Mission Trips

Bethel folks have engaged in mission trips to Virginia, West Virginia, the Gulf Coast, and Maryland. We’ve traveled with groups from neighboring churches, our Presbytery and by ourselves. Bethel delights in supporting those who go to serve and those whom we serve. Mission trips help us grow in our spiritual journeys to be the people God desires us to be, serving all, near by or farther away.

A reflection on the June 2008 trip to WV by Jane Thompson
WV Mission Trip:

  Prayer
  Leadership
  Planning
  Cooperation
  Communication
  Instruction
  Supply
  Willing Workers
  Friendship
  Fun

What is this list? It is how my Dad (Dick Thompson) summarized our mission trip to Kopperston, West Virginia. I have to agree with him, plus more. It was such a blessing to have another opportunity to travel to West Virginia to serve the Lord by being his hands for those in need. This year’s trip hit closer to home for me. Jayme, the father of the family where a small group worked on gutting and beginning the refinishing of the only bathroom in the home, is the same age as me. He has led a life with many hardships, including a gravely ill wife and his own heart and back problems that prevent him from working. The few opportunities that I had to talk with Jayme and his two daughters were refreshing in my own faith in how he talked about his faith and how he knows God is watching over him and his family. No matter what he is dealt, he knows the outcome is what the Lord wants to happen and is best, even if it doesn’t seem that way.
       
The home that the majority of us worked on (scraping, priming and painting the exterior) was for Becky, a mother, grandmother and retired nurse without the means to do the needed work on her own. It brought a different light to the trip. Becky’s neighbors would come out and talk, walk by and socialize, something Becky said has not happened in years. Having our youth around for the week meant a lot to her and made each day brighter. But having her neighbors out and talking to them also meant a lot to her. Our presence in this community made a difference, to some it might have been the sound of the truckers blowing their horn as they passed Becky’s home (most of which was prompted by our youth standing on the sidewalk), to others it was our hands that made a physical difference, and hopefully for most it was the smile seen on faces within our group and throughout the community as we did the work we were sent to do, no matter what meaning it had to each of us, we were there as God’s workers.
       
Going on the trip were: Tyler Nehrig, Jeremy Risinger,  Michael Griffith,  Dick & Jane Thompson and Nick & Bob Goossen and six friends from the Blairsville United Presbyterian Church.