Lifechange Camp and Retreat Center and our group from VOP will never be the same.  With 12 excited students and 2 over caffeinated leaders, we swooped in and “Got’er Done”.   For 4 days we worked and played hard and left exhausted, sun burnt, itchy, and yet completely satisfied by all of the above.

While at Lifechange our main objective was to build a trail that ran along the backside of the camp’s property.  This was 660ft of dense southwest Missouri forest.  So armed with rakes, machetes, and hedge clippers we started the job.  I was skeptical how a bunch of City folk would handle being in the woods, but if you would have seen those students work you would have thought you were looking at the teenage children of Louis and Clarke themselves.  They cut, sliced, and cleared every branch, tree, and log that got in their way.  What started as thick foliage and underbrush was nothing but dirt when they were finished.  It was amazing what they got done with a heart of service and the willingness to finish the task set before them.

All that happened during the day, but at night we started clearing a different kind of trail. There were no trees which needed to be chopped or brush that needed to be raked but just as many snares and thorns which needed to be identified, cut down, and burned.  So with the help of James, each other, and God’s clippers (conviction and reproof) we began/continued the journey of our faith whose destination is the very heart of God.

The trip was wonderful.  I gave the students a survey the morning of our last day.  The number one thing they said they would change if given the chance was that they would make it longer.  If that isn't what a youth pastor wants to hear after his first mission trip, I don't know what is.  So 660ft of trail finished, 14 people exhausted yet fulfilled, 1 camp changed forever.  Mission (trip) accomplished.