Mission Trips: A Wildwood Tradition
Youth on a Mission
WildFire, WPC's high school youth fellowship, has taken a mission trip each summer since 1995. The inaugural trip to Beallsville, Kentucky, involved ten youth and three adults; recent groups number as many as fifty people.
Most trips involve a minivan caravan to small communities in Appalachia, where there is work to be done in housing renovation and repair. Every three years or so, a different cultural experience is sought, and so WildFire has done all kinds of community service on the Sioux Reservation in Yankton, South Dakota; in Dixon, New Mexico, north of Taos; in Washington, D.C., and most recently (2007) in D'Iberville, Mississippi, where the youth were part of the ongoing church response to Hurricane Katrina.
Mission trips are first and foremost an opportunity to be part of God's renewing and restoring work in the world. There is always time for fun, however, and the strong bonds built between participants are an added benefit. Many graduating seniors write about their mission trip experiences on their college applications, and one of the most popular worship services of the year is the Sunday our youth report to the congregation about their trip.
Adult Mission Trips
Men and women in the congregation have recently begun to follow the youth lead and take mission trips of their own. In 2095 six people headed south to the village of El Amaton, El Salvador, on the slopes of El Chingo, a volcano on the Guatamalan border. There WPC member Megan Gregory was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. One of Megan's many projects involved building an addition to the school in El Amaton so that children would be able to complete the first level of education in their own village, thus increasing the probability that some of the children would continue their education.
WPC funded the school, quickly raising the $6000 required. Our adult mission trippers spent a week helping parents build the school, laying the foundation and the first several rows of brick. Humbled by the generous and gracious response of the people of El Amaton, our mission team came home with many heartwarming stories and a sense of being part of God's work in the world.
In 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, Wildwood sent teams to the Gulf Coast of the United States to aid in relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Two teams spent one week in a "Volunteer Village" in Mississippi set up to house people from all over the country by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the relief arm of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The third team was based in First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans. Each worked long hours to repair, restore, and sometimes to save the homes of people afflicted by the hurricane. Our teams returned with gratitude for the opportunity to make a difference, and an appreciation for the continuing graciousness of people who have lost so much, and yet retain genuine hope and strong faith.
Further mission trips are being planned for the Gulf Coast in fall 2008 and 2009. Call or email the church office at for information or to be included on an email list with updates on future mission trips.