Mission Trip Recap, 2025

In this episode of the Fresh Wave Podcast, Maddy and Johnny are joined by Oliver and Tim to share an inside look at their recent youth mission trip to Asheville, North Carolina. From pulling logs out of rivers and serving meals to veterans, to worship nights and even a stop at Buc-ee’s, the team reflects on a week filled with hard work, laughter, and powerful encounters with God. Together, they unpack how serving impacted the community, deepened their own faith, and reminded them that our mission doesn’t end when the trip is over, it continues right where we live.

Transcript

Maddy: 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Fresh Wave Podcast. This podcast is for youth by youth.

Johnny: 0:04

And Johnny.

Maddy: 0:06

And welcome back to another episode. This is season four, episode 26. We are going to be recapping our mission trip, talking about what we learned, the people that we met, and just some fun stories from it. And we have a returning guest, Oliver, and a returning guest, Tim, behind the camera. Thank you for joining. Hope you enjoy this episode.

Johnny: 0:29

should get us going over here at the fresh wave podcast and we cannot wait because we are still fired up from our time away in the western part of the great state of north carolina and we are here to just yeah shed a little light on what god was doing a couple weeks ago with our Team down in Asheville area, North Carolina. We were on a short term mission trip for a week and we thought it'd be really cool to just spend some time together with Everyone in the room here was on that trip just to share a little bit of our experiences. How did that impact the community? How did that impact ourselves, our faith, and those around us? And yeah, so we'll hopefully share some stories, share some highlights from that week. And you guys get to hear a little bit about what God was doing on our mission trip. So I'm excited to talk about our time down in the South together. So we got our co-host, as always, Maddie Curia.

Speaker 02: 1:29

Hello.

Johnny: 1:29

Checking in. We also have our summer intern, Oliver Aridi, checking in. Hey there. And last but not least, we have our man in the captain's deck over here. Timothy Ucas. Thank you for that.

Tim: 1:44

I have no idea what that was like, Seth. All

Johnny: 1:46

very excited to debrief our time away. Our... seven days down south serving the Lord. It was a long week, a tiring week, a hot week, but it was a blessed week. And we're here to Talk about whatever. Not really sure, but we did go to Bucky's, so that was cool. That was a great highlight, I think, on our way home.

Tim: 2:08

Amen. Maddie, take us to the closing out here now. Bucky's was incredible.

Maddy: 2:15

So I'll leave you with this reminder.

Johnny: 2:18

Get the pulled pork and the brisket. Exactly. Yeah, just get everything. It was kind of a zoo, but it was great. It was great. So, yeah, so North Carolina, awesome time serving the Lord. Loved it.

Maddy: 2:31

We could start with our favorite thing, I think, about the trip. Favorite story we have to share?

Oliver: 2:36

Let's do it. Favorite story. Favorite story. I was going to take time to think, but I'll do one of mine. So, third work day, I think it was Wednesday, we went to this area. This lady, her name was... Kendra, I believe and she lives on this house and her backyards insanely massive. It's all like woods and then into the woods There's like this big lake. There's this river that's going a strong current and there was this electric pole that had fallen into the river and It's like wrapped with wires and cords and everything and we just it was difficult to get out but we chopped it up we brought it out and I got a few bumps and bruises. I got pinned down by a log. We were going up like a hill. I had it up here. We said drop and it dropped right on my head and it like knocked me down. So that was fun. And another, like my favorite part about that was just seeing the joy in Kendra's eyes. Like she came, she literally came across the river. So she got all wet. She got all soaking wet to come across the river to just record us, take pictures for herself. She was like smiling the whole time. We were, we had a speaker and we were just blasting some worship music and she was just like, she She's just so happy to see us working there, helping her out. So I think that's one of my favorite parts about these mission trips, just connecting with the people and just showing them Jesus through our actions, through our words. We got to pray over her, and we got to tell her about Jesus. And it's funny. She started off, we got there, and we kind of asked her if she had any questions beliefs in her religion or anything, and she kind of mocked the church a little. She said she didn't need saving from Jesus. She'd be fine on her own. And towards the end, we had some conversations with her, and then we got to pray for her. And at the end, she was like, you know, the church here was never really nice to me, but you guys are awesome, and I love your church. And yeah, she was just so happy for us, and it made her actually see that there are good things out there in Christianity and stuff. So that was my favorite part, talking to her. That was the one where you all got absolutely soaked. We got soaked that day. We were wearing shoes. I had my sneakers and my socks. We were just walking through that river down and back. Got a little mud pile. We went in the back of the forest just picking up trash and stuff. But the good part was there's this little cliff into the water, so we got to do flips. We got to jump off of it. A lot of fun.

Johnny: 5:03

I'll admit, that seems like one of the more uncomfortable things in life, just walking around in a pair of wet, soggy shoes and socks. That just sounds horrible. It was rough. You should have seen. I threw those shoes out. In the grand scheme of things, it's obviously not, but it is very, very uncomfortable to walk in. And so you just walked in the river wearing shoes. It

Oliver: 5:23

felt weird. I tried swimming and my feet were like weighing me down. So why not opt to just take shoes off? Because it was like, we had to go into the forest after, so I wasn't going to put my socks and my shoes on after. It was like, Rough rocks everywhere. Yeah,

Johnny: 5:34

that's awesome. Yeah, I would say for me, highlight... It's probably like a highlight with just our group and then kind of a highlight of our serving. So highlight of our serving for... for me was the veterans place we were at. I was there two days. And I just love what they're doing. The VRQ, which I think stands for Veterans Restoration Quarters. So correct me if I'm wrong here. I was a little tired when they were explaining it. But I believe if you are a homeless veteran, you can go to this place and you can live there for two years. Like a male, I think. Male only. You have to be a veteran. And yeah, they provide housing for you for like two years. And Yeah, it was crazy to one, like, hear and see where they used to be. Just hearing the story. Like, hey, this thing that is, it looked like an abandoned, completely abandoned building. Like, destroyed and abandoned. Like, yeah, this is where we used to be. Water went up to the second level. Dude, seeing the water line

Oliver: 6:32

on, like, the wall. Seeing the water line. That wasn't even the water.

Tim: 6:34

That was, like, the

Oliver: 6:34

mud line. So it was, like, above

Tim: 6:37

my head. There's a picture I put in, actually, right here. One of our students at Austin. And if you're looking at this picture right now, that little gray. Austin's tall. How tall would you say Austin is? He's, like, 6'7".

Speaker 02: 6:46

He's

Tim: 6:49

about 6'4". And that brown line is about where the water came up to where we were at. So it was kind of crazy.

Johnny: 7:00

I'm sorry. I have to share this story now because it's so funny. We were in service yesterday. Me and Shannon are sitting next to Doug and Duran. And Bob goes, all right, in Deuteronomy 6, 6 to 7, Duran looks at me and Shannon and she goes, 6, 7? And I look at Jackson and I was like, did your mom seriously just do a 6, 7 joke in the middle of Bob's sermon? It was so unexpected. It was so freaking funny. Shout out Duran.

Maddy: 7:33

Yeah, the best part was when like... I think towards the end of the week, all the leaders started doing it. Tim or Shannon would look at me and they'd be like, oh, we only have six or seven minutes left. It's so funny. They always look at you before

Johnny: 7:51

they see you. I'm about to do it.

Tim: 7:53

I was getting gas one day and it ended on $67 and my van, I just heard go nuts. It

Johnny: 8:01

was so

Tim: 8:01

funny.

Johnny: 8:03

Enough of that. Yeah, so the mud line was very high, just to show the devastation. But it was just cool to see what was, and then to kind of see where they were now. They got this brand new... Well, maybe not brand new, but they got a new facility for them in the Days Inn hotel, and we were prepping... the room so that veterans could stay there and they were just like literally like every room you guys prep is another room that a veteran can get into so it's just kind of cool to really see like every time we went in and got something ready we knew a veteran was going to be taking that that bed soon and Yeah, it was just really cool to kind of see that process take place. And then the last day when we were all there, it was just really cool to like, I think I was up in like the balcony at one point and I just look out and there's just like a sea of NBC people. Like they're grabbing this, they're grabbing this, they're putting this away. Just like, we were just swarming like the whole, the whole area and just seeing our whole team work together, accomplish this goal for, you know, a really great cause. So for me, that was a big highlight for myself.

Maddy: 9:03

I will say about that, like veteran center, um, I went the first time that we went, and it was like Tuesday, I'm pretty sure. And there were, you know, about like 13 of us, and we took about four or five hours to do like 13 rooms, I think, and we didn't even get the king beds in. We just removed the twins. It took us really long, but... then to see like the contrast of having like everyone there like instead of one group who's three on thursday um was crazy and i just think it was like the whole time i was just thinking like how efficient we were being like it took us like one hour to set up like 13 king beds. And like, it was, we were moving really quick, which I thought was really cool. So it was just interesting to see the difference between like, we're trying to do this as like a smaller group. You don't have as much support. And then versus like the whole community or the whole youth group comes together to help like support this and we get more done, which was really like interesting.

Johnny: 10:00

Yeah. And actually I think the night before they were like, oh, you guys have 40 people. Like, we don't know if we can like accommodate that many people serving. And we're like, no, we gotta do this. Yeah.

Maddy: 10:09

Exactly.

Johnny: 10:10

Yeah, that was really cool.

Maddy: 10:11

Yeah. I think my favorite part about the week was probably similar to everyone else's, just being able to have the conversations with everyone. I think that was the best part, just like... getting to know the people behind the service that you're doing of course we can get wrapped up in like the physical aspect of it and oh look how much we're doing for these people because it was a very like visual thing like you would see how much of the tree you took down you would see how much brush you cleared away um and it's easy to kind of like measure how much you've done for someone but the kind of immeasurable part of it was like the love that you were giving to the people who were behind this all um so i met with like My favorite conversations, I talked with Brian a little bit. He was a veteran, and he served with my uncle, actually, so that was really cool. Whoa,

Johnny: 10:56

that's cool.

Maddy: 10:57

He was telling me stories about them and stuff. That was really fun. Wait,

Oliver: 11:00

so he knew your

Maddy: 11:00

uncle? Yeah, they served. My uncle is a Navy SEAL.

Oliver: 11:04

I'm just hearing about this.

Maddy: 11:04

Oh, yeah, yeah. My uncle is a Navy SEAL, so they served around the same time. It was like late 1990s. This guy was a random

Johnny: 11:12

guy you started talking to?

Maddy: 11:13

Yeah, well, he was the leader of the first group on Tuesday, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't there, though. other two days um but yeah they served together and that was really interesting to hear about they were both in like Tom's River area um yeah it was really cool

Johnny: 11:28

that's so cool

Maddy: 11:29

but um yeah so I think just talking to him and then we talked to Terry there was another guy um and it was just great to hear about like all their stories and their life stories and giving away that love is just something that like can never be replaced um and it's something that is so like instead of like putting on a show and like showing everyone how much work I'm doing and like look at how much validation I can get almost for this work. It's like you almost get like no validation in return. And then it's like, I'm just doing this because giving away God's love is its own reward. Like I don't need anything else from anyone besides just to like be generous with it.

Johnny: 12:05

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm just, I'm still like, I didn't know that. That's just like so crazy. What are the odds you would talk to that person?

Maddy: 12:12

I know,

Speaker 02: 12:14

it's

Maddy: 12:14

really

Tim: 12:14

fun. There was a lot of that. That week. Oh, yeah.

Oliver: 12:16

Yeah. Especially our group, Tim. The handing out food. Oh, I thought you were going to. I'll talk about

Tim: 12:21

it. Oh, that was going to be my

Oliver: 12:22

favorite part. But if you want to just take it from me, you can. No, you want to share? We can split. All right. So me and Tim's group. Just take my favorite part of the week. That's fine. All right. You know what? I'm done.

Maddy: 12:33

Tim, go first and then you fill in.

Tim: 12:36

Alright. Similar to Maddie's story, the one barbecue place we went to the one day, someone working there I went to high school with. I had classes with, which was crazy. He moved there a couple years prior. Anyway, as Oliver was saying, I obviously, by looking at me, love food. I love to cook. One of my passions is cooking and creating food and serving other people. I love having people over and cooking for people. Anyway. You do have an Instagram page, right? TDY Cook or TDY something. I do have an Instagram. TDY Plates. There it is. For food. Nice. That's it. So, and someone else in our group who's been on the show before, Duran, is the same way. Like, if you look at our text conversations with one another, it's just about food, what we made, what we want to make, what we want to make together. Anyway, so we find out we're paired up on this day where we're going to go make food. And the woman, first of all, it's funny because she was telling me, I was like, oh, I'm excited to go out and make food. She's like, yeah, cool. Old Southern woman. She's like, All right, so which of the girls should I talk to about planning out the meal? I'm just like, this one. And so we're talking, and she's essentially saying that there's a budget that they're going to give us, and the best thing that we should do is just go to Walmart, get some sliced ham, microwave it, and serve it with some pasta salad. And I'm just like, no, sorry. You have the two wrong people to do that. And so we talked to Johnny. We had... God's provision had some extra fundraising that we were able to kind of bulk up what we were making. So we got the chance to cook. The goal was 150, but based on what we were able to do, we were able to come out with 138 meals, barbecue chicken thigh, fresh Italian-style pasta salad, and a king swine roll that we boxed up in the styrofoam boxes. All of them were decorated with verses and encouragement about the Lord. And it was just so cool getting to hand them out. It was, first of all, cool when we're making it and having these little Southern grandmas walk in the kitchen and say that it smells and looks amazing. Um, and then further on, you know, we're standing up by the street and we're, cars are driving up and our kids in our group are praying for people who are in tears because they need jobs. They didn't have any money and they were looking for lunch, but they were going to go get lunch, but they didn't have the means to, they realized. And so then they saw this sign that said free lunch and they drove up and they got it. Or, um, some of our guys just like dancing and doing like cartwheels or whatever on the side of the U S highway, just walking it out into an interstate, uh, into an intersection and to give out food. Um, it was so cool. And then something we did last year in the Dominican, um, is this, this is called like manna packs where they have these packs of like food and grain and we'd go to house to house and give them out and pray for people. And with the extra ones we had left, uh, we have about 50, our group walked around to this trailer community with a lot of veterans. Asheville has a ton of veterans. If you couldn't tell, by the previous conversations, just knocking on doors, handing out the rest of these meals, praying for them. And we got rid of all 138. And we heard that Most groups don't even come close to giving out all the meals. A lot of them are left behind at the church when they're done. Um, and so, yeah, it was just a blessing to be able to meet and bless so many people. Um, me personally with, with Duran just done based on what our passions are, but also just to see how much impact, um, that had for throughout the community based on what we were able to do.

Unknown: 16:03

Hmm.

Tim: 16:04

So I don't

Oliver: 16:04

know if I'm mistaken. Oh, no, no. Well said. Well said. I mean, I think it's just awesome that we got to talk to all those people, like knock on their door and just have a good conversation, pray over them. I thought that was just so powerful. And I definitely had some good conversations with people. That guy's Frank, right? Frank. I think his name's Frank. We don't know. We still don't know today what his name is, but we're going to call him Frank.

Johnny: 16:26

So what is it about– maybe it's just me. Maybe you guys are all a little more outgoing than myself– But there's something about being on a mission trip where there's just like this, I don't know if it's just the excitement or just like you're very purposeful when you're on a mission trip. But like when I'm on a mission trip, when I see others on a mission trip, people are like way more bold to just like talk to people, have conversations, serve someone. Hey, do you need help? Like we went to their church Sunday morning and we all split up and sat with people and talked to them. Like we don't do that on Sundays here, right?

Unknown: 16:55

Yeah.

Johnny: 16:56

But we did that there. Like when we went and served at places, like talking to a Navy SEAL, found out, you know, you, my uncle, or we're talking to this guy, Frank, and we're all these things. Like, I feel like we don't do regularly here. At least I can only speak for myself, but I have a sense that a lot of us don't do it as much. So what do you think, what is it about the, you know, going on mission that would, that kind of drives you to do that a little more?

Speaker 02: 17:20

If that's true for you. If it's not

Johnny: 17:22

true for you, then say, no, I'm like this all the time.

Maddy: 17:26

No

Johnny: 17:26

pride check, it's fine.

Maddy: 17:28

Yeah. My kind of take on this is like, the first thing I'll say is a lot of us come back and are like, use that like phrase that's like, oh, we're so on fire for God now. And like that mission trip made us so on fire. And then people say like, after the mission trip, it kind of like fizzles out. But I think... the main reason is because you're put in a position where you almost have to be obedient to god because you have no choice and then once you come back on the mission trip you have more of a choice to be um disobedient or just not to like follow the general calling for our life um which is like loving the other people around us serving people around us loving god first um and that's just because like obviously like we all have to be in a group you all have to go to a work site like there really is no choice unless you're like sick um and you're getting in, you're going to these work sites, and you have to contribute. You're not going to sit around and be giving people orders and not doing anything. This is really a group participation effort where you're doing something bigger than yourself, and instead of focusing on your needs and what you need, you're putting others above yourself, which I guess we don't normally do. So I think that area of almost having to be obedient and having less options to stay comfortable or complacent, now we're putting this zone of like almost discomfort if you will like maybe you're not with your friends or maybe you're doing something that's like really strenuous physically um that is where like we're being refined and i think that's where we're choosing to be obedient which ultimately leads us to like that kind of on fire that we describe um I think it comes through just discipline and change. And a lot of that happens on mission trips when you have that one option. Like you have one mission when you go there. There's no other worries. There's no put me first. And I just think it's like what God is doing in the midst of unknown. How are we going to get there? Do we need supplies? All of that. We're forced to lean on God. We're forced to be obedient almost in a way. So I think that that's why.

Oliver: 19:30

Yeah. Kind of going off that, I would just say like being around like friends, like We're such a close family at youth group. It kind of makes it more comfortable. I'll share a personal story. If you see a homeless guy, it's obviously gonna be a little nerve wracking, a little scary. You don't know what to expect. My first time talking to a homeless person, I was getting Wendy's and I saw him sitting out there. I saw a shopping cart full of stuff. This is here, right? Yeah, this is by my house. I saw him just sitting there. I parked, I got my food, I got out, and I went home. And then later that night, I felt convicted. I was like, why didn't I help him? I love Jesus. I love doing God's will. And I just saw this guy and I didn't want to help him. So I literally, I got in my car, I drove back to that Wendy's and I saw him sitting there and I just got him food. I got to sit down with him, talk to him, pray for him. And it's just so powerful. It's like a... On the mission trip, you get a little sample of that and you get to see the joy. Something I love is just seeing that I can put a smile on someone's face and tell them about Jesus and possibly change their life around. So just having a little sample of that on the mission trip, I feel like it gets kids out of their comfort zone and get them a little more bold. So I think that's a main reason why we're more out there on mission trips.

Maddy: 20:51

You

Oliver: 20:51

get a little taste of it.

Johnny: 20:52

Good reminder, like, There was probably nothing in North Carolina we couldn't do here. Almost everything we did there we probably could do around here. I think for me, when I think about that question, I think of the word risk. I think the risk is very low when we're in North Carolina when we do things. To explain that, if you're in North Carolina and you want to go talk to somebody, you're not worried about embarrassing yourself. You're not worried about, are they going to think I'm weird? You're not worrying about, are they going to talk about me? Because the risk is low. You're gone in a week. Or you go in church and you want to talk to people. You're not going to be there in a week, next week. So there's just a lot of low risk, I think, when you're on a mission trip in a sense. But when you're back home, it's like, all right, these people might know my friends. Or I come back here every week. Or if I embarrass myself, people might talk about me. That's how I think, that the risk is higher here. So I think when the risk is lower, we're much more free to just go and do. And I think we should live with that mindset in the sense of we need to just remove that high-risk kind of mentality that I think we do have here. I think we're a lot more careful how we present ourselves, how people view us. And I think when we go on mission, we just kind of say, forget it all. Let's just go do all this amazing stuff and see what God's going to do. And I hope we can kind of bring that mentality forward. wherever we are, you know, home, school, work. And so I think for me, like, the word risk kind of comes to my

Oliver: 22:24

mind when it comes to serving. Yeah. I love throwing the term, like, staying mission-minded around. And, like, I was thinking about this recently. Like, summer's almost over, and I'm going into my senior year at Wachung Hills. And I would say probably, like, maybe, like, 1% is Christian. So that's kind of like my own personal nine-month missions trip. So I'm just trying to be more bold. And this mission trip definitely helped. I could see the stuff that God's doing in my life. He's moving. Move. Sorry. I love that song. There's no Mr. Recap without that song. Yeah. He's just moving, man. It's a remix. All right, but yeah, so like going in my school year, my final school year, like nine month mission trip right here. So I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna be bold. I'm gonna try to bring as many people to Christ. You're gonna see more Wachung Hills kids at youth group. And that's just like my mission, my personal mission. So I feel like personally we should set these goals for ourselves. Like what are we gonna do to show the love of Jesus to others in our lives today? Because it's not just like a week in the summer that we do. It's every day.

Maddy: 23:27

Yeah. Yeah. I like something Duran said, um, on the last night of worship, she was kind of giving us almost like encouragement. And she was like, I just want to let you guys know, like your mission doesn't end here. Um, and she kind of referenced, I think what all of us were thinking in the moment, like as the week was ending, um, and just reminding us, like our mission doesn't end depending on the circumstance we're in. Like, this is, this is the purpose that we have from God. Like that is, that is mission. Um, And all the opportunities that God provides are still just as much here as they are when you have the chance to go with a group to another state and do it. And so I just think she had a lot to say about how our mission is continuous. This is something that we're called to. And it's something that can so easily be done, but is also so easily avoided by us. So I think just living out the general calling that God has for us. He's given us the tools. I think he trusts us in ways that he has provided enough for us. He's never like, I haven't provided you enough opportunities because he would give us more if he didn't think he gave us enough. But because there are no more than we're set out with, we have enough opportunity to live out that mission. We have enough chances to do that. And yeah, I just think he's given us enough green lights to love other people, to make that our mission. Um, and to share the gospel with as many people as possible.

Johnny: 24:52

Yeah. Yeah. Try and give some, some wise words. I think there's a lot more opportunity here than we think. Yeah. And I think we just, we're not looking. Yeah. I do feel like, you know, if you look at your, your, if you kind of recap your day, I feel like if you look back, you could probably pinpoint some opportunities where you could have been like, ah, I could have said something there, but I wasn't mission-minded.

Speaker 02: 25:14

Or I

Johnny: 25:14

wasn't thinking that. When we're on a mission trip, we're constantly, at your group, we're getting out of cars, going to find people. Because you were like, we're on a mission right now to go do this. But when we're home, we're not thinking like that. We're just kind of, we got our blinders on, just focused on something else. So I think if we were to truly open our eyes, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us, I think we would see a lot more either school opportunities, work opportunities, or just walking down the street

Maddy: 25:41

yeah i will also say there's a lot of like distraction when we're at home anyway even if it's like things we have to do but i think the main one is like our phone like because we didn't have our phones like there was that guy who came up to make like the generous donation to us out of his truck and like we all could have been like thanks and like gotten on our phones to like do whatever because i people do that a lot of my school like you know at the lunch table everyone's on their phone like and so it's just the kind of thing where like you could have stopped there but like because there's no like well i have to do this it's like then you're going to take that chance. You're going to seize that opportunity instead of like focusing on what you need in that moment. So I think there's just, there's so many more opportunities. Like how many times do you catch yourself like standing in line for something or like just like waiting for something and you're standing next to like a stranger and like maybe you're even like this distance away and like you just like, you don't talk at all. Like you could just say hi, ask them how their day is going, like something simple, but people have made it so like awkward now because it's like, okay, like you have nothing to do. Don't stare anywhere. Like, Like, get on your phone and, like, whatever. I feel like that's such, like, a...

Johnny: 26:43

Like this person looking at the

Maddy: 26:44

ground. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Johnny: 26:48

That's so true. Yeah, I mean, look at, like, a lunch table, right? Like, everyone sits down and then... Yeah, you can't see the camera. Gradually. Right? The phone's just... Like, you look around the table, everyone's got their phone

Speaker 02: 26:56

out. Yeah.

Johnny: 26:57

And then there's, like, that, like, trying to be a compliment where, like, someone's calling me and they're like... Yeah. And they look back at you. It's like, all right. Yeah, yeah. I can wait. Yeah. So, yeah, mission trip was... It was great. Anything else I'm missing, Tim? Anything

Oliver: 27:13

percolating over there? I don't think so. There's so much that happened that week. It's hard to pick a favorite moment. It's hard to explain everything that happened.

Tim: 27:20

I want to shout out Horsepasture. Hey, hey, hey. I want to shout you out. Horsepasture. We enjoyed hanging out with you guys all week. They were one of the most gracious teams. Enjoyed

Oliver: 27:32

playing

Tim: 27:32

wiffle ball with you guys. And if you're watching this, we saw, we found your church mission trip recap. We saw our boy Cole out there and Pastor Kyle. So if you're seeing this, what's up? This is our YouTube channel. You should subscribe to us back.

Johnny: 27:49

They were so gracious. They were like a group of like 10, 15 adults bunking up with like 40, this team of 40, you know, crazy rowdy teenagers. And they were just they they were gracious flexible patient never complained about us i was complaining about us probably that was great so yeah i'm trying to think yeah i think something that's really cool last you know i feel like a couple of mission trips is like the last night like the week is is full of you know exhaustion maybe the moments were upset maybe moments you know were unsure or Whatever it is, you know, the moment is full of every kind of emotion you can imagine. And somehow, the last years, the last night, we all just come together.

Speaker 02: 28:36

Yeah.

Johnny: 28:36

And we're just like arms around each other. We're worshiping the Lord. We're hugging each other. And we're just, God, I don't know, God just, they really think that's a Holy Spirit moment, just bringing us all together. And we all go home. Just really encouraged and lifted up by this group. So I think that's really cool to see these last few years just our group serve together. And we work through different things together. And I think the Lord just blesses it. And we just come together and just really worship him and remind ourselves. That's why we're there.

Oliver: 29:04

Yeah. No, no, go ahead. Yeah, I always tell people, like, I was just having a conversation with people from our youth group. We have such a special group of kids. It's not just your average youth group. I mean, I haven't been to another one, but I feel like we're different. There's a lot of stuff going on, but I feel like we just all love each other on a different level. We always

Speaker 02: 29:25

keep... There's

Oliver: 29:30

a lot of stuff that goes on in the youth group, and I think we just love each other, and yeah, alright?

Maddy: 29:36

Okay, well.

Oliver: 29:37

Can't keep my

Maddy: 29:37

composure. I want to leave us off. Oh, sorry. You go. Oh,

Tim: 29:41

it's okay. Yeah, I'm going to talk. I just want to do one more cool memory that actually Maddie was involved in. And then Maddie will close this out. So we had... Actually, Maddie, you might want to talk about Terry a little bit as well. Oh, yeah. So we... Our last day, we were there. Our last work site. And we met this guy, Terry. Had been run over by a car. He was a cop and a firefighter. Super nice guy. Beautiful house. Like on the base of the mountains. And we're just... I wasn't there for the first part. I had to make a few errands. And then I got back. I tried to chop down a tree. Tree, it won't come down. It's whatever. But this guy, Terry, I think he did some stuff with Billy Graham, right? Yeah. He just encouraged every single one of us individually. And it was so cool. And I'm trying to figure out, like, okay, I like the debrief. I like the fun debrief. How are we going to do it? And I'm just looking up at the mountains, and I'm just like... We're going up there. So I'm looking for scenic overlooks. I'm looking nothing. I'm looking for all these things. Nothing. I'm like, all right, if we, uh, the, uh, we found this hike. I was like, ah, it's just a mile. We can do it just straight up. And one of our, one of our students, um, evidently, evidently feeling lightheaded. It wasn't Maddie evidently had been feeling lightheaded all day. Um, and didn't let us know. And so I, we're, going up step by step the mountain with this person. And we get up there and it's just gorgeous. You see the mountains, and you see Asheville down there, and it was just a cool place to debrief. But I thought what was really cool, and one of my highlights of the whole week, is that we stood on top, like one of the higher peaks in the area, looking out over the area we had been serving, and we just took some time to pray for the whole area. And we could pray for them on the ground. We could pray for them here. But it was something cool and felt really awesome about standing up really high and looking around the area and praying for the area right before we left um so i that was one of my highlights and maddie i don't know if you want to add anything to that story before you close us out but yeah i just wanted to share that

Maddy: 31:59

yeah you covered it well um that was it was a really like touching moment for us to kind of see um all of that and you said some really great things up there just about like we are looking over like all maybe like a large population of people in Nashville and like they've all been affected one way or another and we'll never know all of their life stories but we got the chance to know a few and that was like that was a lot for us and that was a lot for us to take in a lot for us to pray over and we just think about all the other people who are affected who we didn't get to meet so yeah it was it was a really cool story he was I think he was an evangelist for 32 years he said and he had a lot of great things to say to us just very uplifting very kind kind. But I wanted to kind of leave us off on some advice that I got from one of the guys. He came up to us when we were at the gas station, asked us if we were with the church bands, gave us a donation. And then me and a few friends went over and I got the chance to pray for him, which was really nice. And his name was Daniel. And after the prayer, he was just kind of really like he was like emotional a little bit. And he was just saying the one thing he said over and over was just just like don't lose that boldness for Christ because it might change someone's life.