Once we received the information from Stephen Nichols, our team leader, that we had been selected to be a team member for this mission trip we were required to attend a GlobalX Safety & Security Training course.
This course was very informative and we all learned a lot. I can bet our team will all be wearing blue jeans & lace up sneakers on our flight and sitting on our hands during take off & landing. Many things we never even thought about when traveling were brought to light and will help us to be safe on our venture. Thank you GlobalX for providing this to everyone going on a mission trip this year.
We also had a wonderful team social at Stephen Nichols' home on March 12th. It was a great time for us all to share a little about ourselves and to get to know one another a little better. From the looks of things, this team is going to work very well together and have a great time doing so. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together. Everyone brought something and Stephen made fabulous pork bar-b-que and his special sauce. A special thanks to Teresa, Stephen's amazing wife, for hosting.
On Sunday, April 3rd, we all met at team member Sherri's home for a social event to meet 9 of the people from the Jonas Project and the supporting church in Venezuela.
We had lunch and were able to socialize with the Jonas Project members as well as our team. After lunch we gathered in the family room and the kind folks from Venezuela fielded questions about what we will be doing once we arrive and what the Jonas Project is all about. This is a little of what we learned.
Jonas Project: When the government institutions can no longer help a young boy (8-18), they call Jonas Project, and they will come to the rescue. Both parties believe this boy could get out of the cycle he is in, but needs a higher authority. Since the government institutions can not teach this, Jonas Project comes in and tries to teach the young man a new way, God's way. They have to start all over with these boys. The boys may be addicts, children of addicts, abused, or all of the above. The goal is get them to believe and see God LOVES them. They teach these boys how to care for themselves, bath, dress, etc. The boys will have a daily schedule; including school which will allow them to finish HS as well as therapy for addiction, depression, abandonment, or whatever support they require. Once the boys are here, they are free to leave at any time. They have had wonderful results thus far, and many of the young men have gone on to be very productive members of society. Local factories and businesses have come to Jonas Project looking for graduates of the program to hire because of the ethics these young men have.
Our Mission: The house or La Granja (aka the farm) is a large house and piece of property where up to 18 boys can live full time. They currently only have 9, and financially can only afford 13. Jonas Project works solely on donations and often the donations are slim. They only have 2 full time staff, but could use 4 full time staff members. The house is structurally sound but it is old and there are many issues with maintaining and upgrading it . These are not quick fixes. They need quality long term repairs. They will be sending us a list and pictures of the repairs that need to be made. There are 3 trips going to VZ, and we are the last. We will be finishing the list. The teams going before us will be in communication with us as well. Here is a picture of the 9 Venezuelans who were in town for the Drive Conference at North Point Community Church.
We also had a team meeting on Sunday, April 10th, to discuss information we need about traveling and details about the trip. Stephen also gave us a fun but difficult team building project to figure out. Our task was to balance 16 nails atop one nail. We divided into teams and had only 10 minutes to try to figure it out. It is harder than it looks. None of us got the answer in time, but this team building task really "hit the nail on the head" in terms of learning to work together. These meetings before the trip are fun, informative, and essential for our team growth.
