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Hammers & Hope Bethany Lutheran Youth · Summer Mission Trip 1999 14 teenagers · 5 grown-ups · 3 vans · 1 week in the mountains of eastern Kentucky · July 10-17 Read the day-by-day trip journal! | The Crews | Thank You! | Fall Schedule |
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We're home! (and we've finally unpacked)
Hi everyone! I'm Jill Brekke, youth director here at Bethany. For those who don't know, this summer our senior high youth group spent a week in the mountains of eastern Kentucky doing home repair with families who needed a hand. We fixed one roof, built one wheelchair ramp, painted and skirted one trailer, ate approximately four hundred peanut butter sandwiches, and came home different people. I know that sounds like something a youth director is supposed to say. It's also true. A lot of you have asked what we actually did down there, and the kids have told the stories so many times that the details are starting to grow (no, Brent did NOT fight a bear). So I've put it all here, the way it really happened. There's a day-by-day journal with notes from the kids, and a big thank you to everyone at home who made it possible. Our theme verse for the week was Galatians 6:2, the one about carrying each other's burdens. We wrote it on the inside of our hard hats, and by Wednesday we understood it a whole lot better than we did on Sunday. |
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The Crews We split into three work crews, each with an adult who knew which end of the hammer to hold.
Our other two grown-ups were Linda Haugen, camp cook and keeper of the first-aid kit (used: 11 Band-Aids, 1 tweezers, a lot of sunscreen), and Bob Tollefson, who drove the big van and fixed everything that broke, including the other two vans. |
Pictures?
 Between the fourteen kids we came home with 23 rolls of film and a lot of disposable cameras. Some of them are even in focus. We showed a slide show at the Mission Sunday potluck on August 8, and the church office is looking into a scanner so we can put some up here. Pictures coming soon, I promise! |
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THANK YOU, Bethany! Each young person paid $150 of their own, and our goal was to raise $7,000 more to cover the vans, gas, lumber, shingles, paint and food. Here's what you did:
We made it, with $93 left over, which went to the family in the trailer for groceries. Special thanks to the quilting ladies, who sent a quilt along for each of the three families, to the men's breakfast group for the lumber discount they somehow arranged, to Hansen Implement for the loan of the third van, and to every single person who bought a pie. (Especially whoever paid $85 for Mrs. Rasmussen's sour cream raisin. You know who you are.) And thank you to our prayer partners. Every kid had one adult at home praying for them by name all week. The kids read your notes on Wednesday night, and there was not a dry eye in that church basement. | ||||||||||||||
What's Next
 Senior high youth meets Sunday nights, 6:30 to 8:00, in the youth room downstairs. Grades 9-12, bring a friend. Fall kickoff is Sunday, September 19: pizza, volleyball and the mission trip video Bob made. Bring a two-liter. Next summer? The kids have already voted to go back to Kentucky, and a few want to do Miss Opal's porch. Planning meeting for parents in November. Fundraising starts with the spaghetti supper in February, so start practicing your garlic bread. |
Friends who've stopped by since our first trip page in 1997:    
Questions about the youth group or the trip? Want to be a prayer partner next year? [email protected] Last updated Thursday, September 16, 1999 by Jill Brekke · © 1999 Bethany Lutheran Youth |