Trinidad

In April, Mike and I went on a mission's trip to Trinidad with our high school youth group. To say it was an amazing trip is quite an understatement. God is so amazing and can work through weak vessels like us in such powerful ways, especially when we keep our hearts soft to His leading. 

Our White Lake group consisted of five adults and nine students. The Commerce group had six students and three leaders. We did so much throughout the week and I kept a journal every day to remember all the details. This will just be a "quick" summary of our week. Well, maybe not so quick! But I didn't add the 200 + pictures I took, just a few!

We left on Easter Sunday, April 5th, had an overnight layover in Miami, and arrived in Trinidad Monday afternoon. We had a brief orientation about our week and Trinidadian culture, then settled into our rooms. It's an amazing compound that we're staying on! There's an inground pool and our rooms have a bathroom and air conditioning. It's pretty awesome! There's also a huge concert going on here at the end of the week that we'll be able to see. So we were pretty excited about our upcoming week!

This is the majority of our group!

Our mission for the week was to put on a Bible camp for kids in the local area. This is the group of kids who came throughout the four days of camp. It was such a great four days. The kids learned new songs, did crafts, played games, and heard a lesson about God. The weather was perfect for us all week and we had about 30 to 40 kids. 

I don't know how these pictures got so mixed up, but that one above was on our last night. And this one below was at the Detroit airport, getting ready to depart!

The reason I took this picture was to remember how awesome the food was. We had a woman named Diane cooking for us daily and all the food was SO good! 

The second day we were there, Tuesday, the ladies took off to go to an elderly home, while the guys went to a youth prison. Both experiences were great and we were able to share about God with the people we met. 

The VBS was out in a field so we set up a tent and had most of our singing and lessons under there.  

On Wednesday, or maybe Tuesday (I'm getting my days mixed up), we went to an orphanage in a town about an hour away. This was probably the hardest thing for me the whole week. The place was very dirty and it didn't look like the workers were extremely compassionate towards the children. This one little girl in my arms below, is named Nevaeh, and she pretty much stayed in my arms the whole time I was there. It was very difficult to leave. We ended up going back there at the end of the week and she wasn't there that day. Apparently, family members can pick kids up for a day if they're in the area. But that second day we went, I met a young boy named Jordan that was just as hard to leave!

We had some down time almost every afternoon and took advantage of the sweet pool! The weather was hot but it was also breezy. It's a beautiful island!

This was the sound check for the three day concert. We were able to go check everything out! The students (and leaders) loved being able to be a part of this amazing concert. It was mostly Christian rap and R&B artists.

We went to two more orphanages through the week that were a little bit easier to visit because they were clean and it seemed the kids were well taken care of.

Then during the weekend, we drove up into the mountains to visit an adult rehabilitation center. The students performed the Redeemer skit which is always very powerful.

This was an amazing old tree we passed on the way back from the rehab center.

On Monday, the day before we left, we drove to Port of Spain, the capital, and did some shopping. Then from there, we drove through the mountains to the Caribbean Sea for a day of swimming. It was such a beautiful beach. We also had shark and bake for lunch, which were the best fish sandwiches I've ever had.

Cindy, next to me, was basically our guide the whole week. She's amazing. Whizz, in the yellow, was our bus driver. He's also amazing! And then Marcus, in the green, was another guide that did a lot of stuff with us. These people are so awesome and friendly!

We had such a blast swimming and enjoying the sunshine. That evening, back at the compound, we had a nice time together taking communion, encouraging each other, and washing feet. In the morning, we had to be to the airport at 4:15 AM and then had a day of travel. It was great to be back home and see the girls after being away for a week. But Trinidad was an unbelievable experience and I'm forever grateful that I had the opportunity to go, especially to experience it with Mike.