Who- Our group this year consisted of 19 youth and 7 adults, 26 overall. Smaller than last year, but still a great group. Two adults in my family accompanied me on this trip, (to keep me in line because Tom can't handle me) John Schepers and my mom Anne Bushnell. This worked out fine. I wasn't in their work group, and I think people generally liked them. I was on team Astronauts (formerly team turquoise) (sometimes known as team disastronauts). I loved my work group, we were a hilarious and hard working group of kids, mentored by Lee Schafer, Julie Schultz Brown, and Nicole Chaisson. We worked on the house of a woman named Mary and her husband, whose name I can't remember. She was great, and had a wonderful Jersey accent that I can only try to impersonate. We were taught and supervised by Travis, a slightly Menonite contractor who seemed to be able to do everything right the first time. All of the people I was with and that I encountered on the trip were amazing and supportive.
What- If I told you everything I did this would go on forever so I will try to keep it brief. At the house i tried basically every job we had to do: sanding, spackling, cutting and hanging drywall, priming and painting rooms, and flooring. I became known as the "corner guy" because of my ability to spackle corners. Simon, Ryan, and I were a killer team when it came to flooring. Though the first day we tried flooring was frustrating (we jammed 4 different nail guns), we took the second day in stride, almost finishing a room with no visible mistakes. Our whole work group also fell in love with 92.7 WOBM, Ocean County's best variety station. Back at the church I played many different games, participated in discussions and talked with the boys late at night. We took a couple of trips outside of the church. Once we went to the beach and played a game of ultimate frisbee (my favorite thing), and another time we went to a little park and played a long and spirited game of 500, with frisbees of course. On Wednesday we went to a baseball game, which was a lot of fun, and was the first time I've ever been featured on the scoreboard screen. On the way to New Jersey we stopped at the 9/11 memorial, which was incredibly powerful and a valuable experience for someone who was a very little kid when it happened. Tons of things happened, and I forgot to mention half of them.
Where- We stayed at Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant Beach, and my group worked in Little Egg Harbor, in the southern part of New Jersey. On the way we stopped at the 9/11 memorial in New York City.
When- The week of June 13th to the 21st
Why- This one is a little tougher. We talked a little bit about who we were serving, but I wish there had been more. This is something I personally struggled with. The people we were serving weren't poor. The house that my team worked on sat right on a canal that opened to the ocean, with its own dock. It was confusing to be working on a house in a nicer location than my own. I overheard the next door neighbor explaining to an adult that houses in that area can go for four or five hundred thousand dollars. I thought to myself "There are people in far more need than these." I realized much later in the week that that wasn't the point. On Thursday we ate dinner at a church just down the block from the one we were staying at. After we had finished our meal one of the women serving dinner came to our table and thanked us for being there and working. Tears started flowing from her eyes as she told the story of her 77 year-old mother who was stuck in three feet of water. "You have no idea, you have no idea what it's like to be in a natural disaster until you're in one," she told us. That's when I realized that it's not necessarily the physical work that you do, but sometimes it is the support that you show, and the hope that you bring people that is more important. For us, I think it was both. At the house we were working on, volunteer groups had become few and far between. Progress was slow, and Mary really wanted to move back into her home. I feel that it was important that we were there to work on Mary's house, but also to give her hope. To show her that we had not forgotten her, that people are still here to help. Although some people need help more than others, everyone deserves hope. And that is what mission trips are about.
See you soon, Ben Bushnell
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