June. The start of summer. For us, it was a busy, busy month. It began with Preschool Day Camp. Cluelessly, I volunteered to "teach" the school-aged kids, the kids of the workers of our Preschool Day Camp. Clueless, because the week following Preschool Summer Day Camp, our family would be going on our first Family Mission Trip.
The team from our church consisted of families of all shapes and sizes. We had couples go. We had families with both parents and all their children go. We had moms go with one or two of their children. We had grandparents go with their grandchildren. Everyone just wanted to go.
We went to Cleveland, Ohio to work with a new church plant. Our team was to do an Upward basketball and cheerleading camp. The location for the camp was at an inner-city elementary school in the heart of Cleveland. I'm talking inner, inner-city. The majority of camp time was spent on the blacktop parking lot of a school. And I'm here to tell you, that God showed up on that blacktop.
It was such an awesome experience, and I can still see the faces of those little boys that I got to hang out with that week. One of my favorite memories was looking at my little 3 yr. old daughter, with gray dirt all over her face, sitting in a group of kids, most whom did not have her skin color. And she was sitting there singing praise songs to Jesus. In an inner-city elementary school that we weren't even sure would be available for us to use.
There wasn't much time for sightseeing, but we were able to go to Lake Erie one day and witness a beautiful sunset.
Lots of fun times in Cleveland, Ohio that week. Like most mission trips, it was draining, exhausting, fulfilling and memorable, all at the same time.
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