Personal Narrative: My First Mission Trip

Last summer, I was given the amazing opportunity to go on my first mission trip. My church, Berlin Baptist is a very small church, with a congregation of thirty people and only around seven youth, including myself. Despite our small numbers, we wanted to do something of significance. Our youth minister Micah wanted us to go on a mission trip, but because we were such a tiny group we would have to accompany another church in order to go. In a stroke of luck, Spring Arbor from Fairview invited us to help minister to a few apartment complexes filled with Nepalese refugees in Fort Worth, Texas.
Fort Worth is in North Central Texas and ten hours away from Alabama. Spring Arbor was a much larger group therefore, our youth groups drove separately. Micah was the captain of our church van, with two adult chaperones (My parents) trailing behind us. We left at five in

the morning and with a “few” stops we managed to arrive around seven that night. The saying “Everything’s bigger in Texas.” rang true. Fort Worth was a monumental city with a lot of people. When we arrived, we met Kika and Anungla Jamir, founders of The Nations Fellowship Church and their kids Allen (15), Joy (13) and Sunny (6). Their church is committed to sharing the gospel with those who are unreached. We housed in a two story church named Wedgewood.
Kika did not like wasting time, first thing the next morning he took us all into a room, explained how we should act, split us up by churches and took us straight to the apartment complexes.

Some of Berlin went to a separate complex with Spring Arbor and the rest of us went to…………………… with Kika’s son Allen. Other churches had already been to ……….. so several of the Nepalese children already knew what we were there to do. As soon as we arrived, children of all ages were swarming us shouting “play” “play” and even a few adults were interested. There still weren’t enough kids to have a bible class, so we had to walk around and ask if there were any children who wanted to come to “summer camp”. We were not allowed to call it Bible school. The responses where either “No we don’t have any kids, what is it for?” or “yes! They can come; here take your brother with you. When will you be back?” It was very strange to me because in our culture today we would never send our kids off with strangers, but these Nepalese people were so kind and trusting. There was one mom who even let us care for her one year old

daughter!
We stayed almost half of the day just playing with the children, letting them paint our faces and throwing beach balls. I connected with all of the kids, but I spent most of my time with a girl named Amira. Amira was eleven with waist length black hair that she would ask me to braid and re-braid for her while she told me stories. “My hair use to be longer than this” she said. “They cut it off short like a boys before we came to America. It made me really sad but my mom said that it would grow back eventually.” I was so touched that she felt comfortable enough to share such personal experiences with me. Before we left, we called all of the children into a circle to start a bible lesson. Amira sat with me. The lesson was on God’s love for us; half way through Amira looks at me with pride and says “I know what Jesus did. Jesus died for us so that we can live free of our sins. My mommy and dad don’t believe in God but I do. I taught my friend about him and now she believes in Jesus too.” I was so shocked and she looked so proud of herself, I didn’t know what to say, but she just turned around and continued to listen to the lesson. When it was over, I walked Amira and a few other children home. They all held hands and told each other bye. I was fortunate enough to be able to do that every day for an entire week.
On our last day Kika told us about a church service that the Nepali people had every Sunday in one of the apartments. He told us that we were invited to come eat and listen to them sing. They also wanted Micah to preach. We gathered in the living room floor of a very cramped one bedroom apartment full of teenaged Nepali girls dressed in multicolored wraps. They sang in their language and it was incredibly beautiful. Two older ladies served us homemade chi tea as we listened. When the girls finished, a short cheerful man, who was the usual preacher stood and told us the story of how he found Christ and his struggles before coming to Texas. He told us of how he went down such a wrong path that he wasn’t sure he would even live. He “owed his life to God”. I was astounded by him and the Nepalese people. Even though they were given terrible circumstances they still had positive attitudes. Sometimes we are disliked because of our beliefs, our skin color, and where we come from. We let our circumstances dictate how we feel about our lives and what we are capable of, but these beautiful Nepalese people taught me that we are all worth loving. We get to choose how we handle our situations; we get to choose happiness.