Mission Trip Plan

I decided on a mission trip experience today. I've been looking at 4 options, and I had certain parameters: It had to be CATHOLIC; it had to be reliable; it had to be in the early summer; it had to be at a location that would provide meaningful service (I mean, why go to Darby, PA if you could do the same thing locally??). So there are currently 4 "Catholic" service camp organizations out there (which I didn't know before this): Catholic Heart (probably the most well-known and most reliable; longest established for sure); Young Neighbors in Action (part of the Center for Ministry); Alive in You (newer; the directors used to work with Heart); and, surprisingly, Group now offers a couple of exclusively Catholic camps (i.e. Darby, PA as one option). Three of them are pretty standard (bring your group, the kids get mixed up with other groups for their service experience, evening programming for the masses, good luck with your free day recreation outing). But the 4th one, Alive in You, mixes the service experience with a Catholic youth conference. So imagine a mission trip, and then at the end of it, you go into a Steubenville conference. Pretty cool. The one down side is that the service portion is only 3 days, but that should be okay because I plan on doing some kind of "urban immersion" project with some other churches in the archdiocese this summer, so we'll have plenty of opportunity for service. And what it seems the youth at this parish really need is a better sense of Catholic identity, so a conference will be really helpful for that. And, the best part, is that our trip will be to New Orleans! OKAY! Meaningful service. I was talking with one of the directors today and she said not every group wants the "dangerous" work of gutting houses and being exposed to the mold, etc. But I said our group would be willing to do that (although we may need to provide all of our own protective gear, which shouldn't be a problem, and at least I know what we would need).

I'm excited. Now if I can just find some youth (and another three adults)to go with...