Decisions, Decisions

When you're planning a trip like this, you need to make a lot of decisions. It begins back in the fall with the date of the trip. Then as your team begins to come together, it's selecting the best flight. Usually the airlines change it, so even the best decisions go awry. As we move closer to the trip, I need to assign their rooms and small groups. This is a little tricky since I try not to overlap any roommates with group-mates. I also try to cross-reference last year's trip so that their are as few repeats as possible. Whew - that's a lot to think about.

You might think that these decisions and choices would be most crucial for team unity and happiness - but you would be wrong. The most important decision that has to be made is ------- the T-shirt! Yep, the t-shirt. Besides the hundreds of pictures posted on facebook that quickly fade from people's memories, the one lasting reminder of the trip is the t-shirt. Also, the shirt is the leader's way to keep an eye on all of the the kids as they roam through the airport.

There are a lot of variables that need to go into the shirt. The first few years were easy. We didn't have any history of getting t-shirts so we could do no wrong. Everybody loved them.


Year two was eerily similar to year one, except a change in color to yellow. The only problem with that shirt was there was a Korean group in the same airport with the same color yellow. It looked like our group tripled and our heads were spinning as we counted the kids.


But as year three came around (2007, my first year in charge) I felt a lot of pressure to pick a shirt style and color that would be unique and everyone would love. I spent hours on various church t-shirt websites, peppering my wife with samples and questions about what she would like. I finally settled on my favorite one yet - a blue shirt with a huge sun and palm trees. (Its the only one I actually still wear in public)


So when it came time to choose 2008's shirt, I had to do a little bit better - so I added our memory verse on the back. And it was bright orange. No problems seeing our group in those. I chose this color because my mother-in-law was coming on this trip. My father-in-law had passed away the previous year and she decided that she wanted to cross "mission trip" off of her to-do list. I felt that I could at least do this for her. (But I don't think I've worn it since we arrived home)


Last year, my partner-in-crime, Sandy Stewart, had the idea to incorporate the tv show 'Survivor' into our team games, so the obvious choice was to go camouflage. Once again, nice for the trip, but its been buried in my closet since.


So as this year came along, I needed to take a different approach. Back to simpler days. Basic color, no verse, nothing crazy. Red. Three people in summer clothes. One holding a shovel, one a paint brush, one a hammer. All things we have done and will be doing this year.


Hopefully the team will like this shirt, and will wear it with pride in the airport and on the plane. But more importantly, I hope they wear it back home in front of family and friends, creating opportunities to explain what the shirt means, what they did, and how the trip changed their lives.

I think I'm going to go upstairs and take out the old shirts and put on a little fashion show for my friends.

Getting Ready

I know what most of you are thinking - the Bahamas? What kind of trip is that? Are you cleaning the beaches for the week? I wish. You see, there are two sides of paradise. The part we see on the brochures, commercials, and other ads makes up about 2% of the island. The other 98% is a disaster. Residents live in abject poverty, with little to eat, high unemployment, and a serious drug problem - and we see it all.

We're about 6 weeks away from our trip. This is the 6th year I've been on it, and the 4th year of running it, but it never gets old. As the days are crossed off the calendar and the trip gets closer, I start getting butterflies in my stomach and having those crazy dreams. You know what I'm talking about - the ones where something goes wrong - like I left without any luggage and had to borrow clothes all week long.

This year will be the biggest in our short history - 27 team members - an increase of 6. You see last year I made a promise to my friends on the island, Raoul and Karen Armbrister. I told them that within three years we would triple the number of people coming to the island with us. For those of you scoring at home, that's over 60. I tried getting other youth groups in my area involved, but was politely turned down by each one due to lack of money, too late to plan, already have a trip, etc. So I'll keep trying for next year.

We are adding something new to our work agenda this year - building and setting fish traps. Not really sure how it will go, but from the way Raoul spoke about it to me earlier this week it should be a blast. Other than the fish traps, we will work on rebuilding homes destroyed by hurricanes and construction raised gardens for local villages. But most importantly we will be ministering to the residents of the villages, especially the kids. These kids are amazing, so happy to have so little. It's truly incredible to see how much faith the islanders have when they live in some pretty bad conditions. They know the He will take care of them and provide for what they need.

I'm looking forward to making more friends, building more homes, and reaching more lives through Jesus.

And I'll make sure not to forget the sunscreen.