Deuteronomy 6:5-7 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."
No, you won't find anywhere in Scripture that commands us to take our children hundreds of miles away in order to serve others, but we ARE to teach our children to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, and mights! And this does mean teaching them to serve others. According to the Bible this is God's heart. It is very tempting for parents with little ones to feel like all they are able to do is to just serve their family. It's easy to think, "We'll focus on serving others outside of our immediate family when life is not so crazy." Sure there are times in life where it is physically impossible to do anything else but what is right in front of you. The point is that we should always be looking for ways to train our little ones to serve others. This is best done as they watch their parents in action! Regretfully our family has not always striven to do this.
Hebrews 13:16 "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
Galations 6:2 "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Many Christian parents find various ways of obeying this teaching, but since becoming parents Micah and I have realized that the average church sponsored "mission trip" is not very inviting to a family with little ones. When Micah and I were single we served on various trips overseas and in the States. This is something that we both have longed to share with our children and it just didn't make sense to wait 15 or so years to do so. To be honest many short term mission trips are not ideal for bringing a preschooler or two (or 4 for that matter) along, and for good reason. I wouldn't say that EVERY trip ought to have little people in tow, but after a stay in New Orleans, we have found ourselves more and more excited about sharing short term ministry trips with other families like ours.
The Work Begins
Micah and his brother Ben began work on Mr. Joe's roof on the Monday after Thanksgiving. They were not able to find anyone to help out for the first two days, but by Wednesday they had a local man named Rich helping out full time. On Thursday another man from the area named Andy was able to provide some on the ground help for that day. On Friday one of the staff members, Alex, from Crossroads Ministry (a para church resource group) was able to commit to helping out with the rest of the project alongside Micah, Ben, and Rich. Crossroads Ministry and St. Roch Community Church were instrumental in providing the materials, manual laborers, and the tools to complete the job.
Weather was a real concern every now and then. Before we left Illinois for Louisiana the weather report was calling for rain 4 out of 5 working days. We asked friends and family to pray for the Lord's favor. By the time the work week was in full swing, the forecast was calling for just 1 day of rain! As it turned out there was only a very small amount of time (maybe an hour) that was negatively effected by the weather. The rest of the time the area was dry and the temperatures were perfect for winter roofing (60's and 70's the first week and 50's and 60's the following week.) We praise the Lord for all of the weather related blessings, and are so thankful for our friends who remembered us in prayer!
A Part of the Culture
The kids and I manned the home front. There were days when it felt impossible to entertain 4 little people without the normal comforts of home, but in reality we were so blessed to be able to stay with Micah's brother Ben in his apartment on the Navy base. Putting the kids down for naps was much easier there than it would have been had we stayed in a hotel. Micah's brother Ben was very generous in so many ways and helped in so many ways to make the trip go smoothly!
We were also able to do a bit of site seeing with Uncle Ben. It was neat to experience the differences in culture with our family. We visited Great Oak Plantation, got to walk through an old cemetery (one of Micah's favorite things to do), toured the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, walked the French Quarter, and got to sample delicious Louisiana cooking. Gumbo, jambalaya, cheese grits, wow! So good!
Reciprocal Ministry
As many of you know I am an avid knitter, I pretty much have yarn with me wherever I go. I decided that since I couldn't be any help with the roofing venture that I would use the two weeks that we would be gone to learn how to read a crochet pattern and to crochet as many baby items as possible to donate to an area pro life ministry. This gave me many great opportunities to remind the kids what we were doing at Uncle Ben's house. They knew that daddy and Uncle Ben were fixing Mr. Joe's roof, and that mommy was making blankets and hats for babies. I reminded them that they could help us do more to serve by being obedient, entertaining their baby brother, helping with chores, etc. Towards the end of our trip the kids and I covered pretzels with chocolate as a gift to give to Mr. Joe before we left. The kids also made cards to give to him. 
We were so blessed by Mr. Joe's Christlike spirit. The kids and I got to chat with him both Sundays that we were at St. Roch's Community Church. Micah and Ben were encouraged by his fellowship throughout the days that they worked on his roof. Mr. Joe also sent back a pie, bread, various treats for the kids, etc during the week. The last night of our stay in New Orleans we went to the City Park to see all of the Christmas lights with Mr. Joe. Before piling into our cars Mr. Joe told us that he wanted to take us to "The Morning Call," a restaurant inside the City Park that served Beignets, a doughnut that you can only buy in New Orleans. We enjoyed sweet fellowship with him, and just as we were leaving he gave us a bag of doughnuts to take home with us. What a beautiful and humbling experience to be blessed by other brothers and sisters in Christ!
The Work Continues
The roof is finished now, and the baby items were received by Save a Life ministries in Selma, Alabama. We can't wait to see what new project the Lord might have in store for us. Currently our plan is to use the 2014 ministry trip time that Micah receives from Samaritan Ministries to help with the reconstruction efforts following the November tornadoes that hit Washington, Illinois and Northern Indiana. We also look forward to researching ways to help other families such as ours minister on short term mission trips around the world. Our plan is to find those who are already in the ministry field and ask them what it is that they or those they know might need that a young family or family with little ones would be able to provide for them. We will also be looking into finding places for families to stay while serving that would best use the resources of the Body of Christ.
We would appreciate continued prayers and words of encouragement as we seek the Lord's face on this venture that the He has given us a burden for!
(The finished roofing project! Photos thanks to Ben Repke.)
The rest of the mission trip pictures can be found here!
https://www.facebook.com/jrepke/media_set?set=a.10151758391291651.1073741836.541021650&type=3
The rest of the mission trip pictures can be found here!
https://www.facebook.com/jrepke/media_set?set=a.10151758391291651.1073741836.541021650&type=3
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