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I
spent a week of my summer on a mission trip with my church,
attending Catholic Heart Work Camp for the second year in a row.
Since
I was a “veteran” of last year’s camp at Mobile, Ala., I knew what
to expect on this year’s trip to Orlando, Fla. I knew it would
make a big difference in my life.
Catholic Heart Work Camp was started in 1993 by Steve and Lisa
Walker, who wanted to help teens grow in their faith by helping to
serve others in the community.
Their
goal was to have a Catholic Heart Work Camp in every state of the
United States, plus a bonus camp in Jamaica. Parishioners from all
over the United States travel to a city for a week full of God and
hard work. The first CHWC had only 100 participants, but as of
2003, they had over 7,000.
My
church group left on a Sunday morning around 4 a.m. We traveled on
our church bus to Orlando, which took about eight hours.
After
we checked in, I was able to meet the group that I’d be working
with for the week. |
I was in
a group of seven kids, five from Florida and two from Georgia,
including me. To my surprise, the old youth minister at my church
was my leader! Even more coincidental, the other kid from Georgia
went to my high school but goes to a different church.
My
group was assigned to work on a house for an elderly man and his
family. We were partnered with Paint the Town, an organization in
Orlando that works to give people in houses who couldn’t afford to
tidy up their exterior a chance to paint their house. My group
never actually got to meet our resident, but we did spend the time
with his family, who were incredibly grateful for all the work we
did. On just the first day we got the entire front of the house
painted! When we were done, we had finished the entire exterior of
the house, and the feeling I had when we were done was truly
amazing.
We
worked all week, through the extreme Florida heat and the random
downpours of rain we seemed to get every day. My group never gave
up, because we were number one! (Actually, we really were number
one—that was our group number). |
I
remember the night my parish presented our skit, which was about a
girl and how she went through the many nails of her life, such as
anger, jealousy and illicit sex--things that teens have to deal
with every day. We received a standing ovation from the kids,
which really showed me how God worked in many ways on this trip. I
saw that our skit really made these kids realize that several
things in their lives need to be changed.
CHWC
was truly an uplifting experience for me again. I was able to grow
more in my faith and see the ways that God works through teens.
CHWC does not require a person to be Catholic to go, so teens
should find a church with teens that go to a camp and sign up for
it. I was able to make so many good friends that I still keep in
touch with today through the Internet. This experience was truly
amazing, and I cannot wait until the summer of 2005!
Christine Gryczan
Junior,
Roswell High School
Member
of St. Andrew Church, Roswell |
