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My youth group at church did a thing called the Boise Missions Trip (aka iBoise) this past week. From monday through friday, my youth group did a super awesome and fun thing. Though it may sound not-so-fun, it was, so don't bother to comment about that part.
We were planning this big community event at Julia Davis Park here in Boise, where there would be food, cotton candy, snow cones, face painting, balloon animals, astro jumps, the big blow-up things, popcorn, drinks, door prizes, a live band from our church, and a movie (Princess Bride).
The whole idea was, we would always go to different locations all over the world, sharing the Gospel (the Bible) and God to people. And we always have such amazing experiences and fun. But this year, our senior high youth group (9th-12th grade) felt called to reach our own community, our own city. Though it wasn't to share the Gospel, it was to reach the city of Boise through prayer and service, to show God's love to people who would normally never ever go to a church. So that's just what we did! Monday to wednesday, our youth group (whoever was able to come) spent the nights at our church. During the days, we would split up into partners, and go door-to-door ALL across Boise distributing flyers explaining and showing detail to the awesome event we were hosting friday. At first, it was just the normal houses that we would see daily. But later on, we were going to aparments, to trailer homes, to the neighborhoods that we would never usually see. It really had an impact on me. Seeing how people here in our own city still have such hard times, and how thankful it made me to have what I do.
So my friend and I were partners doing apartment buildings. There were some times when it just freaked us out, because we didn't know if we were even allowed to hand flyers out to each door or not. But we went through 3 apartment buildings and a few houses before our youth pastor picked us up and dropped us off somewhere else to distribute more flyers. We had such a fun time doing it too! We walked 10-15 miles each day, just doing that, but we didn't care, because we knew it was God's will, and knew it would be worth it in the end. When my other friend and I were partners, he and I were going through trailer parks. Most of it was fine, but several times, dogs would find our existence purposeless. One time we were walking by one, just about to put it on the door when a HUGE dog came charging and barking at us (the kind of dog you know could just eat you as a snack). But as soon as it got to us, it stopped, licked us, and trotted back to its home. Every time that happened, we would say a quick prayer (very quick prayer), and as soon as we thought we were going to be eaten, something would suddenly change the animals' motives directed on us to its opposite. (One of those "thank you God" moments).
Wednesday, after doing the flyers, we went to Tablerock (a cliff that overlooks the whole city of Boise). We had a few worship songs, a prayer and a talk about what people think of the week thus far. But it was so funny, because we left Tablerock, only to find that the gate was closed, so we were stuck on the cliff! Other people were there too, trying to break the lock, or just figure a way to unlock it, but it just wouldn't budge. So, we called the guy to come and unlock it so we could get down out of the foothills, lol. Obviously, he was a little ticked off. So our youth pastor called his friend, who was a friend of the gate-guy, so the gate-guy wasn't as mad and ticked at us. So that was good. That wednesday night, the group stayed the night at one of the students' home. It was so fun, and their house was HUGE!
Thursday, we actually went to Lucky Peak and water skiied, jet skiied, rode waverunners, went tubing, boating, etc. It was AWESOME!! I almost got thrown off the waverunners (THEY KICKED BUTT!!). I got thrown off the dock by my friend, but I got him back, so that was great! And we all got sunburns, lol! That night, we got to have six free rooms at the Hayatt Suites (a hotel) and they pushed the pool hours back to midnight. (youth pastor was friends with the owner-guy). We ate wherever we wanted, and for the rest of the night, we just hung out. My friend went to the pool, so I just met her there. I still had my swimming suit on underneath my jeans and shirt, but I didn't expect to go swimming again. So I just took a nap by the side of the pool while my friends played. All of the sudden one of them threw a wet towel at my face! So I screamed out of shock and tried to hit him with it, but went back to my lounge chair. A second later, he threw it at me again! That was it, I had had it! I was soaked by this time, and just wanted revenge. I almost hit him with it, but missed. All of the sudden my bro and my other bud grabbed my arms and dragged me toward the pool! It took them 2 minutes to get me in, but since it was two guys, I figured that was pretty good to last that long. So finally they threw me in the pool, and I just chased after the one who threw the towels. I got out, they splashed me half to death, but I was able to get the towel-thrower back with a quick jump off the side of the pool and a flip of the towel, I landed on his leg, and jumped out again. Victory was mine! Right as they were all about to gang up on me, a hotel guy came in and said we had to leave because it was midnight, so I got lucky!
Friday was our big day. Everyone was so excited! We ended up distributing 20,000 flyers to homes (not including the church members) by then, and we just ready to see what God had in store for us. Though it started at 6pm, people were already there at 3:30 and 4 o'clock! But we got to our duties, set everything up, and started getting everything ready. Before it all started, we had a huge prayer time, in which we would walk around the park, praying to God about practically everything that came to mind, even the silly stuff, but knowing God wanted to hear it all. We had the park bandshell from 6-9pm, so we would play some music, and then play the movie around 7. So we started bbqing and everything. I was with two other peeps doing the cotton candy. By 7pm, there were hundreds (literally hundreds) of people there! That lifted our spirits a lot! For a few hours, we did our "jobs". But there was a problem. Because of the lighting, we couldn't do the movie (the projector was in the bandshell) until at least sundown because of the big sun-spot over the screen. That was bad, because it wouldn't get dark enough until 9 or 9:30pm! After that, the sprinklers would come on, the lights would turn off, and the whole place would be shut down. We promised the people there that we would do the movie, so we had to do something! The leadership talked and talked, trying to figure something out. Praying their guts out, when the maintenance guy and the park-master guy walked up. My youth pastor walked up to them, explaining the situation. The park-master guy answered with, "You can have the park as long as you need it." That was a HUGE answered prayer, and after that, the maintenance guy answered, "Yeah. You can have the bandshell and lights and sprinklers all controlled to any time frame you want. The sprinklers won't turn on, and the lights will remain lit." That was just simply amazing! They just don't do things like that! Now God is really showing off, I thought. At the end, we estimated 3,000 hotdogs were served (and not everyone got one), meaning, over 3,000 people showed up to this event!! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?! We ran out of practically everything by the end of the night, expecing only around 700 peeps to come.
So many things happened during this Missions trip that there was no way I could describe them all. But to put it short, God really had a handle on everything, He had a plan for us, and we gratefully and happily obeyed, only to get a HUGE reward in the end (spiritually, physically: from all of the walking, and emotionally) with so many people being able to feel at least a fraction of God's love through such a fun event! And I just couldn't love more the unifying of our youth group through it all, and how close we all got with God's Word (Bible), with His love, and with each other. I just couldn't hold in this God-Experience. Thanks for reading!
 Short_stuff_dude · Wed Jun 20, 2007 @ 09:46pm · 0 Comments |
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