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What kind of mission work have your students been involved in? How have you seen it impact them?
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Every year my class goes on a service field trip to the Union Gospel Mission women and children’s shelter. The students serve by cleaning and doing yard work. They learn about what UGM is and how they serve our community. Out of all of the field trips we take, most students report that our service field trip is their favorite. It is a very impactful experience for our students. It is eye opening for them to see how some families are struggling, and it helps them to be grateful for the blessings in their lives. It makes them feel good to give back to the community. I love the UGM also teaches our students how they share the gospel with their residents, and the students get to learn just how important it can be to lead others to the Lord.
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Since covid, our middle school students have not been on a missions trip. Previously, our students had gone on trips to work at an orphanage in Mexico, and helped at a Mission, City Impact, in San Francisco. First hand, I have taken a group of middle school and high school students to an orphanage in Mexico, of which I have seen lasting impacts. Not only did students do manual work to serve, but were also given the opportunities to pray for people in the neighboring shanty community and bless them, even witnessing a physical healing of a woman blind in one eye. These types of outreaches help to form a larger worldview to students and can open doors to larger calls on their lives.
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We have several projects that our students are involved in. We are very close to Baltimore City and work with a Christian mission for men and women recovering from addiction. We also are involved with Operation shoebox during the holiday season. We also send a team to Costa Rica each summer to do mission work with a church plant located there. It is amazing to hear the stories of the students and how they are growing in their faith.
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I haven’t seen their mission work or how it has impacted them.
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I have to admit, although we cover the biblical call to missions in our Bible lessons, we have not purpsued and opportunities to actually partcipate, or be activiely involved with mission work. As I was listening to Dr. Black’s lecture, ideas began emerging in my mind of appropriate mission work I could pursue for my 5th grade. One such opportunity might be to arrange a visit to a local senior citizens/assisted living facility in order to serve the residents in some capacity. I do not know what this might look like, but the Lord knows. It would just take intention, planning, resources, and time. I have already started researching local facilities in order to make contact and explore this further.