Samantha and Kaia’s Journey

Hello!
This is Kaia and Samantha. We have been on the senior high youth trips together. These trips include Kenosha, Montana, Houston and now Pine Ridge. We have also been on a mission trip to Haiti together. Through these trips we have felt called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Together we have grown a special friendship and grown in our faith at the same time.

We are so very thankful for our fellow seniors. The seniors on this trip have been together since our freshman year and have grown so much closer through FLY. From being involved in senior high alive and the summer trips, we have built a strong faith family. We can definitely say that we will have these faith friendships and memories for life.

This trip in general will be one that we will never forget. The theme for this week is storyline. Through the week, we have had devotional time in the morning to prepare for our mission work. Some mission work we did was painting at the park and helping out at Mary and Bob’s. Although these tasks seem small, they had a great impact on the community. We (Samantha and Kaia) also experienced kids club in both Haiti and Pine Ridge. Although both were very different, they had the same impact on the children that came. At kids club the goal was to make the children feel loved and cared for because they are generally not getting that at home. Kids club provided something to look forward to for the kids. It has been a blessing to create bonds with different kids. They have so many strengths that will help them make an impact in their community.

When at Bob and Mary’s, we got the opportunity to talk and visit with Mary about her story. She talked about having a foreign exchange student when her daughter was a senior. Years later she told us that her daughter had visited her foreign exchange student. This was very cool to hear that Mary’s daughter and exchange student were keeping in contact for many years. This really hit home for the both us because we have a deep connection with Natsuki ( a foreign exchange student who stayed with the Sueker’s this year). Kaia was impacted by this because it was a great realization that even though people are miles apart, they can still stay connected. It is crazy how Mary’s story was so similar to our experiences this past year with Natsuki. These God’s moments help us realize that even though our lives seem different, there are so many more similarities.

In the moment, it can be hard to realize  your impact when serving. However, when we look back, we are able to see how the pieces fit together to form the whole story.  Although this sounds like the story is over, this is not the epilogue. Our stories will continue as we go back to our community. We will strive to love like Jesus and let his light shine through us all. This week we learned that “Jesus cares more about the sacrifice of the giver rather  than the size of the gift.” sometimes we feel as though we don’t have enough to give but, Jesus can make any size  gift into  something extraordinary.

This trip has been bitter sweet because it is our last trip together as First Lutheran Youth.. We are so thankful for all the experiences we have had on these trips and so blessed for the friendships we have made. If we had not have gone on these trips we wouldn’t have been as close of friends as we are now. It is important to have faith friends to lean on in the good times and the bad. Thanks to FLY for helping set a firm foundation to carry with us to college.