My first ever mission trip took place my junior year of high school, many of us from my youth group jumped on a plane and went to the Bahamas. I remember when I first told people that I was going to the Bahamas on a mission trip they were really confused because they didn’t see the Bahamas as a poor country that needed help, and neither did I. I was confused when I heard we were going there because when we think of the Bahamas we think of the beautiful beaches and the huge resorts where everyone goes on vacation for spring break, I soon realized that was not the reality of the Bahamas.
The Bahamas had the big island with the resorts and all the fun things but if you drive over the bridge and awhile down the road you can see what the Bahamas was really like. The country is a mixture of Bahamians and Haitians that have taken small rafts over to try and get out of their country and live a better life. The Haitians were very strongly discriminated against and were not treated as well. As you drove down the road you would see bright colored buildings, stray dogs, and a lot of non-wealthy people. We even got to drive past a community one day where their were people literally living in boxes and make shift tents while getting their water out of a well pump. I was ready to help these people the best that I possibly could.
One of the first things we did was to host a VBS at a church and help with some construction at the same time. Everything was going great at the VBS, we had art projects, music, games, prizes and little snacks for the kids and they were having such a great time. I was one of the people that was in charge of the outdoor games and let me tell you guys these kids really knew how to play a killer game of Red Rover and duck duck goose. After we were all done with the games we handed out little prizes and small snacks, some kids would eat their snack and get back in line and pretend they didn’t get any, we knew these kids didn’t get a lot of food so of course we gave them more and we soon realized that they were keeping the food for themselves they were running home quickly to give it to their family members that weren’t there. This act of kindness from these kids just broke my heart, to see them have close to nothing and to not blink and eye and to give to one another was just amazing and showed the love of God so strongly.
My absolute favorite part of that VBS day was when some kid just handed me this baby, I LOVE babies and I was so happy to hold this baby when she slept and play with her when she woke up. When she woke up she was very fussy and you could tell that something was wrong, it was very hot out and I thought that she was probably thirsty. I made the decision to let her drink out of my water bottle even though people told me not to in case of gems and diseases and all that fun stuff. I put the water bottle up to her mouth and got her lips wet and she knew exactly what to do, she started chugging my water so fast, she was so thirsty and ended up drinking almost half of my water bottle. I was so sad that this babies mother was not around to care for her and was not meeting her needs, but that was the reality of living a poor life in the Bahamas. I continued to hold this baby until it was time for us to leave, their were no parents around, who on earth was I supposed to give this baby to? Then a kid came up to me and told me she knew where the baby lived and would take her home to its mother. I had to trust this child that she knew where this baby lived and to just leave them together. At that time that was one of the hardest things I had to do.
For a couple days we worked at an AIDS camp. In the Bahamas if you get AIDS you are pretty much shunned from your family, the community, and doctors. These people then have no place to go so they go to this neighborhood camp. They get a small little house (more like a shack) and will get cold lunch style meals and get a sense of community. Our job while we were there was to knock down of the houses because it was falling apart so they could eventually build a new one, and to talk and hang out with the people living there. We heard these awful stories of people living their saying how they fell through the floor in their house and how rats would bite them in their sleep, even when we were tearing down the house we found a large bees nest in the wall. But this was all they knew, they didn’t know that these were awful living conditions and how much better they deserved. Even though these people were going through such hard times I’m pretty sure these were just about the happiest people I’ve ever seen. We were able to sit with them and hear their amazing stories and pray for them and they prayed for us, this was just such an amazing experience that I will never forget.
Of course we did SO much more on this trip but these are just some of the highlights for me that really started my love for missions. I had such an amazing time and am incredibly grateful for being able to go and for the amazing team and leadership that I had with me.
