From Palm Trees to Pine Trees to Prickly Pears:

A Youth Ministry Summer Adventure
By Travis Mundy, Youth Director 

D'Wave Website

            You may have not noticed this, but I certainly have – every time I have had an opportunity to speak in our worship services, I’m always asking for money.  This has really bothered me, because that’s really not the kind of person I am.  Sure, I like receiving gifts (especially expensive gifts such as hybrid cars), but typically, I do not like soliciting monetary donations.  If you have noticed this trend as well, let me be the first to apologize for my repeated attempts to take your hard earned money. 

            At the same time, however, I feel like I need to defend myself.  Our youth ministry budget is fairly large and every year we use it to do great things for the church, for the community, and for our students and families.  Most notably, we use our yearly budget to offset the costs of everything we do for every single student (and considerably).  Yet because costs of things continually go up and because our youth ministry gets larger every year (and because our budget does not increase), we find we need extra help to do amazing things like mission trips and give our scholarships to students who need the help.

            With that said, I thought I should tell you about the adventures we’ve had this summer.  First, in late May and early June, we took a team of 28 students and leaders to Costa Rica for a 10-day mission trip.  In late 2007, we talked about going on a mission trip to a place that really needed help, a place where we could establish a relationship, rather than a one-and-done approach.  We found an organization called Alternative Missions based out of Phoenix and through them got excited about a small village in Costa Rica called Puerto Viejo.  After lots of meetings and prayers, our trip was due to start on May 27th.  Unfortunately for us, nobody told the airlines how important this trip was for our group and due to “severe weather” our flight was cancelled.  After 8 hours in the Tucson Airport and exhausting my cell phone battery, we finally arranged another passage for ourselves to Costa Rica.  Our group arrived and for the next week and a half, we sweat and got really dirty by building two playgrounds, a new school classroom and helping to refurbish a house at Cocles School, a place where hundreds of kids attended.  It was hard and gross and difficult, but very rewarding.  We also got to do VBS for the kids at the school as well as see many of the amazing ways Alternative Missions was ministering to this small village, such as through their skate park.  We even saw a sloth!  The trip was really great and life-changing for everyone involved.  And thanks to you, o congregation of St. Andrew’s, it was a wonderful trip.

            Right after that, we continued our summer schedule with tons of pool parties, service projects, worship nights and more.  Then finally in July, we took 82 people to Forest Home summer camp for a week of really meeting with Jesus and growing in relationships with each other.  Let me repeat that number in case you missed it:  82!!!  Most of these students were able to go because of the funds we raised from things such as the Moonlight Dinners and Golf Tournament.  This year was one of the best we’ve ever had and was REALLY powerful for our students and leaders in so many ways.   I would say every student that went came back passionately in love with Christ and ready to serve him in the world. 

            Not more than a week after camp, we had an ambitious event called Jr. High Mission Days, where for several days out of the summer, our jr. high students go around Tucson serving others in big ways ALL DAY LONG.  I thought being immediately after camp, we’d lose some students who needed to rest.  We had 40 jr. high students helping each day, so clearly I was wrong.  We partnered with The Giving Tree and GAP Ministries by serving food, packing and distributing backpacks for school and hung out with a ton of amazing Giving Tree kids.  So if you hear someone ever say about the youth of St. Andrew’s, “These are the future of the Church,” please gently correct them by saying that they’re not just the future…they are the church NOW.  How many other people doing what our youth did this summer?

            So now our summer is wrapped up.  We had about 20 amazing seniors graduate and now are going on to do great things for the Kingdom both at home and away.  More and more students are getting plugged in to the youth ministry and the church, but also really making a difference in their schools and homes.  And as for me…I finally finished graduate school, so I am now a Master of Divinity…so think twice next time you want to mess with me.  I hope you see that our youth are amazing and do amazing things for God’s Kingdom.  And our summer was possible because of your love and support.  If you want to check our pictures from our summer adventures, go to www.dwaveyouth.com and click on the “Photos” link.  But from all of us, thank you and may God bless you in surprising ways!