Newspaper Page Text
FAITH
Church summer mission trips: See the world while helping out
BY MELISSA WEINMAN AND HILARY BUTSCHEK
A trip can change a life, but a mission trip sometimes can
change a community.
Many local churches take mission trips in the summer. During
the trips, church members volunteer their time helping people in
another part of the country or world.
Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs sched
ules an annual mission trip to Zambia. Eight to 12 members of
the church, both high school students and adults, visit Zambia
each year.
“My first time going was in the summer of 2011, with my
wife,” Rev. Joe B. Martin IV said. “Our lives were changed by
that trip more than anything since becoming parents, from seeing
the poverty and seeing the community in Zambia where everyone
seems to put everyone else first.”
Schools, Martin said, are a cherished part of life for Zambian
children, one that not everyone has the privilege to take part in.
One of the most surprising sights Martin recalls was “seeing chil
dren that sit beneath the windows of the school to hear what the
teacher is saying.”
This year, the group will make the trip in mid-July for 2 1/2
weeks. They travel to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, to volunteer
to work in the schools.
“We visit the schools and play with kids,” said Barbara Hughes,
a member of the church who has visited Zambia 15 times. “We
usually spend two to three days with arts and crafts. When that’s
all over, they know that someone cares about them.”
Every visit is different. Taking a trip to see far away “neigh
bors,” as Martin called the Zambians, benefits both the visitors
and the visited. The importance of going on mission trips for the
congregation, Martin said, is to build mutually-beneficial rela
tionships.
Before Construction After Construction
Specializing in Construction, Renovation, Repair & Maintenance
• Patios/Pool Decks • Pools & Spas • Outdoor Kitchens • Arbors
• Brick & Stone • Chimneys/Fireplace • Decorative Concrete/Pavers
• Decks • Driveways • Efflorescence Cleaning • Grading & Drainage
• Historical Restorations • Masonry Maintenance Contracts
• Retaining Walls • Stone Patio Restoration & Sealing
• Stone/Tile Deck Waterproofing & Leak Repair
josh@southernoutdoorcd.com
404.478.9563
. - . - - Serving your community
www.southernoutdoorcd.com for 15 years
Afters
SPECIAL
A group from Dunwoody United Methodist Church has traveled to Brazil for a
mission trip each summer since 2001 to build a summer camp for children.
“Our congregation motto is ‘We are blessed to be a them than they get from us materially.”
blessing,”’ Martin said. “We receive from these people, A couple of years ago, the church
from their stories, a new spirit. We easily gain more from brought computers to the children in
Zambia. “Now our students are Skyp
ing with the students over there,”
Hughes said. The group watched the
first class of graduating Faith Works
high school students, 43 in all, dance
onto the stage to receive their diplo
mas.
Other churches also head to far
away places. Dunwoody United Meth
odist Church, for instance, has taken a
trip to Brazil each summer since 2001.
Dick Murphy, head of internation
al missions, said church members have
been working to build a summer camp
for impoverished children in a village
outside Rio de Janeiro. Murphy said
the day camp is a way to “get them out
of the hot city and into the mountains,
where it’s cooler, to enjoy nature and
get them away from the drugs and vio
lence of the favelas,” Murphy said, us
ing the Portugese term for slums.
Dunwoody United Methodist
Church has worked with a small Meth
odist congregation in the village of Sa
cra Familia during their trips. “It’s a
pretty rich history we have. We have
gotten very close to a lot of the com
munity people of Sacra Familia,” Mur
phy said.
Murphy said the church is lucky to
have been able to establish such a long
standing partnership in Brazil. “I think
it takes a special situation to create that
kind of longevity and connection,” he
said.
This year, 17 people will be travel to
Brazil from July 4 to July 15.
Murphy said the purpose of mission
trips is both faith- and volunteer-based.
“The purpose there is to go out and to
engage in other cultures and to share,
12 | MAY17—MAY30,2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net