NY Mission Trip Day Seven

Saturday- Our last day at Word of Life found us waking up early with the campers as they began to shut camp down for the week. We had breakfast at the Bible Institute and then headed over to the meeting rooms for our team devotion and debrief. It was a wonderful time for all of us to reflect upon our week.  Here's what the Lord taught us: we learned to find joy in the mundane. What we meant by that was that our tasks during the week were not glamorous (cleaning toilets & showers; chopping logs and child care) but very needed for the camp. Most of the workers at the camp are volunteers and students of the Bible Institute, part of their service credits are being counselors & workers at the various Word of Life Camps (Ranch, Ridge, Island & Pines). We had the opportunity to give some of the workers a bit of a break this week doing the tasks that help make camp run. We reflected upon how necessary these mundane tasks were, though not necessarily glamorous, and how many of these type of tasks that are needed back home when we returned. Our team agreed that we learned about finding joy and allowing the Power of the Holy Spirit to work within us and through us when we were tired and weary. This was such a special FBC team with all ages and stages working together for the good of the Word of Life camps. We had a family serving,  a retired couple, a father/son duo, a teacher who took time out of their summer and best of all we got to live and serve alongside our missionaries, Tiago, Amy, Isabella, Julia & Jake Braganholo for the week. We all agreed that we learned so much more about the Word of Life ministries and appreciated the Volunteer Coordinator, David McClain for all of his hard work to make this trip possible.
After our team devotion & debrief, we did, you guess it... cleaned our bathrooms and dorm rooms and packed up our luggage. We headed to the cafeteria and packed lunches for our team and then headed into the van and made the one hour and thirty minute drive to Albany with a quick stop at Riley's (it's like Buc-ee's but on a much smaller scale cause everything is big in Texas!). We said our goodbyes to the Braganholo's as they were headed back home.  As we arrived at the airport we learned that our flight into Orlando was going to be late that would cause us to miss our connecting flight so we quickly changed the flight to the later one only to learn that all flights were delayed and then we got back on the original flight scheduled. Mission Trip travel is always fun and very adventurous! Our team handled the delay changes well and we enjoyed our last few hours together before we arrived back to Dallas well after midnight.
Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support. Our team lived out 1 Peter 4:10 Each one of us used our gifts to serve the Lord and one another. This mission trip was a special one and we each agreed that we came together as a mission team for one week but are leaving as good friends with a bond that will forever be remembered as we continue to serve the Lord with joy in whatever tasks He gives us.