2023 Mission Trip - San Antonio, TX

Started the day off with a Bible study on 1 Peter 2. A reminder to the highschoolers that as Christians we are foreigners on earth. Heaven is our home.  Then walked them through a short training session for door to door conversations before we hit the neighborhoods! (Mayah was under the weather for the first part of the day.)    Many conversations were had and many prayer requests were harvested. Unlike most people who aren’t eager to go door to door, the  kids actually expressed a lot of satisfaction and excitement afterwards.  Having way too much fun together! In the afternoon we visited the Natural Bridge Caverns.  Paul regrettably dropped his contact.   We finished the day off by going out to dinner with Pastor Koelpin’s family and some of our host families. Will had a tough time fitting his burger into his mouth… they were huge!!! Everything really is bigger in Texas.

 Started the morning off with some more backpack filling, prepping for the big Load up for Learning event on Saturday morning! Thankful for my very photogenic mission trippers! Tagged all the backpacks with this, pretty genius community outreach event. Got suited up for our first big community event.  Lots of prep work needed to happen to make the night possible. Although basketball camp got canceled, we still wanted to get the kids who signed up their shirts! Cotton Candy was a hit! Since the heat was ultimately what canceled the camp we thought we could incorporate water games into our replacement event in order to keep kids cool! Tons of kids showed up. Total success. Great pivot from the canceled camp! The girls led craft-making indoors! Made sure to take the guys out for ice cream after the girls had already left for their host families!! 

 With the basketball camp being canceled, we’ve had some extra time on our hands. Today we were able to spend the whole day at Aquatica/Sea World. A typical moment of Violet playing “Mom” with one of Pastor’s kids. A group photo, featuring Will’s hair (braided by the girls!) 

 Tuesday we finally got the chance to really get to work! With the basketball camp being cancelled, due to heat, we took up some other ministry tasks. Primarily canvassing for the West campus (startup church mission).  We did some door to door marketing for the Touch-A-Truck event that the west campus was putting on.  Plenty of breaks in the shade, canvassing for four hours in 100° weather wears you out!! Lunch at Whataburger. After lunch we headed over to the central campus and added labels to fliers before taking them door to door for the rest of the afternoon. Cooling off in the AC, playing Bible-themed hangman! After canvassing, we went to Dunkin to get drinks and start game planning games and crafts for one of the youth events we are putting on! Ended the night swimming with the Suttons again!!

  Visited the Alamo in the middle of downtown. The boys had some fun dressing up! Then we headed over to the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio!  It was beautiful and much cooler than the rest of the city. The boys continued to have some fun! Riverwalk view. Swimming at with the Sutton’s at their community pool. Will took it away on the guitar as the day wrapped up.

Started the morning at Our Savior Lutheran Church’s West Campus which is a mission startup. They currently hold worship in the auditorium of an elementary school.  Pastor Sutton gave the sermon on Joshua in the Old Testament and how he trusted God and was courageous in the midst of uncertainty and fear. Visited the Historic Mexican Market today in downtown!