New York City Mission Trip, July 24-31, 2010

Grace Foothills and Grace Centre are teaming up and will be going to the neighborhood of Washington Heights in NYC to serve 200+ kids as part of an after school program called Operation Exodus. Washington Heights is a struggling community populated mostly by emigrants from the Dominican Republic.  Operation Exodus is dedicated to educating both the hearts and minds of these kids who are prone to dropping out of school as well as the numerous challenges associated with living in difficult economic conditions.

We will spend one week in this cross-cultural experience tutoring the kids in the mornings and then leading a Vacation Bible School in the afternoons. This trip is for current 9th graders and adults and cost is $875.  Please don't let the cost scare you and keep you from going!  We will spend time as a team training for the trip and that will include support raising.  If you have questions or would like to be on the team, contact the team leader, Bob Mackey at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

We will join with Grace Centre in Mills River and our denomination's mission arm (Mission to the World) as we take a small number of high school students with several adults to NYC to minister to hundreds of Dominican children in
Washington Heights. We will fly out of Charlotte on July 24th and return on July 31st. While there, we will stay in a youth hostel (with our own locked rooms) and get around by subway. Each day we will eat breakfast and lunch at a local school with the children, help with their tutoring program in the morning and run a VBS in the afternoon. The hours will be long, exhausting and rewarding. Our goal, besides sharing the Gospel and Hope of Jesus with these kids, is to build the depth, abilities and relationships of a student-servant leadership team that will continue to serve locally (at
Watershed, home, school and beyond) after they come home from this trip.

To go on this trip there will be an application and interview process to see if you are a fit for this trip. It isn't a spiritual judgment test, but we are trying to put together a team that is emotionally, spiritually and socially ready to take on some very stretching challenges which will push us to the point of having to trust in the Gospel.

IF YOU WANT TO CONSIDER GOING, THEN...

1) Read through this information so that you fully understand what the trip is and what is required.

2) Fill out the Application form and turn it in by February 21st. 

3) After you turn that in, we will contact you and schedule an interview to go over your application.

If, after we talk, this trip seems right for you, you will then need to bring yourself and a $50 non-refundable deposit to our first meeting Sunday, February 28th.

BASIC INFORMATION:

This trip is run by Mission to the World (MTW.org) the mission agency of our denomination (the PCA). They have been running this trip for many years and expanded it greatly. This trip is the first one on their “urgent need”. They are in charge of all logistics (except for the VBS specifics). This trip is explained well on their website.

When  -  Saturday morning, July 24th through Saturday evening, July 31st

Who  -  Current 9th graders and adults. But this is not a trip for everybody. We have very limited spots and very specific goals of leadership development. This trip is open to those who have displayed leadership and want to get dramatically pushed further into a servant leadership. There will be an application and interview process in light of this goal. See other requirements below.

Transportation  -  Drive to Charlotte Saturday Morning, July 24th, fly to NYC, subway all around NYC.

Lodging/Food  -  We will be staying in a Youth Hostel on the edge of Harlem, eating school cafeteria food for breakfast and lunch and having our dinners made for us by the hosting organization.

Leadership  -  We will keep about a 1 to 2 leader to student ratio. We will only be able to take about 14 students (split evenly guy/gal) and 6 leaders.

Work  -  We will be working everyday with hundreds of Dominican Children in NYC. Early each morning we will have a school breakfast with the children, then walk them to the tutoring program where we will assist the paid summer
tutors (who are “graduates” of this program). We will then have lunch with the kids, then lead them in a VBS that afternoon, which we will help create and lead with the other churches with us. We will then have dinner together and do our own small group debriefing time.

Sight Seeing  -  This is NOT a vacation trip or a good way for you to see NYC.  We are staying and working nowhere near Broadway or Times Square.  This is a service mission project that will require us to relationally give of ourselves for at least 12 hours a day everyday.

Money  -  The total cost of the trip will be $875 per person plus whatever personal money you want while there (about $50 will do) and meals during travel days (about two lunches). Our hope is that each person will not have
to personally pay more than $200 and that the rest will be raised by the team and each individual, but that will take a lot of work on each student’s part.

Training  -  We will have several meetings on Sundays from 12:15-2:00 These specific dates are listed on the Requirements Page.

GOALS:

This Trip is going to be amazing and extremely difficult. We chose it very prayerfully and purposefully to push us far out of our comfort zone, outside of ourselves and self-centeredness; to push us into seeing a larger God with larger grace for a larger diversity of people.

Our goals for this trip are:

1) to practically extend the Gospel of Christ to the children of Washington Heights.

2) to build individual and group servant leadership through the development of close, trusting, honest and sacrificial relationships that are gospel powered and centered.

3) for this much of this team to be the beginning core of next year’s Overflow Student Leadership Team as we don’t stop serving when we leave NYC but continue to sacrificially serve and extend the gospel in our real, everyday lives.


REQUIREMENTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

1)  Commitment to participate in all pre-trip training.
2)  Willingness to serve each other, the folks we are going to serve and the
Lord.
3)  Commitment to be part of a unified, loving servant team.
4)  Be responsible to raise the money needed and/or pay the difference.

SCHEDULE:

These meetings are Mandatory.

If you miss more than one then you will not be able to go on the trip.

We are asking all team members to bring a bag lunch and drink to these
meetings so we can cut cost of providing food for everyone.

Sunday, Feb 28 - 12:15-2:00        ($50 deposit and Release form are due)
Sunday, March 28 - 12:15-2:00     ($100 due)
Sunday, April 18 - 12:15-2:00        ($100 due)
Sunday, April 25 - 12:15-2:00        ($100 due)
Sunday, May 16 - 12:15-2:00        ($100 due)
Sunday, July 18 - 12:15-2:00        (Final Info meeting for students and
parents. )

Remaining balance for the trip is due at the July 18th meeting.

In addition, we will be working on creating a VBS with at least one other church (including Grace Centre) and will need to meet a couple of times to do that work. We will decide on those dates as a team. This will likely be done in June and early July, but we realize that family vacation and work schedules will come into play so we will be as flexible as possible with the times and responsibilities.

Click here for more information about this trip.

Click here for a blog of this past summer's Operation Exodus trips from the staff of Mission to the World.

Grace Foothills Missions:  Gospel Perspective

We believe the Christian life starts with faith in God's grace revealed in the person and work of Jesus and that new life continues with daily faith in His grace for growth and service. Our call is to bring grace to both the believer and unbeliever. Though God has worked to change our hearts, we still have a continuing need for Him each day. That place of daily need gives us a felt common ground with unbelievers and with other believers who have lost touch with the love of God.

Grace Foothills Missions:  Gospel Practice

Grace looks to support local missions in our area, national level works, nearby mission with internationals here or nearby nations, and far away nations as well. The church as a whole is to reach 'Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, and the uttermost parts...'. We believe that mission work can best be done when each kind of effort cooperates with each other and has some functional supportive relationship. Missions are done in many ways with many strategies. Often mission workers, national pastors, and boards, etc. tend to 'compete' for affection and money by claiming that their way is best, exclusive or is what God is currently doing. Grace is committed to a unified rather than a competitive approach.

Because Christ's mercy to us was free and came before we knew him, we act on the truth that his mercy through us is free to all, even those who don't yet believe.

Because relationships are central to our calling and express in tangible ways the love that comes from faith, our work in missions will keep works of mercy and the gospel message together as one inseparable whole.

Because we believe we are one in Christ and that all are equally valuable before God, our mission work represents Christ and his kingdom, not America or evangelical western sub-culture.

Because we believe in partnering with others to do missions, Grace supports short-term workers, missionaries, boards, and national pastors/workers.

Because we believe we cannot compromise the core message of the gospel, we are called to translate the truth of the scripture into the new cultures God calls us.