Mission Trip: 802 Youth

(all these are copied from my WhatsApp Mission Trip Support group)

[3/11, 12:52 am]

So in this mission trip, we have two teams.

Team A and Team B. We're Team B.

Yesterday night, Team A did their youth programme for a different church's youth at our Bible HQ office.

And they had amazing testimonies where their teenagers up to 19 years old were crying and how they were so engaged with the teaching that during ministry they overshot by an hour and lies about their identity were broken that night.

And there were healings and salvations and etc etc

And I was like, "That's great! I hope tonight would be awesome too!"

And at the start of this mission trip, one of my team members shared that this whole mission trip...is like a wedding.

We've prepared long and hard for this wedding.

Now that wedding is here, all we have to do is to just enjoy the day.

Anyway

Tonight's wedding was a nightmare 💀

Earlier this year, when I was appointed to be the Youth Leader for this mission trip, everyone was like "Belle, you're perfect because you'll be able to relate to the youth better than us!"

And y'know, I'm 21. And the average age of my classmates is 50 years old.

So what they say makes sense.

But today I felt really old 😂

The youths were

1. Extremely crazy
2. Extremely loud
3. Extremely chaotic

and so on and so forth.

Which, actually, is quite normal!

That means the youths have good friends! And that's really good!

And then they shocked us when one of the girls got too excited during one of the games and both teams were arguing and grabbed one of our mics and shrieked into it to make her point 😂💀

We all became a bit deaf in that moment 😂

I was MC throughout the entire programme, and I realised it's really hard to be engaging when you have no idea what everyone is talking about.

So hats off to people who speak in foreign countries and need a translator. It's hard.

We played a couple of games and the youths love the games! So that's a plus point.

During the skit, the kids watched, enraptured.

The teenagers made jokes with each other, but, they still watched, so that was good

During my team mate's testimony about her life, one boy was behaving really badly and was sniggering and he was disturbing everyone else. 😭

But these were not OUR youths, so we cannot go against what their youth leaders normally do/don't do.

But poor soul, my friend overshot and took a much longer time to finish her testimony. 😂

(It's difficult to focus when teenagers sound like they're laughing at you, trust me)

By the time I came up to share my teaching, the youths' attention span had long since expired 😬

The youths were yawning, scrolling on their phones, talking to each other, joking around, fidgeting and they were obviously out of it. And I was already out of time. So I ended my teaching before I reached the halfway point. 😂

I summarised that following God in your life can only last if you know God's love for you. But it'll never last if you never know how much God loves you. :)

But it was a good call. I had quickly sensed and decided the youths did not want more talking, so I didn't waste any breath or time.

And that left plenty of time for the activity planned, and we were able to do one-on-one prayer and ministry. During that ministry, we broke into little pairs or groups with the youths and kids, and talked with them, and asked what they wanted prayer for.

I prayed for a girl called Janelle who wanted to improve in her grades and piano but didn't know how. So I told her about the Holy Spirit, and how the Holy Spirit will always help you, and how He has helped me in my studies.

One kid wanted to know what heaven is like, and shared a secret with one of my Vietnamese team member 😂

Another little girl asked for prayer for her mummy, daddy, grandpa and grandma ❤️

One of my teammates ministered to the boy who was causing so much disturbances during the testimony, and he was crying!

Tonight's 'wedding' was a nightmare.

Absolutely nothing went to plan, but we managed to get stuff happening, and tie the knot.

But y'know what, tonight is actually a very normal teenager experience in today's day and age! 😂

My team and I learned a lot today. I especially learned a lot about myself—the mistakes I had been making all this while and etc

But for now, those things I'm going to keep to myself for personal fermentation reflection 😁

On the walk back, I told one of my team

"You'll never really know what happens to a person after you finish a conversation with them.

"Maybe something happens immediately and you're like, OH, THAT is the result!

"But actually, that could just be the beginning of many thoughts and decisions that we will never be there to witness."

All this while, I had been judging the youth based off what I see.

Rude and rowdy little disrespectful teens. I don't want to have anything to do with them.

But what if I realised what I'm doing, and stopped?

What if I stopped and decided, 'Okay, God, I feel like this is a huge waste of my time, but actually that's not true, because you can raise the dead to life. And you can raise life into what feels like a dead programme/message/outcome.'

So yeah! God is good. 😂 We've done mostly what we've prepared for. We've planted the seeds and maybe we'll live to hear of the growth, or maybe we won't ever hear of it.

But we did what God has called us to do for tonight, and I am very happy, and very very proud of my team. :)