Wednesday, August 6, 2003
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Wednesday, August 6, 2003 |
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Peachtree City youth, adults return from mission trip to South America On June 13, the Peachtree City United Methodist Church sent 13 people on an 11-day international mission trip to the South American country of Chile. Their destination was The Methodist Church of Coquimbo, the oldest Methodist church in the country, which was celebrating its 125th anniversary. The group, under the direction of David Stewart, director of student ministries at Peachtree City UMC, consisted of eight high school students (Meghan Lasseter, Clint Adams, Brent Rosa, Alexis Ilnicki, Kelly Freeburg, Emily Reider, Jenna Goedtke and Christina Kelly), two college interns (Drew Hartley and Courtney Hudson), and three adults (Stewart, LaDonna Robinson and Louise Kelly). From Atlanta, they traveled on a 10 1/2-hour flight to Santiago, and then on to La Serena, Chile. As the group walked off the plane into unfamiliar territory, they were greeted by many of the members of the Coquimbo church members they would be working with throughout the next week. "From the moment we stepped off the plane and saw them waving flags, I knew that God had blessed us and we were in for something special," said Drew Hartley, summer intern at Peachtree City UMC. To commemorate the South American church's anniversary celebration, the group presented members with a celebration banner and other gifts, including 80 Bibles, 40 hymnals, children's Bibles in Spanish and a monetary donation. The group also painted the inside and outside of one of the church's preaching point/youth center buildings, located in an impoverished neighborhood, and the main church temple. Their color choice for the church was a pink with maroon trim. "While (the color is) unorthodox, it looks very good," a group member said. Although they worked early and for quite a while every day, there was much more to the trip than just work. Christina Kelly, one of Peachtree City's youth members said, "We focused not only on the work, but also the spiritual labor." They worshipped with the Chileans in church services, attended their youth group (which goes up to age 30), celebrated their anniversary, played sports, attended a cultural ceremony, visited schools, and more importantly, they say, spent countless hours bonding. All agreed that the work they performed could not come close to the importance of the relationships that were formed. Hartley said, "We were total strangers going down there, but soon after we arrived, we already felt like family." The group said the Chileans could not have treated them any better than they did. They took the PTCUMC group under their wings to make them "feel comfortable." They even built a kitchen in their temple so they would be able to cook for them. Every person they met showed them the utmost kindness, the group agreed. Alexis Ilnicki describes the ladies that cooked for the group as "replacement mothers." Even now, after their return to Peachtree City, members of the group still keep in touch through e-mail. One may have thought that the language barrier between English and Spanish would have posed a problem, but one group member said it just made it that much sweeter. They were assigned a translator to help with communication throughout the week, but the translator couldn't be in multiple places at one time. Luckily, many members of the group were familiar with Spanish, including two relatively fluent speakers. These people, and one Chilean with a great deal of education in English, made communicating much smoother. The group said they gained just as much from the Chileans as they gave, however, their reward was not in tangible objects. Jenna Goedtke said, "We went there to help them, but I don't think they could ever know how much they helped and changed all of us." Many of the students have discussed returning to Chile, or maybe even raising money to have them come visit the United States. "Whatever happens," one group member said, "the lives of people in two countries have been blessed and changed." |
