Dear Friends:
A few weeks ago, our church held a special event called "Missionary Week". During the space of a single week, we try to give our youth (12-18) a small taste of what it's like to be a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At church, I serve as what would normally be known as a "youth minister". Essentially, I'm responsible for all of the young men across the Southern Austin area. Together with my friend who is responsible for all the young women, we organize this event for about 200 youth.
Each year, we try to hold a large event that is the culmination of the week's activities. This year, we decided to conduct a rather large service project. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it gives the youth a chance to understand that "service" is a huge part of being a missionary.
As anyone who has organized service projects knows - we tried to avoid having kids stand around and let a small number do the actual work. With a normal attendance of about 150 at our largest events, we had to find a manageable service project that could accommodate this size group.
We worked together with the Burke Center for Youth. This is a ranch that serves as a home and school for young men that have been removed from their homes, due to abuse or neglect. It breaks my heart to think that we even need a facility like this, but I'm glad there are options for young men who have come from some difficult surroundings. We worked with the facility management to identify projects that they wanted to get done. They couldn't believe that we would tackle as much as we wanted to.
The Burke Center is actually a ranch in Driftwood, Texas...not far from Austin. We ended up having almost 200 youth come join us for a single morning. We also had about 50 adults join the project, to handle some of the logistical planning for building and repairing some of the facilities.
It's hard to put everything into words. The acts of service rendered that morning were incredible. The facilities manager said that we accomplished about two years of work in a single morning. The positive attitudes and "can do" spirit that I saw exemplified that morning were inspiring. I wanted to share some of the photos of the various projects. I have quite a few more...but this should give you an idea of what took place.
The morning started by gathering all the kids together, and helping them understand "why" they were there. That's me in the neon-yellow vest, about to address the crowd:
Everyone was divided into manageable groups - assigned specific projects across the entire ranch. Some were painting, others were clearing brush, while still others were replacing toilets. Different groups actually built structures, and some built shelving into existing structures - to help the staff organize materials. Another group actually built bunk beds for staff that have to live on-site. Yet another group created a baseball/softball field for the young men to play on. Incredible...
One project was a "meditation center". Basically, a peaceful place that the young men could go and ponder. This didn't exist before that morning. When finished, this is what we left behind:
Simply amazing... When the youth finished, we grilled hot dogs for them. I sure do love these youth..and didn't mind cooking hundreds of hot dogs for them ; )
We had everyone gather for a final picture - just to give you an idea of the size of the entire group:
That's me in the white chef's hat - in the lower middle ; )
After hearing from many of the youth at church the next day, we found that the entire experience was transformative. The event was a huge success - not just because we fixed and painted a few thing - but because we had shown those young men on the ranch that a lot of people cared about them. We proved to them that they were worth all of this effort. At the end of the day, each of our youth also benefitted from a big day of service. Hearts were touched and inspired by some selfless acts by a great bunch of kids.
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