08/07/2026
Maybe you have heard people say, “You are too young…or too Old”
To really understand. To really make a difference. To really be useful. To really serve God.
These words can make you doubt yourself, doubt your abilities Or maybe make you feel like you just aren’t ready, or prepared, or able, to be used by God. That is what our mission trip experience was all about.
Over the mission trip week we studied versus from the book of Jeremiah.
It contains profound messages regarding God's intentional design, calling, and purpose for human life, emphasizing that life is not accidental but orchestrated with intention.
Jeremiah 29:11�"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (ESV)
Jeremiah was a young boy who felt just like us, too young, not ready, not “enough.” He was very young when God told him that he was meant to be a prophet to Israel. (He is thought to have been just 17! The same age as half our mission trip team!) He probably thought, “There must be someone else who would be a better choice to do this. Nobody will listen to me anyway. Im just a kid. I can’t do this.”
Jeremiah said to God, "But Lord God, I don't know how to speak. I am only a boy.”
Who was Jeremiah seeing? He was seeing what he thought he knew about himself. What he had always been told, what he could do or not do, as a youth. But what he should have been seeing and what God showed him, was what he could do as the person God created him to be, what he could do, when God was with him!
There was no age limit for the job God was giving him. All that he needed to do was to believe and follow, and God would do the rest, through him!
“But the Lord said to me, “Do not say to me I am only a youth” for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and to whatever I command you, you shall speak,”
When Jeremiah protests "I am only a youth", God rejects this excuse. God focuses on His divine commission, overriding Jeremiah's self-doubt. The command "you shall go" and "you shall speak" underscores that Jeremiah’s role requires complete submission to where God sends and what He dictates. This verse serves as both a command and a promise. God does not call the equipped; He equips the called, assuring Jeremiah that his human weaknesses will be overcome by divine authority.
The story of Jeremiah is a great example and reminder for today’s youth (and the rest of us!) - You’re never too YOUNG (or too old)! So be open, be prepared, listen and look, for what God is really asking of you!
That was the challenge set before our youth for our week of service with Kids Belong in Muskegon, Michigan.
Kids Belong is a network of foster, adopt, and kinship families in West Michigan. They are based in Muskegon and serve all surrounding areas with community and supports. Their message is not that everyone needs to become a foster parent, but that everyone can do something to help make the system function better for all.
Kids Belong supports Foster, Adopt, and Kinship families (a biological family member who is given 24 hours to decide if they will foster their family member’s child OR let them be given over to the foster care system).
Kids Belong supports families through clothing closets, meals, support groups, Family Gatherings, and special events, providing much needed support and community.
Foster, Adopt, and Kinship families who connect with other like families are stronger, better resourced, and last longer. Kids Belong believes that the community that wraps around foster care becomes an integral part of the process.
Over the week, The Saints became that greater community!
Upon arriving at Living Life Church each morning, we were tasked with preparing for the 35-45 kids who might show up for Kids Club that day, ages ranging from preschool through middle school!
There were kids club lunches and take home family dinners to be prepared, assembled, packaged and labeled, a gymnasium of games to set up in an interactive, engaging, and hopefully, possibly a non-life threatening way?! Crafts to be planned and set out for assembly, by kids of various ages, abilities, and attitudes, and a scripture lesson to be prepared that could hold the attention of a large, energetic, and vocal group of wild and wonderfully unpredictable children! Yes! For…The whole group preschool through middle school! And of course, we would need to learn and prepare a skit to perform in front of this very group, as our very interactive audience! This skit would kick off the afternoon’s program of events and set the tone for the day.
While 2 of our 3 teams would be planning and preparing all of this, another group would go off to a foster family home. Prepared to help with needs that had been unable to be met by the very busy and varied family members who lived there. Things like yard work and landscaping. Minor, yet very important, home repairs like porches, stairs and decks. Our team removed rotten wood and replaced treads, removed unwanted shrubs, weeded and tilled, prepared flowerbeds and carried in loads of new soil! Making everything ready for the “fun” part of gardening…the planting of flowers and vegetables! A great family project ready, prepared and waiting for them upon their arrival home!
After the morning tasks were completed all three teams would reunite at Living Life Church for the afternoon Kids Club! Our mission for the afternoon…engage, teach, entertain…and survive!
Some of us maintained, as best we could, the 3 Stations that made up the afternoons events; the gym, the craft room and the lesson room. The rest of us were one on one with a foster child for the program, attending each of the afternoons stations together!
As the kids began to arrive Jeff, from Kids Belong, asked each of our teens to “buddy up” with foster kids as they were being dropped off. The ages ranged from 3yrs through 14yrs and buddies were assigned randomly with no thought of age, gender, ability, disability, need or attitude!
It was a little scary for everyone, very scary for some, and unthinkable for a few!
But everyone stepped up, everyone stepped OUT of of their comfort zone! That first day was not easy, in fact it was quite uneasy in many ways both for us and the people we were there to serve.
As the week progressed, I was blessed by what God revealed to me.
I want to share with you just a few examples of what I observed and experienced, a witness that will stay with me, what I have taken with me, and what has changed me.
The biggest thing for me was watching this group (of very blessed teens “with all the advantages”) change as the week went by. The slow discovery of truly seeing and understanding the situation, the lives, of these foster children. The challenges, fears, uncertainty, and loneliness they face. The longing for a family, for a home, for a place that is theirs where they belong. The desire for connection and friendship without conditions or assumptions. The unconditional love that many of us experience yet take for granted.
I watched as an awareness began to happen. This group of fun loving, boisterous teens always ready for a coffee or Walmart snack run began to realize as much as these kids are “just like us”…they are also very different. Their lives are very different, their worries, their struggles, their problems, their family dynamics, their living situations, their obstacles, their experiences, their expectations, their support systems.
All so different from ours and yet we all have the same dream ‘for a life that is full,”with love, shelter & food, safety, good health and an opportunity for happiness.
We would spend the better part of a week with these amazing kids. The connections grew rapidly and deep.
I watched Isaac with his buddy who I referred to as the “anti-Isaac”. They were close to the same size and not far apart age wise BUT You could not pick a more opposite child! I watched Isaac go from being a nervous wreck to a confident big brother and friend.
Fiona with her buddy, who has been in foster care since he was 6 weeks old, facing many serious health issues, and legally blind - but who sees the world through God’s eyes, his foster mom told me. During the week he worried about everyone but himself, from the homeless not knowing Jesus, his teacher being an atheist, to making sure everyone had a seat at the table on Family Fun Nite. He and Fiona shared a fast friendship and made a instant connection that I know time and miles between will not break!
On this trip I had 2 young boys who, let’s just say seriously tested my patience and grace! Who in God’s Divine wisdom, would receive to little boys as buddies who would do the same for them! It was glorious!
And finally I watched as my beautiful young girls so full of confidence, talents and high expectations were brought to their knees by dirty faced little boys in clothes that didn’t quite fit, by cute little girls who pack a serious left hook when needed, and children who would eat their weight in hot dogs not knowing when or if their next meal would come. These amazing courageous young women prepared to go and conquer the world…shaken to their cores.
Each night we met to talk about our daily Jeremiah verse and shared how something may have been revealed to us that day. We had discussions about God bringing us to this place and these children
AND how God brought these children to each one of us! We shared many laughter filled conversations about crazy, unexpected events, like out of control bible lessons where the entire group decided it was time to go to the bathroom! We also shared what God revealed to each of us, individually during that day.
This brought everyone to tears, almost daily.
We felt blessed, we felt we were doing good and making a difference, even for just a short amount of time.
We were giving and sharing all that we had to give, loving unconditionally, showing up ready for whatever these kids were going to give! At some point in the week, the kids we were there to serve, realized we were there for them and we wanted to be. We WERE going to show the next day!
We were also giving and sharing with one another. Everyone had found their place in the team, sharing strengths and leaning into overcoming weaknesses. We were stretching comfort zones daily from the first day right up until the last Adventure Day of roller coasters rides! We encouraged each other to believe in ourselves and worked to grow our relationships with one another and our personal relationships with God.
We had thoughtful conversations about scripture we were focussing on each day and talked about how God knew us, where we were, what we were doing, and all that we could do through Him, now and in our futures.
When it was time for our final good byes with our friends from Kids Belong it was heart wrenching. I saw that there was indeed a real connection, these children from the east coast and these children from the midwest, these children of a seaside picturesque village and these children from a impoverished metro area,
these children with stable parents, beautiful homes, beds and food always available, these children wishing for parents, wishing for a home, praying for a bed of their own and a meal
Yes, there was a connection made. These children, these children of God. Yes, all of them, all of us, we are all children of God. We are all known by him, made for him, and loved unconditionally by Him.
Jeremiah 1:5�"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;…”
We do the work of God. You in me and I in you. You and I make a difference. We have influence.
We can choose to be the good in the world. We can give God’s unconditional Love to someone longing to know God is present in their life AND we can accept that same love from perhaps the most surprising person that God chooses to send, even a dirty faced little boy named Brexton. Amen.
