Gang Gang Houston Gang
Last year I was really struggling with my faith in God and I really needed a push in the right direction. I was really sad and I felt hopeless all the time and it’s really not a good feeling. I was constantly mad at myself because i really wanted to believe but there were so many doubts in my head the I couldn’t get rid of. I feel like this happens to a lot of christians so I wanted to share how I was able to get back in the game, maybe it’ll be helpful.
On spring break of my freshman year in high school I had the opportunity to go on my first missions trip with the church. I had been wanting to go on a missions trip for a while then and I jumped at the first opportunity. Since we weren’t going out of state the group was mostly students with two adults and three people who worked at the church who were in charge of the mission trip. I didn’t know any of the others that were going on the trip although i knew of a few of them and I had talked to one of the other students before since our parents were friends. I didn’t actually have any friends going on the trip though.
Right before it was time to leave for the trip I had just made the soccer team at school. I still had to prove myself worthy and make sure I was noticed so I could get to play more on the field. Coach wanted everyone to come to training over the spring break, but I had been planning on going on the trip. Since I had yet to be noticed by the coaches missing out on this would be a big deal. I almost skipped out on the missions trip so I could make it to training. After a lot of thinking I decided that it would be more important for me to go on the trip, but I was still upset about missing out on training.
We left for Houston early in the morning at the beginning of spring. We had to take the plane there. When we got there we spent a long while at the airport figuring out how we were going to get around. We ended up renting 3 trucks, one for each of the people who were in charge to drive. We drove to the church where we would be sleeping and separated into our room, the girls in one room and the boys in another.
We didn’t have much planned for the first day so when we were all situated we decided walk around the neighborhood and get to know the people and the area. We split up into three groups, at first I thought it was crazy walking up to any random person we saw outside and asking them question about the situation. However, the people there were really nice and we didn’t get any rude looks as we would have here. Every one talked with us and told us their story, one even invited into there home to show us how far he had gotten in repairing his house. I don’t want to use their real names so we are going to call him Jerry, so remember that.
The house we were working at over the week belonged to the person across the street from jerry, lets call her pam. Pam was one of the most amazing people I have ever met. She was like that one grandma that welcomes everyone and gives you candy. She rescued a lot of the animals that were trapped during the flood. When we were there she had over 20 dogs, around the same amount of chickens, 2 goats, a pony, 2 rabbits, a few cats, and some other stuff that I forgot. Her house was completely destroyed by the flood so she had to sleep in a tent in the garage. We were working on rebuilding her house while we were there.
While we were there we split up into groups each day to get everything done and we all went to different places while Pams house was kind of like our main base. We also did food distribution, where we loaded A LOT of food into a trailer and drove it around the street to pass out food. I did this a few times and I absolutely loved it. The look on the peoples faces as we gave them the food and how happy they were. Everything about it was great, except for after the first day of me forgetting to put on sunscreen i got a really bad sunburn and that was not fun.
One of the things we did that I remember very vividly was cleaning out the one ladies house that had been infected with mold. The good part about it was that we got to wear hazmat suits and “are you my mummy” mask, which got annoying after a while. The reason I remember it so well is because the lady who lived there was actually a little bit of a hoarder so there was an unending amount of stuff to clean out. The fridge though was the worst part, it was the most horrid smelling thing I have ever smelt. It was all worth it though to see how happy she was at the end that we were helping her.
After I experienced going to Houston and helping all those people I was able to see the ways that God was working in the world and it really helped me. My problem wasn’t completely fixed but it was a good start and an amazing experience.
