So for Spring Break this year I went to Jacksonville, Florida along with 12 other students from Southern, one student from Ozark Christian College, and two mentors on a mission trip. This was the second year that I had went with the Koinonia Christian Campus Ministry and as amazing as last year was, I think this year was even better. My week went like this.
I woke up at like 5am Friday the 18th so we could all meet at the Criminal Justice Building by 6 and we were on the road by 6:30am. We took two 15 passenger vans, one belonging to the organization and the other borrowed from a local church. I’m pretty sure we drove all day. I can say the 7 (not counting the driver) of us in the van slept a substantial amount of the day. We arrived in Tiftonia, Tennessee at like 7pm (we changed time zones) and we ate dinner and crashed. We also woke up early the next morning to get back on the road. By Saturday afternoon, we had made it to the North Florida Christian Service Camp in Keystone Heights, Florida. This camp is absolutely beautiful. It consisted of an office and recreation building that literally sat on the edge of a lake, as well as the Dottie Shaw worship building, cabins to sleep in, a pool and even a human foosball court. We went and bought groceries and just spent that night getting settled at the camp.
On Sunday we woke up, had a small service on the beach of the lake and then went to the ocean!! We went to Little Talbott Island State Park and the beach was absolutely gorgeous. We were there and I spent the entire time walking up and down the beach. Between the people that went with me and myself, we found about 15 sand dollars that were over 85% intact. I even got to touch a jellyfish. That night we went to a seafood place not far from the beach (the chicken there was really good.)
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent working at the camp. We were given 27 time consuming jobs and were not intended to finish all of them. These jobs included painting the office, putting up porch spindles, cleaning the beach, raking leaves, clearing brush from the side of the road, putting up batton strips, dry walling the office, sheet rocking the office, fixing some plumbing and so on. By Wednesday night, after working 9-5 days in the 90 degree Florida weather we completed every task we were given. The director of the camp told us that the work we did in three days would’ve taken him several months. At nights, we were allowed to enjoy the lake and just have some “us” time.
Then came Thursday. This was my favorite day of the week. We went into intercity Jacksonville and worked with their City Rescue Mission. Any given night in Jacksonville there is at least 4,000 homeless people. The CRM’s goal is to help these homeless. For some, they offer a Life-Building program where the person must be sober from whatever they are doing for 7 days before they can enter. They are given a bed (for up to 900) and they are started in the program. The program is like almost every other except for 2 things: they do not take any government money and they teach about Jesus. The program is cleaning the person up, showing them a new way of life, getting them back on their feet, and placing them in a stable job for at least 6 months before graduation. It often takes 12-18 months to complete. The success rate of nation organizations are about 25% and the CRM has a success rate of 87% and the one difference: Jesus. We were able to serve the entire day sorting clothes at the goodwill and serving food to homeless. It was by far the most humbling experience in my entire life.
If anyone who reads this would like to join Koinonia Christian Campus Ministry, we meet on Tuesday nights in the Lions Den. At 7:15pm we have a prayer time, 7:30pm – a free meal provided by an area church and at 8pm we start our worship. It is one of the best things I could have ever gotten involved with on this campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment