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.