2025 Youth Trip to North Carolina – Final Day

Here we are, the 5th day of our North Carolina disaster relief trip of 2025. Our last day at camp.

Though the physical act of service wasn’t on the agenda for today, Sarah has talked with us about how rest is needed for the soul to process and carry on with its newfound memories, experiences, and understanding.

Rest can mean many different things to many different people. Rest can mean conversation; it could mean sleep. Rest could mean art, music or reading. Rest is enjoying what you have around you and allowing oneself grace to sit alone with their thoughts.

We need rest because service can be a hard thing to do. Not only physically, but mentally too. It is hard to see the sunken eyes and shaking hands of a kind woman due to pure exhaustion of hunger and surviving off bare minimum. It is hard to hear a little boy say how exciting it will be to have hot water again after a year of showering cold. It is hard to listen to someone’s struggles with a son dying from cancer knowing you cannot do anything about it but pray. It is hard to rest after service. It is hard to rest knowing some people don’t have that luxury- that opportunity – because their minds are still focused on daily survival.

Though, we understood that only a well-rested individual can pour their best work, their best attributes into service. Afterall you cannot promote peace if you don’t have inner peace yourself. How can we who have the luxury of rest and recreation allow it to be a springboard for our service to the whole.

We rested so we could remember and fully comprehend what is possible instead of what is wrong. We rested in unity and prayer through the Holy Spirit so we could come back home and know that this journey we’ve each was a part of a shared process and project beyond what we can even begin to imagine. That there is so much possibility, so much space and room for joy, goodness, and love: a reminder that we can have hope for the future.

So yes, we rested. We hiked and conversed. We prayed and played. We slept, read, and ate all with smiles plastered upon our faces. We made bracelets of color- of friendship and painted the beauty of nature. We sat on the porch and took a long hike. We climbed high towards and cheered each other on. We journaled, reaching from the bottom of our soul to grow yet again. We observed as the breeze swayed and swirled, and the clouds danced upon the sky with the strength and resilience of the mountains nearby.

We wept and worshiped. Boy did we worship hard.

We remembered.

We connected the dots of what service means to us, to those around us, and to the world. All so we can be a service to those in need, to each perfectly imperfect child of God: to everyone.

During worship we learned Kumbaya means come by here. Often, we feel as though we cannot rest, that we must work and chase God’s love. But Kumbaya can serve as a reminder that God is with us always, that we don’t have to earn or work for God’s love. That God comes to us even when we are resting so He can later work through us.

Each of us, every day, encounter God in what God has planned – and in many things we don’t have planned. He, therefore, is working through us as vessels. Each experience, each encounter, each thought and memory… that is the Lord, if we would listen. You don’t need to go to North Carolina to do service. Just smile at a stranger or pick up trash in the street, care about someone else’s story, get involved with the non-profit down the street.

In the wise words of Sarah Iverson… Instead of looking at what is wrong with the world, think of all the possibilities that haven’t yet been explored.

One last thing. I will give you a taste of the North Carolina trip and leave you here with a question to ponder as we travelers have done: Do you allow yourself to rest in God’s pretense? How does the Lord work through you?

Bless you all – A well-rested, deeply grateful, perfectly imperfect child of God

This slideshow requires JavaScript.