Leawood UMC Mission Trip 2019

We are safely home.  Our goal was to be packed up and heading out by 9am this morning and we left about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  We did get in a bit of hacky sack at our lunch stop - the day wouldn't be complete without some hacky sack. We arrived at church around 2pm.  I can't even find the appropriate words to tell you how much the people on this trip mean to me.  This was my 12th mission trip with LUMC and they just keep getting better.  (Thanks for "tricking" me into signing a lifetime contract, Steve Wickham!)  Each trip has some similarities but each is unique.  It is such an honor to spend time spreading the love of God to those we meet with this group.  Our devotion time brought us closer as a group.   The word for the week was flexible - if you have been reading along, you know our work schedule ending up being flexible.  We didn't always know what we were going to do but we took on any task put in front of us an...

Friday, July 5th...the last full day of our mission trip experience to Columbus, Nebraska We planned to get up early enough to drive nearly an hour to Fremont, NE to work on a project for a woman in hospice care. I was awakened by some early morning storms and rain (yes...I often am up at 5 a.m.). Barb came up and found me in the meditation room and shared that she had received word that the woman had died peacefully in the night. The contractor who was coordinating the repair effort said also because of the rain and not having all the supplies on hand yet, we shouldn't plan to come today. It was a sad moment for us all, but it did allow for some folks to sleep a little later. We began the process of assessing our options, contacting our local coordinators for alternatives. In the end, I talked Pastor Joe into letting us tear out the water damaged support framing under the stairs and landing. Connor, Kate, and I tore out the old and put in new supports with help from Barb. Now...

July 4           Today we said "Goodbye" to Peter.  After a nice breakfast Peter led us in a devotion focusing on humility. Our focus has been prayer, and several devotions have focused on adding more prayer to our day, continuous prayer, different types of prayer and understanding that prayer is a work in progress for everyone. Our discussion on humility led us back to our discussions about prayer.           We visited the Water Park followed by a stocking up of fireworks.  It's nearly 11:00 p.m. and we've had fireworks blasting all around us since dusk. We set off our own pyro show in the church parking lot while wearing glow-in-the-dark glasses compliments of Molly & Connor (thanks friends!!).  What a blessing to enjoy our church family, celebrate Independence & share time with Columbus First Methodist folks.  All fingers, toes & eyeballs intact. Peace Out, Pam          Tod...

DAY THREE The adventures continue for the Leawood United Methodist Mission team in Columbus, NE. We are continuing to serve neighbors and make friends every where we go. We have had many good conversations with the staff and members of the First United Methodist Church Outreach Center. We see them all over town! Whether it's at the local Dairy Queen or at the park to watch fireworks, we are waving at friends and neighbors all over town. You gotta love the small town community vibe! For service, we visited a mother and daughter who suffered serious damage to their mobile home. Karon, the mother, is known in the neighborhood as the one who is constantly reaching out and serving her neighbors. This residential area was right next to the Platte River and many, if not all, the homes in this area suffered damage. She was forced out of her home at 7am one March morning when they awoke to a neighbor knocking on their door declaring that "we need to leave now!...

We arrived back from fireworks 30 minutes ago and just finished devotions.  Tonight's blog will be posted in the morning. All are still among the living. Barbara

We thought we were going to Camp Honey today to paint.  Turns out it is Camp Pawnee - listening is, apparently, a learned skill and one we need to work on.  Jane was our contact person and it was wonderful to visit with her about her past experiences in law enforcement.  Sandy, our contact person with the church, joined us for devotions this evening.  Connor and Pam lead us in our study in prayer and then we shared our Best, Worst, and Weirdest.  There was a bit of laughter around the table - and a couple of puns. Besides the annoying flies, our day went pretty well. We painted the lower half of the interior walls of a blue building a nice "Love Junkie" red (that's the actual name of the paint, Cereal). It was actually wainscoating...no not that Wayne...  While the color was sometimes not well received, Kate did have  a confrontation with a not so happy board member, we are proud of our work (and how we handled the confrontation). Tomorrow we are off...

July 1, What a great day!  We were able to work inside the First United Methodist Outreach Center and help this wonderful group that has been so hospitable to us.  We removed wet drywall, painted our large basement hangout walls, started a Mural for the Youth Underground, assembled storage shelves and visited tomorrow's job site  We are blessed to have daily devotions as a group and are inspired by all the outreach this church is doing.  Today they had a blood drive upstairs and a community meeting in the evening.  The church members inspire us with their stories of service and grace. Food wise today we had some scrambled eggs, coffee cake, cereal, and some yogurt made for breakfast by Pam and Connor. Lunch we made our classic deli meat sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with some chips and some water. Finally, for dinner, we had some pulled pork and sweet BBQ sauce made by Anne Byrd and some salad and BBQ beans all prepared by Barb and Kate. Devo...