Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Countdown to Grenada Mission Trip 2016



We are excited to announce the four week countdown to the 2016 Kingwood Christian Church (KCC) Grenada Mission Trip. Our Mission Team of 14 people will travel to Grenada during Spring Break, March 11-21. This our 3rd KCC Mission Trip to Grenada, having previously gone in 2012 and 2014.



You may be asking, Grenada? Where is that?  Why take a mission trip there?

Grenada is a tiny island in the Caribbean, only 12-22 miles and it was the home of my husband Ryan for the first 28 years of his life.

That is, until a young Peace Corps worker (me) was assigned to the primary school where he had just begun teaching 2nd grade. He wooed me with guitar music wafting through my window during those first weeks when I was dealing with insomnia due to the heat, mosquitoes, and the bats. The rest is history! We worked together, fell in love, and Ryan immigrated to the US in 1994. We were married in Kingwood Christian Church later that year. Ryan had always dreamed of “giving back” to Grenada but it wasn’t until 2011 that the idea took wings and became a mission trip.


Over the past five years, we have built a relationship with the churches in St. Patrick parish. We have worked beside them building new pews, launching a women’s Bible Study, setting up a computer lab in the school, working in the library and worshiping our common God.



In four weeks we will be re-acquainted with our friends, our brothers & sisters in Christ, who quite frankly, are still amazed that members of a church in Houston, Texas, 2000 miles away, care enough to take time away from work and family, to come all that way to say, “How can we help? What do you need?” and then show up and meet that need.

This year we are working in a primary school in Chantimelle,  at the northern end of the island. We will be supplying laptops and the computer know-how to set up a computer lab. We will also be helping with a face-lift for the kindergarten area, including new flooring, paint, and storage. In the course of the week, we will experience the welcoming Grenada hospitality and we will worship in two different churches. We will also participate in a cultural exchange night, sharing our musical gifts as well.

 






One of the most exciting things about this trip has been the way our church family has gotten behind the trip with financial support, donations of school supplies and materials and praying for the Mission Team. We are again asking for support for this trip. 

The total cost for the computers, networking supplies and work materials is around $10,000. Kingwood Christian Church has committed to $2500 from our church budget, to help with materials. We have just gotten the news that we have received $1000 from our Coastal Plains Area of the Disciples of Christ to help with our trip. We are over half-way to our goal thanks to donations from church and community members, but we are not there yet. We are also gathering school supplies which we will  present to the Chantimelle RC School. We have seven students going on the trip, who are still working hard to come up with the final payments due for their food, lodging and transportation expenses. Each traveler will be asked to carry an additional bag ($30) full of supplies. If you would like to donate toward our project or help with scholarships, we would be grateful!  Donations can be mailed to Kingwood Christian Church (3910 W. Lake Houston Pkwy. Kingwood, TX 77345) with “Grenada Mission Trip” in the memo line. 

   
We know that not everyone can pay the $1500 per person that it costs to make this trip. Not everyone is physically able. Not everyone may have the time off from work. But everyone can pray. Please pray for the Mission Team preparing for the trip, for smooth travels, good weather and a life-changing perspective. 


We have thought of ourselves as grateful and willing ambassadors of Kingwood Christian Church, carrying God’s light and love to the people of Grenada.
 

So all this starts and ends with a love story: a love story between two people of different races and cultures, who found enough in common to take a risk at a life together. And it grew into a love story of a church loving a couple and then loving their children. And then it grew into a church falling in love with a little island in the Caribbean and its beautiful people. A love story fueled by the greatest love of all, the love of our Creator, who equipped us and filled us with this kind of love and then asked us to take it out into the world.