OG "Old Group"
Adult Mission Trips
NEW!!! UPCOMING
Mission Trip to Toa Alta, Puerto Rico
March 12 – 20, 2011
We’ll renovate houses in the Barrio Piņas and do a little sightseeing in Old
San Juan. Dates are March 12-20; cost is between $1,500 - $1,800.
Please RSVP by 5:00pm on Monday, January 24 to Elizabeth Smith (elizabeth@godsacre.org
or 203-966-2651 x6). Find out more and view the
preview video here:
TOA ALTA PREVIEW
(when viewing video promo, please remember that the
departure date has been revised to MARCH 12!)
Mini Mission Trip to
Baltimore
May 27 – 31, 2009
Using
just four days instead of a week, OG took their first “mini” mission trip to
Baltimore, Maryland. There they worked with Sandtown Habitat for Humanity,
a non-profit Christian organization in the Sandtown neighborhood in west
Baltimore. Sandtown Habitat’s mission is to rebuild vacant houses in the
neighborhood which it accomplishes by working in partnership with a
homeowner and using volunteer labor. In a team effort, the OG group
followed on the heels of the youth group (YG), who had worked in Sandtown
during their spring mission trip in April. Including contractor, Jim
Chevalier, and Director of Service Ministries, Connie McManus, ten OG
mission fish volunteered their services and put the finishing touches on one
home almost ready for occupancy, and began the framing of a brand new
project in the neighborhood. In total, 263 homes have been renovated since
the program began in 1989.
6th
Annual OG Mission Trip
New Orleans, Louisiana
For the second time
since Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans area, members of the
Congregational Church were called to the Gulf Coast to help renovate
devastated homes. This time in 2008, our church partnered
with First Street United Methodist Church and their senior pastor, Reverend
Lance Eden, in the Central City part of New Orleans. Rev Eden was only 27
years old and had been at the church only two months when Hurricane Katrina
hit. He sought shelter in Baton Rouge but upon returning, immediately
opened up his church as a soup kitchen to feed the displaced and hungry in
the area.
Today, two and a half
years later, about 60% of the residents have returned to the Central City
area of New Orleans. Some are living in homes that are barely habitable
The adult mission team chose to renovate the homes of two parishioners. One
home had been under eight feet of water for 18 days after the hurricane.
The other residence sustained water and wind damage. Under the leadership
of Connie McManus, Director of Service Ministries and Jim Chevalier, head
volunteer contractor, the group did carpentry work, sheet rocking, general
clean up, painting and landscaping at the sites.
5th
Annual OG Mission Trip
San Pedro
Town, Belize
24 adults traveled to Belize in late January, 2007 to work on
Phase III of the youth center for the Living Word Church in San Pedro Town,
Belize. Our Quest and Alumni youth groups had previously
completedPhases I and II so that when OG arrived, the cinder block walls and cement
forms had been constructed. Phase III would prove to be the most
difficult project ever tackled by OG. Approximately 100 bags of cement
were hand-mixed with sand and water to create concrete. Buckets were then
filled and delivered to different stations where the newly trained
adults would sling the mixture onto the walls of the building inside and
out, thereby creating stucco. Jim Chevalier acted as volunteer head
contractor supported by Joe DeTullio and Frank Lyon. By the end of the
week, six of the eight walls were covered in stucco and 24 tired mission
workers were very proud!
The group bonded with the members of Living Word Church on
the first Sunday during worship, then at a lunch prepared
by the women of the congregation. Pastor Ian shared his vision of
completing the youth center and offering youth programs for many students on
the island who currently do not have a place to gather for worship and
fellowship. A final worship celebration and dinner completed the week with
both congregations coming together once more. The service was held in the
shell of the youth center where the group had labored all week. Connie
Gross, Director of Service Ministries and leader of the trip reflected, “It
was a beautiful night, and since there was no roof yet, we looked at the
stars while we sang and worshipped together. It was truly a memorable
experience.”
4th
Annual OG Mission Trip
Hurricane
Katrina Relief
For the
first time, OG and YG joined together on a single mission. The 84 youth and
36 adult mission fish journeyed to Biloxi, Mississippi in February of 2006
to begin a massive work project in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
OG was
divided into two teams, each charged with rebuilding the home of a hurricane
evacuee family. Volunteer contractor and church member, Craig Hunt,
organized the beginning phase of reconstruction. With the help of three
other volunteer contractors, the OG teams began a week of concentrated
rebuilding. They installed kitchen cabinets and flooring in both homes and
made many structural repairs to the exteriors. OG painted the
interiors of both houses and landscaped the front yards to complete the
project.
Director of Service Ministries, Connie Gross, led the trip and remarked that
one of the greatest rewards of this mission trip was that the volunteers
made personal connections with the people who would benefit from the
projects. The homeowners had been living in FEMA trailers in their yards,
unable to afford to make repairs. They were excited to work with OG as
partners on their own renovations, knowing that it would get them out of
trailers and back into their own precious homes.
The
Biloxi Mission Trip was a unique opportunity for three generations of church
mission volunteers to work on separate projects, yet come together in
worship with the people they had served in Biloxi.
"Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things"
3rd
Annual OG Trip - Wabasso, Florida
Eighteen adults spent a beautiful week in March of 2005
working at the Dasie Hope Center in Wabasso, Florida. The Dasie Hope Center
is an after school program developed by Verna Wright in honor of her mother,
Dasie Bridgewater. From
60 to 90 children come to the center every day after school to relax, get a
healthy snack, do homework, play board games, get cooking and etiquette
instruction and learn computer skills. Although the center is located in
the cafeteria/activity center at an old school with plenty of land
surrounding it, the facilities and property were in disrepair and overgrown,
and not conducive to outdoor activity.
Led
by Director of Service Ministries, Connie Gross, OG began a series of
projects to create an outdoor recreation center for the children. One team
cleared the overgrown black top surface and then resurfaced it; then put in
basketball poles and backstops. Lines were laid out and benches
installed, with the end result being a new basketball court where the
children can play and exercise. Another team began assembly of a commercial
playground including two swing sets, a fitness center and a freestanding
structure consisting of a slide and climbing wall. Near the end of the week
the group spruced up an existing baseball field, built wooden picnic benches
and landscaped the front and back of the building.
Throughout the week, members of OG bonded with the children of the center
after school by working on craft projects and reading together and helping
with homework. On the final day, the group had a celebration dinner with
the children and volunteers of the center and all enjoyed playing outside
and using the recreation center's new facilities.
2nd
Annual OG Mission Trip
Opelousas, Louisiana
The
second annual OG Mission trip took 20 adult members of our congregation to
Opelousas, Louisiana in April of 2004. There we met 15 members from the
Bethesda Christian Center in Chicago. Together, the group of 35 tackled
three projects including:
-
the addition
to a community center used for Bible Study and prayer groups;
-
roofing and painting
two houses in need of repair;
-
renovating the
inside and painting the outside of a transformation house owned by a
homeless shelter for women and children.
All 35 mission members attended vespers every evening led by Reverend Skip
Masback and Pastor David Rivera. Working together and praying together with
our brothers and sisters from Bethesda and Opelousas offered each member a
chance to reflect on their own unique gifts as children of God. The love
for God and one another was apparent as the week went on. Friendships grew
strong and although all were very tired at the end of each day, the chance
to reflect and pray together in the evening was the highlight of the t rip
for many.
The
First-Ever Adult Mission Trip:
Building the New St. Michael’s Church
in
Rolleville, Exuma
In April of 2003, Rev. Skip Masback and Connie Gross led
the very first adult mission trip to the island of Exuma in the Bahamas.
The people of Rolleville, a small town at the northwest end of the island,
worshipped in a wooden church with holes in the roof that desperately needed
repair. The 27 adult missionaries undertook two projects. The first
was to repair the roof on the existing church and repaint the outside as
plans called for the church to later be used as a youth center. The second
project was to begin building a new church from the ground up, starting with
cinder blocks.
This extensive project
was continued in June when the Quest Youth Group mission trip arrived for a
week of service and fellowship. The high school youth put a roof on
the new church and continued painting and repairing the old church. This
group of YG “Youth Group” missionaries fondly gave the adults that preceded
them the name of "OG", or "Old Group" in
deference to their relative ages.
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