Summer of Service: Entourage, Delivery Boys and Mission Trips

Serving is the common thread found in the Summer Missions, Delivery Boys and Entourage ministry teams. Every summer, Global outreach sends students to countries all over the world.

This summer alone, students swept the globe and went to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Guatemala, India, Israel, Latvia, Mozambique, Russia, and Tanzania.

To capture a snapshot of summer missions, junior Jessica Reina ventured to France. The France team worked with children, prepared for an English-speaking Vacation Bible Study, cleaned, gardened and performed a skit. Though the heart of a mission trip is to serve others the expectations of what a mission trip may look like can be dramatically challenged.

“You go somewhere to change someone else’s life, but it also changes your life so much. Everyone should go on a missions trip. They change you, they teach that God is the same God in every country,” Reina said.

Junior Asia Perrin travelled all over the country as one of four girls in the 2010-2011 Entourage team. She had stories of children mistaking Spanish for speaking in tongues, her nervousness to be a part of the team, and the experience of putting together skits in a month’s time.

One of the things she most enjoyed was when the children began to see her as a person, not just a performer. “You must be a servant, overall…the most difficult part is dying to self and giving to others instead of always wanting to uplift yourself,” Perrin said.

Senior Devin Aguilera, in his third year as a Delivery Boy, described the teams as “a different kind of ministry. It is through humor we gain respect and show the children who God is.”

He now sees students who were recruited by the Delivery Boys attending Vanguard.

“I get to see the impact we have on the student’s lives,” Aguilera said.

Aside from being a unique way to minister, it is also a “big road trip” filled with countless weird stories, bonding times and challenges on the road.