On Thursday, July 14, 25 teenagers and five adults boarded the Lewis Memorial bus and hit the road. Twelve hours and 500 miles later, they reached their destination: storm-ravaged Pleasant Grove,Alabama.
While this year's missions trip was not completely unlike past teen missions trips, it did present a different type of opportunity to serve Christ. For two days, God led this group to form a bond with Mary Freebird, an 85-year-old widow whose home was severely damaged in the storms that blasted the south in late April.
Matt McClay, who partnered with David O'Dell to help lead the trip, described the damage to Mary's home and the difficult financial circumstances she faced.
"During the storm, her roof was blown off and her windows were smashed in," McClay said. "Her home sustained major water damage, which meant she needed someone to strip the house down and basically start from scratch. She was underinsured, so she didn't have the money to restore the house. The bank forced her to use her insurance money to pay her loan off. She had very little insurance money left to pay for restoring her home."
Mary is a widow of 35 years and simply didn't have the money or resources she needed to put her home - and her life - back together. McClay said the teens and adults on the trip knew God's hand was at work when He placed them in Mary's home.
"We didn't know who we would be assigned to," he said. "We worked with a loosely-knit organization of churches that came together to help uninsured or underinsured residents of the area. Doug Hodges' son, Marc, helped us connect with this group, which was on the ground before FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and is continuing to work after FEMA has left.
"We prayed that God would give us a person we could reach out to; someone we could invest in. And God gave us Mary. We were reminded of James 1:27, where God tells us to care for the widows and the orphans. It was amazing how the Lord worked out the details, because many groups are split up and then moved from place to place, but they let our group stay on one project until we finished it. This allowed us to spend that time with Mary."
McClay said Mary is a Christian who has served the Lord through teaching in Christian schools. He said helping her allowed the teens to serve God by working with their hands.
"This type of work fits into our teenagers' skill sets," he said. "They love to work with their hands and are very experienced in manual labor. They have done roofing and construction on previous trips."
McClay said the focus for the group was to strip the house down to the rafters and walls, and then get it under roof. The plan was to do this so that Mary could use the money she had left to hire contractors to handle the drywall, plumbing and electrical work. The teens pulled floors up, removed the old plumbing and wiring, and even rebuilt the roof.
"While the group had some experience in this type of work, we still saw God empower many of them to do things in skills they didn't really have time to aquire before the trip," McClay said. "They were cutting angles on sheeting and framing, and they did a great job. Some of the teens who had a fear of dirt and germs broke apart sewer pipes."
The work God accomplished through the teenagers stood as a witness to a local contractor.
"We did have the opportunity to interact and witness to a contractor who showed up," McClay said. "This man was a roofer and he was astounded by how well our guys were doing and how professional their work was. That gave me a chance to tell him about other missions trips we've taken and how these teens have acquired skills to be used for God, and how they can share God's love by serving."
Before any work could be accomplished - even before the teens boarded the bus to make the trip to Alabama - group leaders helped the teenagers prepare their hearts for what awaited them.
"We asked the teens to leave their baggage at home," McClay said. "We told them to leave everything they had been dealing with at home and dedicate this weekend to serving God. We also needed to prepare them for what they were about to see. Anytime you see devastation like that you reevaluate your life and priorities."
That spiritual preparation led to more growth while the group served Christ in Alabama.
"During the devotion time each night we saw the group grow closer together," he said. "We saw some teens make lasting friendships, and others make big changes in their life that they needed to make to grow closer to God."
These teens and adults experienced spiritual growth while serving their Savior, and they have been used to share the truth that with God, all things are possible.
