There are times on mission trips when you don’t get to see what the long-term affect of the ministry is, especially when the reason for the ministry is not know.
During the week in Chicago each student had the chance to be a part of transforming the “dungeon” into the basement by sweeping, washing, organizing and even more sweeping.
A back view of the church(brown brick building on the right) and the back parking lot that the kids cleaned up in the mornings.
The basement is an excellent physical example of not being able to see the long-term affect of what they were doing. Thankfully they did have the opportunity to learn the reason behind why they would spend a few hours each morning cleaning the basement. In fact they where experiencing the long term benefits of youth groups from years past by way of the room they slept in each night.
The reason we had a team work in the church every morning was so that by the end of the summer and many youth groups later there would no longer be a basement but more class rooms, with dry wall, fresh paint, better lighting and space for young men to learn about God.
These kids worked incredibly hard to turn a dungeon into a basement so that other kids could turn a basement into class rooms, and then one day class rooms into interactions between youth from Nebraska and youth from inner city Chicago.
Curious about the room they slept in?
This is the sanctuary that was upgraded by past Adventures’ youth trips!
It’s a neat story about the transformation of a bar into a church. With old brick walls and layers of carpet and tile the bar needed a lot of work before it could be turned into a church and even a step further into class rooms for the local kids to come to after school.
It took several youth groups with God provided skills to turn a bar into a beautiful sanctuary and classrooms.
Who knows what the future holds for the basement, but I do know that these kids set the foundation for it right, by working extremely hard and with no complaining each day to accomplish something they might never see fulfilled.
When you work for in the Kingdom of God you might not see the end results, you might be blessed to set the foundations, or put the walls up, or you might love on the kids in a room built by many hands.
Maybe you don’t know this, but you could be laying the foundation right now for other people to work of off, are you doing it with a smile or a frown?
Choose to smile; you never know what basement you may be cleaning.
