news-record.com

Fifteen high school-age youth and five chaperones from Jamestown Presbyterian Church traveled to a rural area outside Mandeville, Jamaica, in June for a weeklong mission trip.

A planned vacation Bible school was canceled because of an H1N1 virus outbreak at the school on the day the youth arrived, but the young people stayed busy.

The trip, organized by Son Servants, included students from Wilmington and Cullowhee, as well as a large group from Nashville, Tenn.

After landing at the Montego Bay Airport, the group boarded a 50-year-old bus for a four-hour ride to Moorlands Camp, near Mandeville. The route is long because traveling into and through Kingston is considered much riskier because of the high crime rate in Jamaica’s capital city.

Students spent time at an infirmary, where some of the missionaries read scripture passages to the residents while others spent time listening to their stories. Many hours at an orphanage were spent just holding and talking to the children.

Construction work at homes and a school was performed by hand: mixing concrete and mortar with hoes and digging footings with shovels and pickaxes. All materials were transported by wheelbarrows and buckets.

Sometimes getting a crucial piece of wood or tool meant trekking a mile or two across the countryside to borrow from another work site.

The Jamestown group, led by youth minister Garrett Walston, had raised money to pay for the trip over nine months with events ranging from raking leaves in the fall to a chili cook-off featuring a cornhole tournament. The fundraising efforts paid for airfare and all trip expenses as well as helping to pay for construction materials.

The young people, too, were changed:

“The trip opened my eyes to how blessed we are in the United States. We have so much that people in poorer countries couldn’t even imagine having. Although the Jamaicans we worked with didn’t have material possessions, the one thing they do have is their faith in God, which they cherish above all else.”

— Clay Guernier, junior, Ragsdale High School

“The lifestyle in Jamaica is completely different than in America. It was cool to bond with people with accents, diets and traditions so different from our own. I was amazed that the children at the orphanage would never whine for petty reasons. I realized just how much we take for granted in America — and how our children are reared with so much emphasis on their wants rather than needs. Time held a different meaning in Jamaica than it does in America. Amazingly, your presence seemed to be valued more than your timeliness to most Jamaicans.”

— Caitlin Fulp, freshman, Elon University

“It can take a family in Jamaica generations to buy a plot of land, all the necessary materials and then build a house. One of the goals of the Son Servants is to speed the process by five years or more through donations of material and volunteer labor. At the end of the trip, I realized that the real purpose of the trip was to touch the lives of everyone around us through the love of Jesus.”

— Grace Lempp, junior, Ragsdale High School

“The trip was an amazing experience. It was great to learn about a new culture and help those in need.”

— Charlie Stanfield, senior,

Southwest Guilford High School

“The families we interacted with were extremely welcoming and appreciative of our presence. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I think we all felt that our rewards far exceeded our efforts.”

— John Lempp, parent chaperone

“A truly amazing experience. Many of the Jamaicans that I met, exhibited incredible faith despite the circumstances of their lives. At the Mandeville Infirmary, I met an 80-year-old man, blind for 20 years from what appeared to be cataracts. He told me that he trusted no man to cure his sight and that the Lord Jesus would let him see again one day.”

— Dan Fielding, parent chaperone