the adults had no shoes or shirts and lived on dirt floors, when asked what they needed, they answered that they’d just like for their kids to have more,” Wright said.
Hence the idea for the soccer camp. “It was like giving out new cars when we gave out new soccer balls,” Wright said. “We all learned to be more thankful for what we have and realized God is going to supply our every need, and we don’t really need a lot to be happy.”
This was a lesson reiterated for Brant Gordon, a freshman at Piedmont Baptist College. This was his second mission trip to Jamaica with Lebanon.
“God has given me so much, most importantly my salvation through Jesus Christ, and it is my privilege to share it with others,” said Gordon, who hopes to become a youth pastor. Gordon had several opportunities to share his faith.
“I was able to lead two Jamaican children to the Lord, as well as a lady in the airport in Jamaica and another lady in the airport in Atlanta,” he said. “God opened doors; it wasn’t me.”
Wright believes the trip not only changed the lives of the Jamaican people (nine made professions of faith), but he is excited to see how the experience changed the spiritual lives of teens such as Gordon and Alex.
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Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 7:29 pm under