On a mission!

While most recent graduates find it difficult to manage one full time job, Holly Jones not only works at Big Spring High School, and runs her own photography business, she has also succeeded in completing missions trips to the Dominican Republican and Belize to help spread the gospel and work with underprivileged children. 

“Nowadays Americans are very blessed with the freedom, security, and safety that our country allows us to have.” Jones said. “Perspectives of other countries are things we don’t know about until seeing what they have compared to what we have.” Jones’s trip was Jan 29 to Feb. 4 of 2020. 

In her experience, she and her church group constructed a wall in a church for them, worked at an orphanage to build fences, and held children’s ministry. Working on that church to build a wall took the entire group around thirty hours to complete, but it made her happy knowing that they will care for buildings because they had people there who wanted to help them.

As Jones compared the way things were here to Dominican, she said,  “Food was a challenge; everything was plant based. The bathrooms are  nothing like in the United States, since they have no air conditioning.  Instead, they have paddle fans. Plus, they do not wash their hands or don’t flush toilets until the end of the night, because they don’t have the water quality.” 

They also engaged in some fun activities like playing games outside such as baseball and volleyball. They had a ministry day when all the kids got gifts such as crayons, barbies etc. “We took so many videos and pictures, and we even printed some out for them, and they were excited because they never had a picture of them printed out, so it was exciting to see them happy.” said Jones.

While on the mission they collected the donations from their church, other companies that helped provide food and water for the kids and families. On their ministry night they also bought gifts to give to the kids as well. Jones’s crew collected around a thousand dollars. 

Connected by a similar mission, sophomore, Carlee Seiler  has a warm heart and loves doing these type missions trips and how they make people look at their own perspective of life. Seiler has been to six different missions trips. Four of them were to the Dominican Republic, one to Tianjin Island, and one to Washington D.C. 

“What missions trips mean to me is that it shows people who God is and helps us spread His love everywhere.” said Seiler. While in the Dominican, they gave out food, hygiene products, and the gospel. 

Seiler believes that everyone should go on a mission trip just to understand the living of a  different country, and to show other Americans that it can be very eye opening.