The days leading up to a mission trip can be filled with uncertainty. Questions race: What exactly will we be doing? Will I be in a group with someone I know? Will I make friends? How will everything go? These questions found unexpected answers as Parkside Church students and leaders embarked on two different mission trips this summer.

In mid-July, 13 middle school students and six adult leaders journeyed to North Carolina to attend MFuge, a camp that involves Bible study, worship, and community service. Teams worked together at a church, weeding, raking, and mulching the playground. They also spent time with children from the area, playing basketball, drawing Bible verses with sidewalk chalk, and sharing the gospel with them.

Not long after, 24 high school students and eight adult leaders headed to Willoughby to participate in World Changers week. This week included large community service efforts during the day followed by evening worship and teaching. Projects around the greater Cleveland area included painting houses and churches, renovating a church basement, and prayer walks around communities to share the gospel. Many of the service projects enabled small churches to prepare spaces to serve the people in communities from Perry to Old Brooklyn to Medina.

For high school student Carter Lukcso, the week was an opportunity to focus more on God’s kingdom. While she was initially nervous about making connections with others on the trip, she prayed the Lord would shift her perspective. “My prayers were quickly answered,” she said. “As the week progressed, it really struck me how the common denominator among us was a fire for Christ and a desire to be his hands and feet in serving others. I began the week with a burdened and heavy heart, but finished with an uplifted one, driven by a desire to serve and a hunger for fellowship.”

Working beside fellow believers from Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, and other states, gospel conversations were frequent, encouraging, and challenged students and leaders to see God’s grace and provision, even while shoveling mulch and cutting drywall. These moments of deep connection helped provide a glimpse the wideness of God’s reach across the country and throughout the world.

Connor McGough, a middle school student, recounted the importance of having spent a large part of every day in the Word. “I want to spend more time in the Bible,” he said, as he reflected on multiple straight days of time in Scripture. He also realized that gathering regularly with other Christians is quite important to his faith because of the encouragement of fellowship he experienced.

As students and leaders found out, not only were they able to serve others throughout this week, but God used these experiences to minister to them as well. Whether it was by calming anxious thoughts, providing strength when the work grew weary, or igniting a heart to crave Scripture, Christian fellowship, and service, participants returned home grateful to the Lord for his provision and with a lot to reflect on. Luis Ramirez Venegas, an adult leader with the high school group remarked, “I would like to be more intentional about the Lord in my daily life, like I am constantly on a World Changers trip.”

Join with us in praying that the lessons learned will not be forgotten but will be implemented in students’ daily lives. Pray also that the work that was accomplished would be a living testament of the love of God to those that were served.