Family Mission Trip Recap

Intro

Well, long story short, this Family mission trip in Omaha, Nebraska had a lot of lessons... planned and unplanned. Whether it be us getting robbed (yikes!!) or us learning the importance of gardening, we had lots of interesting events and moments I will recap below in a section by section ish form!

The Trip Itself

My church hosted its first family mission trip, where families go do mission work all together. It was a great way to bond with my family, and my church family all at once, and we had a good time sharing the experience together. The goal of the trip was to help the nonprofit organization The Big Garden and learn about their missions, gardening, and the Omaha community. We arrived Thursday afternoon and received a tour of the community gardens in the area (there are 100's...Go Omaha!). Friday was our first work day, so we began at Together Inc. in the morning, which is an upscale food pantry who gardens outside in order to provide unlimited fresh produce to their visitors, instead of just canned goods. They are a great organization with passionate and kind workers. Our work was weeding out their gardens, mulching, and picking produce. After that, we ate lunch at Table Grace Cafe, which is a "pay what you can"/donation based place to eat. Their mission is about providing nutritious and yummy food to those in need. I love their mission, and the people running it were equally as awesome. The last half of our day was spent helping set up tents and tables for the Gifford Park Neighborhood Market. This neighborhood has local vendors and members sell their homemade and fresh products every Friday at their event, which has live music, food, and activities like yoga. It was such a fun environment where we got to support local creators and see the people of the community connecting. It is the perfect way to bring all of their diverse people together. Now I want my neighborhood to do it!!

It was a short trip, so Saturday was our 2nd and last day all in one. We got to go on The Big Garden's home campus, and help them weed their gardens, plant kale and peppers, mulch, water, and move baby trees in pots to where they would soon be planted. Knowing that someday a person in need, would be eating that kale or soon to bud apples, was very impacting. We did a "Step forward and Step Back" activity that afternoon, which was eye opening; I will talk about it below in "Important (and Random) Lessons". Our last event was to watch the movie Seed: The Untold Story. I found the information to be different, since most of the info in it I had never thought about before, but it was important, and a great wrap up to what our trip was about.

Gardening

I posted on my blog story about 'reasons to garden' and I will write those again below for a refresher, but I have a few more points I would like to share with you. Now typically I am not a "like to get messy" person or super into vegan-hippie-earthy movements, but this trip made me think more logically about the positive impact and need for gardening in our communities. I found that I loved getting into the dirt, taking care of plants, weeding, watering, and picking veggies and fruits from them... It was actually really fun! Buying your own seeds and planting them might be more time consuming, but it is way cheaper! It creates a sense of pride like "look what I just did!" and helps you appreciate your food more after knowing where it comes from and what it takes to make it. Plus, fresh garden food tastes AMAZING! It is not unripe, pesticide covered, genetically modified, 3-5 day old produce. This all means you are not supporting the dangers of pesticides and the issues of modern large scale farming. You know exactly where it is coming from and just how clean and healthy it is. Gardening is also a great way to be a better steward to our Earth and support the environment (air quality) and soil. Also, it will help out the GOOD bugs like butterflies. Lastly, gardening brings people together. It is an awesome family or friend project, and is a great gift and healthy eating/cooking option. I do recommend that you compost as well as garden to improve the quality/fertility of your soil and lower your trash amounts each week. A blog post about the easiest/beginner plants and how to compost will be up in the next few weeks to guide you on your journey! What more could you need to jump on the gardening wagon?

Getting Robbed

The most unfortunate part of the trip would have to be getting robbed. We were showering at a local YMCA since our host church did not have showers. Saturday we headed there around 4 after our movie. My family consists of my 2 parents, older brother (who was not with us-curse Organic Chem!), my older sister (she has special needs but the kindest heart), and my younger sister (she is spunky, african american, and adopted). My family arrived before the rest of the group, so that left my dad as the only male. We walked in, explained to the front desk staff why we were here, and headed back to shower. Once my dad finished showering, he opened his locker and noticed that his stuff, which he folded up neatly before, was all disheveled. He checked his dirty pant's pocket and found no car keys. Right about when I finished my shower, my dad rushed over to the women's locker room door, frantically asking if we had the car keys. None of us had them. He proceeded to run out to the car and check on it. When he found it unlocked, that's when his heart dropped. Our leading pastor on the trip came into the locker room and informed my mom and I that our car had been broken into and robbed. We rushed outside, to find that my parent's wallets, phones, cash, and car keys had been stolen. They immediately made calls to cancel their credit and debit cards, call the Police, and report their stolen ID's.

The worst part about the crime is that someone had to be watching us to attempt it. They had to know my dad was going to be alone in the locker room, which car was ours, where he placed his car keys, and what locker was his. This was also not the first time this robber had done this because they didn't take the car (just the keys) since it would be easy to track down, and they shut the phones down immediately, so we couldn't track them. Although it was a huge inconvenience and scary, thank goodness all items are replaceable and no one got physically hurt. We just ask that you pray for whoever did this (we still do not know who it was), because they must be going through some dark times. I also hope we can begin to feel safe again soon.

Important (and Random) Lessons

-Take care of our planet. Be a better steward to our environment and natural resources. At the rate we are using our resources, we need 2 planets to sustain our human race.

-Going back to the 'Step Back and Step Forward' activity, there were 3 different color cards spread out among our group. Yellow represented rich, English speaking Americans, blue represented middle class, 2nd language English citizens, and pink represented foreign, poor class citizens. We all began in the same spot, and there was a designated "Finish Line." Once we were told to go, we would run and see who finished first, but we were given prompts first. The prompts of the game were like "For yellow and blue cards, you owned a car growing up. Please take a step forward" or "For pink cards, your family could not afford health insurance growing up. Take a step back." By the time we were told to run, yellow cards only had a few feet to run to finish, blue had several, and pink had tons. The physical meaning of the game was to help your neighbor. Those behind you know they are behind you, and cannot do anything about it; that has detrimental physiological effects on them. Think about those who were not born into the same privileges as you, imagine how it could feel to walk in their shoes, and help them along in life. We are required to share our blessings (which we have MORE than enough of) with those less fortunate than us. And although we all started from the same place, which some would say is fair, we all ended up scattered due to life and inequalities. Equity requires that in order to treat some people fairly and equally, you must treat them differently, an example being affirmative action. I believe that if we were all to not so focused on our own rights, needs, and wants, and instead advocated for those who need it most, our lives and world truly could be transformed.

-Always carry your most important things (wallets, phones) with you in a safe and secure spot that only you and people close to you know about. Always assume you are being watched or followed, and carry on with extra precaution.

-Develop relationships with those around you. Whether you are serving them, working with them, or being around them, connecting with others is essential to a happier and more meaningful life.

-Don't let one negative thing ruin a multitude of positive things.

-God is everywhere and in everything. He never inflicts bad or harm on us, he is only full of good. He can use the bad situations and put goodness within them... You just have to find the good nuggets!

Recommendations

-Gifford Park Community Market

-Table Grace Cafe

Table Grace Menu

Table Grace Outside

Table Grace Sign

Table Grace Food

-Coneflower Creamery

Coneflower Creamery Inside

Coneflower Creamery Icecream

Coneflower Creamery Outside

Coneflower Creamery Sign

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading this post! I 100% recommend mission trips. I learned a lot, and I hope you had take aways from what I shared with you. Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions related to this post or ever!

#travel #missiontrip #omaha #advice #tips #equality #equity #positivity #earth #robbed #compost #garden #gardening #nebraska