By the Hand Englewood 

Chicago, Illinois 

www.bythehand.org

  When: May 27-June 2, 2012

Who: Open to anyone and everyone   

Number of spots on team: 8-10 

Cost: $200

What this will cover: All lodging, transportation, materials for work, and food (except for food on the road to and from Chicago).

How to register: Contact Forrest

Note: We served with By the Hand Englewood last summer during the CSM Chicago trip. They invited us to come back to help with their ministry on the South Side of Chicago.  

From the By the Hand website: Our name, By The Hand captures the essence of what distinguishes our after-school program from others. We literally and figuratively take kids by the hand and walk alongside them from the time they enroll in our program until they’re walking independently as well-adjusted, responsible adults. We tutor them to academic excellence. We mentor them to reach their full potential. And we care for them as our own.

By The Hand is an after-school program with an emphasis on academics and a commitment to nurturing the whole child—mind, body and soul. Founded in Cabrini-Green and located strategically throughout some of Chicago's most impoverished inner-city communities, where overcrowded and underfunded schools abound, By The Hand is filling a special need—and with great success. Kids are saying no to drugs, gang violence and teenage pregnancy. They are rejecting illiteracy and poverty as a way of life. Instead, they are developing into honor roll students and changing the trajectory of their lives. When you partner with By The Hand, you are helping kids realize their full potential. In doing so, you are making a difference for generations to come.

Impact Georgia  

Atlanta, Georgia 

www.impactgeorgia.org

  When: June 23-30, 2012

Who: Open to current 6^th-8^th graders  

Number of spots on team for youth: 12 

Cost: $475 ($400 with 8 hours in Pumpkin Patch)

What this will cover: All lodging, transportation, materials for work, and food (except for food on the road to and from Atlanta).

How to register: Pay a $50 NON-REFUNDABLE deposit and return completed registration form. (If you’re going on multiple trips, you must pay a deposit for each trip.)

Note: We have twice served with Impact Georgia’s “parent” ministry, Impact Florida. We’re excited as this new ministry (opened in 2011) builds a strong foundation for impacting lives around the metropolitan Atlanta area.  

From Impact Georgia website: We provide students the opportunity to serve communities through minor home repair and intentional community work. You and your group will put faith into action by bringing the Gospel to others through selfless service. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” -Matthew 5:16 Impact Georgia is based on a vision by Matt Harrell and Kevin Jones to expand the ministries of Impact Florida to other parts of the country. After working together at Impact Florida, Matt and Kevin began dreaming about how they could make a difference in the world. Their desire to continue working together in ministry led to the vision for Impact Georgia. They have recognized a need in the Atlanta and surrounding areas, and feel called to provide a service to the community that will instill a sense of hope and joy to those communities. They feel that God has called them to this area to provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their faith through minor home repairs and assisting in restoration of communities through the love Jesus commanded us to show.

UMC Disaster Relief 

Vermont   

When: July 7-14, 2012

Who: Open to current 8^th-12^th graders

Number of spots on team for youth: 25 

Cost: $475 ($400 with 8 hours in Pumpkin Patch)

What this will cover: All lodging, transportation, materials for work, and food (except for food on the road to and from Vermont).

How to register: Pay a $50 NON-REFUNDABLE deposit and return completed registration form. (If you’re going on multiple trips, you must pay a deposit for each trip.)

Note: We have taken four disaster response teams to serve since 2006 – twice to Mississippi and twice to Texas. This will be a similar trip. We expect to be called upon to help with rebuilding homes.

The flooding from Hurricane Irene's remnants in Vermont was the worst since 1927. As much as 11 inches of rain fell on the Green Mountain State. More than 250 roads were washed out in Vermont along with more than 30 highway bridges, including several historic covered-bridges. Sen. Bernie Sanders called the flooding "Vermont's worst natural disaster in its 400-year history." I found this description online: “Normally placid creeks and streams in Vermont and neighboring eastern New York State were turned into roaring brown 'torrents of destruction' that smashed hundreds of buildings, ripping many homes completely off their foundations.”

            We are taking a leap of faith by following God’s call to serve in Vermont. Aren’t all mission trips a leap of faith? Well, yes, but in this case the United Methodist Church is still in the early stages of recovery. We don’t yet know exactly where we will be serving or exactly what we’ll be doing. But we know God will be with us and that He will use us to help those in need.

   Motown Mission  

Detroit, Michigan

www.motownmission.org

When: July 21-28, 2012

Who: Open to current 6^th-12^th graders

Number of spots on team for youth: 12

Cost: $475 ($400 with 8 hours in Pumpkin Patch)

What this will cover: All lodging, transportation, materials for work, and food (except for food on the road to and from Detroit).

How to register: Pay a $50 NON-REFUNDABLE deposit and return completed registration form. (If you’re going on multiple trips, you must pay a deposit for each trip.)

Note: This mission trip will be like any we’ve done before, as we go into one of America’s toughest cities and work to feed God’s children and green the city!!! 

From the Motown Mission website: Urban Harvest Week!

Urban gardening and farming are one of the ways that the people of Detroit are making a way for themselves in the midst of economic struggles.  With high quality local produce residents can supplement their diets, eat healthier, and create small businesses based on what they can produce from empty lots and farms in parks. Motown Mission teams opting in to Urban Harvest week projects will tend gardens, plant crops, harvest produce and attend to some of the physical needs of the local community fruit and vegetable markets.  

*** Please visit the Motown Mission website to learn much more about their ministry

Center for Student Missions

Los Angeles, California 

www.csm.org/losangeles.php

When: August 4-11, 2012

Who: Open to current 8^th-12^th graders

Number of spots on team for youth: 11

Cost: $750 ($675 with 8 hours in Pumpkin Patch)

What this will cover: All lodging, transportation, materials for work, and food (except in the airports to and from Los Angeles).

How to register: Pay a $50 NON-REFUNDABLE deposit and return completed registration form. (If you’re going on multiple trips, you must pay a deposit for each trip.)

Why Los Angeles? We have been strong supporters of the CSM urban ministry since 2001, having served in Washington (multiple times), Philadelphia, Chicago (twice), Toronto, New York, and Denver. We believe CSM is the best urban ministry partner in youth ministry, and Los Angeles is where it all started.   

From the CSM website: Los Angeles is a huge mission field with an abundance of needs, hurt, pain, brokenness, tension, stress, hopelessness, depression, violence, anger, oppression, bondage, and hate. At the same time, Los Angeles has God in its midst, healing the hurt and pain, bringing wholeness and peace, giving rest to the weary, giving home and joy, encouraging, loving liberating, and changing peoples’ lives for eternity. While Los Angeles’ problems are not unique to major urban centers, L.A. has an intensity that few cities share. Its diversity, combined with a history of racial volatility, has caused two major civil disturbances in the last three decades—the 1965 Watts riots and the havoc wreaked in the aftermath of the acquittal verdicts handed down in the Rodney King beating trial. There is a crying need for people of different cultures and colors to band together to combat the myriad of problems they face as residents of inner-city L.A.

*** Please see the enclosed CSM mission trips info and visit the CSM website to learn much more about their ministry in Chicago, including a sample daily schedule of what our week might look like.