Episode 20 - Youth on mission

Pastor Dan sits down with four of our youth who just got back from a mission trip to Pittsburgh to talk about sharing our faith, service, and how taking time apart can help us grow closer to Christ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Hey everybody, welcome to another Sermon Prep Podcast. I'm Pastor Dan Metzger at St. Mark's United Methodist Church here in Finlay, and today I have a room full of people for our podcast. We have four of our youth who just got back from a mission trip to Pittsburgh. And I'm going to let you all introduce yourselves.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I'm Asher and I'm in seventh grade.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

I'm Renee and I'm in 12th grade. I'm Amelia and I'm in eighth grade. I'm Rachel and I'm in eighth grade.

SPEAKER_04 0:46

Fantastic. I'm so glad you guys are here. You're gonna be able to make it through this without laughing. And okay, all right. We'll we'll give it a shot at least. So um you guys just got back from a mission trip. Where did you go and what did you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:00

So we went to Pittsburgh, and we were joined by another youth group from Michigan. And so we all stayed in one church together the whole week. And so the first day we just did some exploring. We went to a little um outdoor like mall shopping thing. It was really fun. And then the next day, um, our youth group went to a place called Red Door, which is a homeless ministry um right downtown. And so some people were passing out clothes, some people were like making lunches and passing those out as well, and just talking to the people, and then um some people were running the little coffee bar there too. So it was a really good chance to like talk and get to know a lot of the community there. And then later that day, what did we do later that day? Uh, did we go back to the church? Yeah, I think, yeah, we just went back to the church. We did a lot of work around the church, painted. Um, we fixed some of the like stairs and stuff, polished the pews, just a lot of like cleanup. And then another day we went to a food pantry. So we sorted a lot of food, um, got out the bad stuff, um, set it up. People came through and got what they needed, and then we also went through a lot of clothes that people can get for like interviews and like just like nicer clothes that are free. And then some of us also went to a warehouse called Light of Life, and we made um hygiene bags that um the community is gonna pass out at an event later this month. And yeah, and then we went to a cemetery and like abandoned cemetery, and we cleaned that up. We had we were there for a long time. It was very last minute, it wasn't our on our agenda, but our leader was like, Oh, by the way, there's a cemetery that needs completely redone. So we're like, oh, okay. So there's fallen trees everywhere, we are picking those up, there was poison high.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Because it's like on the church property, right? No, or they help care for it or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

It's like the church that we were staying at is like in charge of it, but it's like a ways away, so no one really has time to take care of it. So yeah, that was crazy. But yeah. Um, is there anything else that I'm missing, guys? Um, the diaper bank. Oh yeah. We went to um a diaper bank where we packaged I don't know, together probably around like 12. No. Yeah. I don't know how many diapers. My group alone packaged 10,000 diapers and a lot of period products and things like that. So those are also free for a lot of like mothers that are struggling to provide diapers and stuff because those are very expensive.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

So a lot of the work that you guys did was with people who were um maybe lower income or experiencing homelessness or something like that. So you had a lot of interactions with um with with people in in that kind of who were going through poverty and things like that. Is that right? Yes, yes. Yeah, all right. So I'm gonna ask each of you to tell me what was, and I don't care who goes first, but what was the most impactful part of the trip for you? Wants to go first.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I can go.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

So at the food pantry, half of the group had already left, and it was just me and half the youth, and we were giving out all this food, and this lady came up, and I think her name was Flow Lena, but she just had this like good energy to herself, and she started coming up to us asking about like what we're doing and stuff, and like how our youth has impacted the community, and she just started like basically preaching to us about how youth can change the world and how we can do like anything, and she was giving us these examples of like other uh youth our age that have like done great things in her community, and I just thought that was like really impactful to hear and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Very cool, cool. What's it go?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I can go. Um when we went to the Red Door Ministries, um it was nice just seeing how the community came together and helped and people who were going through a hard time and the people there were really nice just a fun time there. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

The Red Door Ministry sounded like it was really cool. Do you know what all Red Door like what what sort of things did they do at Red Door Ministries?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Um they had food pantries that we helped get food to people across the street. They had two buildings. They had one where they um were helping like cooking, cleaning. Women were allowed to go in there to the basement to hang out there for a little bit. And in the other place, anyone was allowed in there, and they had free coffee, coffee bar, all that stuff. That's great. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Um, so same thing at Red Door. Me and two other high schoolers, Lexi and Jilly, we worked the coffee bar. So I had never barista'd before. I was I don't drink coffee, so it was like all new to me. I was a little scared, but it was my very first customer. He came up and he just had the brightest smile on his face. Like he is experiencing homelessness, and I just cannot imagine how hard that is for someone. But he, his name is Tino, and he had the brightest smile and just the best attitude. And he came up to me, ordered his coffee, and he said, He said such like a cool quote. He said, It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. And that like really stuck with me the rest of the day and the rest of the trip, honestly. Like, yes, like I'm important, like I'm serving the community, but also like it's just important to be nice to these people because they probably don't experience that that much. So that really just stuck with me the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Um for me, it was also at Red Door. There was we were like getting orders for the food pantry, and there was this guy, and he said it was only his second day here and he he seemed so like happy and everything, and he explained uh to us a little bit of how he was like at his friend's house, and his friend like gave him a computer to start working, and he was typing out his life story, and he was also like just the Red Doors ministry helped him so much, and he like started started things with his life, and he was just so proud. And I thought that was really sweet and just nice to see that he was starting to get help everywhere and how much help it's really done.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Yeah, so it you got to see how it was really impacting a a particular person and how it was really helping change his life.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

That's awesome, very cool. So you guys are all um, I think everybody in here, your your parents are either on staff at the you know, all your parents, all of you have parents on staff here at the church, um, or uh who have been a part of ministry in some way. So you see your parents do this kind of stuff and uh things like that all the time. And you probably have a lot of friends that you see like their pictures of um, they're going on vacation to Florida or they're going to wherever it might be, and not that you guys don't get to go do vacations and stuff like that, but um you you decided to use a part of your summer to go on a trip like this with your church, which I think is really which is really awesome. Why do you think um trips like this um are important and how do they help whether how do they help grow your faith? Why do you like to do them?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Um I can say it was just very like humbling. Like we stayed in a church that had no air conditioning. I know the girls' room was very um packed. We were like face to face sleeping. It was not very like not what you would want to do. But um, I think just like realizing that like this is like still so much better than how some people live. Like, I don't it really just opens your eyes to like a whole new perspective of the world. And it's like honestly, it's very like it's fun. Like we had we had a lot of fun, and like we all became so much closer throughout the trip. Like mission trips like bring you closer than anything else ever can. And like it's also just fun to like see like other parts of like the world, like we've gone to Puerto Rico, like that was amazing, like not just like like seeing like the landscapes and everything, like it's just awesome, and like being able to like experience different cultures and like even in Pittsburgh, like it's just very different than it is from here. So I think like just being able to get out and like also like feeling like you're like impacting like a lot of people around you, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, just having your like reach be that far is cool. And at all the like ministries we went to, all the people that work there, like at the diaper bank, especially, maybe these people like weren't making the most money, but they did their job with like the biggest smile on their faces, and they were like so close with each other, and they just like made the most out of it, even if it like maybe isn't the best job, like working in a warehouse, but they just make the most out of it, and I feel like that just like opens your eyes and like helps you. I don't know, like how they see the good in everything. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Also, um it definitely was like very yeah, I agree it was humbling, and it's I feel like it's good because it can get you out of your like comfort zone sometimes. And I feel like we some of us live like very comfortably, and sometimes we take advantage of that and kind of forget that hey, this isn't how everyone has it. So it's really nice and important to be able to experience and see like how other people are doing and how we should uh that we should reach out more and help people.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

Anything else about like how did it how about for any of you like did you feel like um you know the helping people is is definitely a huge part of of the trip? But I seem I find a lot of times that trips like this I might help other people, but I feel like I get a lot out of it too, and it really helps me grow grow in my faith. That what were some what were some of the ways that you felt like you got closer to Jesus this week?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Um at the red door, like we were helping them with giving them like clothes and food and stuff, but there were also a couple a couple of people when I was taking their like clothing orders, they would just like stop and like pray for me and like ask if they could like have my name so they could like keep me in their prayers and stuff. And I felt like that was really like impactful, and like I don't know, that helped me feel closer to God and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

So yeah, I agree. A lot of the people that we met with, like you could just tell, like they were like on fire for God, like they just never stop talking about God and like how good He is, even though they're going through like such a hard time, they just like they fully rely on God, and like I just it was just a really it's a really good reminder, like even when I'm like in my absolute like lows of lows, like God is like there. And also, like we were kind like we were given like a devotional and stuff, like we would do our devotions every morning and like debrief at night, like it was just a good way, like I don't know, to like live out like the scriptures that we were reading about during the day. We got the opportunities to do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

I I think you know, talking about doing your devotions every night and getting to interact with these people, and this is kind of kind of lead into this next question. Um, but why not just yeah? Some people might say, Well, why not just stay here? There's stuff you could do around Finley, there's stuff you could do here, and we we do things around around here, but why why go away somewhere to do stuff like this and why not just stay here, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Um, like in Finlay, here we have like what do what do we have? City mission. Yeah, we have a bunch of like food pantries and stuff, but also if you go out, there's a lot of more like things you can do, and there's a bunch of more like ministries and stuff, and you just get to see a lot of things that you maybe don't see in Finlay. And so I feel like that's could be a lot more impactful to do stuff other places too.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

So you get a diverse kind of experience that you might not necessarily get here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

I also think like it's I mean, yeah, you can always stay here, but like every place needs at least like some l a little bit of help, and like help never can hurt really. And so I feel like it's always amazing to go out and because you get a lot out of it experiencing new things, but it's also good in the end.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

I think there's also something about, and I don't know if this is your guys' experience, but for me, when I've done trips like this, when I stay here, there's a lot of other things that are distracting me from my relationship with God. And when I but if I go away somewhere and my whole focus for a whole week is serving and growing my faith and being around other people who are serving and growing their faith, like for me, that's really impactful. Yeah, I know like we talk about doing our devotions all the time. I'm not saying you guys don't do your devotions every day while you're at home, but I'm I'm glad this isn't on camera, seeing a lot of guilty looks. Um but um I I think when you're when you go away and you're intentional about it for a week, is that something that you find that you find to be helpful for you in your faith?

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Yeah, yeah. We're like not forced to turn our phones off, but I think a lot of us chose like, why don't we just leave our phones in the car and just like go and just fully focus on this? Like it's like shutting out all the distractions of like our personal lives and fully just like focusing on serving people is really just like I don't know, it makes you really feel like you're like serving God how he wants you to, like, not distracted by social media or like what other people have to say, like you're fully focused on you and your faith in helping others.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Anybody else have anything brilliant to share about any of this? No pressure. Um anything else that happened on the trip that was just like and it you guys also get to do some fun stuff together, right? I mean, you went to the zoo. Oh, one of the other things I wanted to ask you guys about this was um was I think it was your last night maybe you went up the incline um in Pittsburgh. There's like this incline trolley, and was it up there that you guys like prayed over the city? Yeah, yeah. What what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

That was like really amazing. Like, I I guess I'd never thought about like praying over a city and stuff, but like that's because we went up there and then we had like just a couple minutes to pray to ourselves or with by ourselves, and then we all came together and we like we held hands and then each took our own turn praying, and it was just like such a moment where you could feel like I just could feel God, and it was like there was so much love, and over the week, like just the love and connections throughout the community was just an amazing thing to see.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Yeah, up at the top, you got a full view of the city, like you could see everything, so you could see every single ministry we worked with, like every spot we had been to, so it was really like reflecting. We got a lot of time to like reflect on what we had done and um like pray personally over the city, and then yeah, just as a group.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

We don't always take a whole lot of time to just pause and reflect.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

And that's a that's a really important thing. I think that's really really awesome. So was this for all of you? Had you all been on mission trips before? Yeah, yep, you'd all been somewhere before, so and you all would go on a mission trip again. Yes. Renee, you're gonna be a senior this year, so you've probably got one more youth youth group mission trip. I'm sad leader. Um well, I think it's great, and I just really appreciate uh the way that you guys represented our church and uh heard a lot of great comments about that, that the people were working working with praying publican missions. Um, and uh they had a lot of very complimentary things to say about you all. So thanks for going to serving. And I know you guys are gonna be sharing a little bit more this Sunday. It's Youth Sunday coming up, and uh you're gonna be talking about the mission trip. And some of you are sharing some musical talents, I know, uh, this Sunday. So excited for all of that, and uh just really thankful for you guys. So anything else that you guys wanted to say? Is your chance that there's tens of people listening to this?

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Like, subscribe, hit the follow button. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

All right, well, thanks guys for being here, and uh, thank you all for listening, and we will hear you uh see you next week on another sermon prep podcast.