Hephzibah Missions Trip: How God Provided

This past weekend, one of our missions teams shared their experiences from the Hephzibah Children's Home. Robin Schara (Director of Global Missions and Women’s Ministry) was away on another adventure (delivering Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes in Guyana!), so today on the blog we get to hear her testimony about the Hephzibah trip.

God had been speaking to me loud and clear this past month about how He provides what we need before we even know we need it. One simple example is when I traveled to Hephzibah Children’s home with a team on a mission trip the end of January.

Our outbound flight on Southwest Airlines was cancelled due to a blizzard in Baltimore, our connecting city. That cancellation pushed back our flight one day so we extended the trip to leave on Sunday instead of Saturday. Here is how God provided what we needed before we even knew we need it:

• The fact that the entire team was able to stay an extra day was a provision from God.
   
• Hephzibah Children’s home houses mission teams on their campus. Normally, they book teams back to back so the apartments are usually full. This month, our team was the only team scheduled for January. That allowed us to stay another night because the accommodations were available.
   
• If I know we are going to book a car rental on a mission trip, I usually book it far in advance to get the cheapest rate. When I went to add a day to the car rental it was going to double the price because car rentals don’t let you add a day, you have to start from scratch. Booking a car the day before only ended up in outlandish prices. However, hotwire popped  up on my computer screen so I decided to take the risk to prepay and book with them. It turned out the cost of the car was half the price of the original reservation and we ended up with a lovely van from Hertz.
   
• In the past, whenever we have gone on a mission trip to Hephzibah we have always gone as a work team to help with the maintenance of the campus. We never spent much time with the residents, maybe an hour or two the entire week. This trip was different though, we were there on the weekend. The maintenance staff does not work on Saturday. We were able to complete all the work projects by mid-day Friday. That left us Friday night and all day Saturday free. You know what we did? We spent it with the wonderful residents on the campus… 18 teenage girls (11 of them moms with babies from age two weeks to two-years-old) and seven teenage boys.

We had a blast baking chocolate cookies, doing crafts and playing outdoor games. We interacted and engaged with these wonderful kids who all have very heartfelt stories of why they are at Hephzibah.

We fell in love with each one of them and their babies. We came home changed. Our opinion changed of what we thought the residents would be like because of the hand life has dealt them. They were the nicest, sweetest, most polite and respectful group of teenagers, many who recently have come to accept the saving grace of Christ.

God provided what we needed before we even knew what we needed and that was a Saturday to mentor youth who touched our lives.

Have you been on a missions trip? We are accepting applications for several trips this year at www.easternhillschurch.org/trips. There are so many stories of God's provision before, during and after missions trips through Eastern Hills; as Pastor Robin said, He provides what we need before we even know we need it. So the question to ask is: If He says GO, will you say YES?