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(KENZIE KLINE | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) Harley Vaughan, Cody Epperson and Cooper Wilde take a break from painting the Men’s Discipleship Home on site of The Feet Ministries to smile for a picture. They, among others, worked throughout the week to paint the outside of the building in order to improve the community facilities. -
(KENZIE KLINE | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) A group of youth and adult volunteers from Eastside Church of Christ pose for a photo after a week of service with The Feet Ministries, an organization dedicated to sharing the Gospel and serving the poor. The team helped with outreach projects and community support efforts. -
(KENZIE KLINE | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) Several of the youth volunteers from Eastside Church of Christ lead dances, games, and balloon animal making with neighborhood children as a part of The Feet’s weekly Kids Club for kids of the area. Shown from left to right are Jack Caddell, Lexi Wolfe, Madi Wilde, Kenzie Kline, Jack Page and Emery Wilfong. -
(KENZIE KLINE | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) Eastside Church of Christ youth pray over a struggling man during an evening street reach. Several volunteers flooded the surrounding area to pray for the homeless and needy. They also handed out bags with food, water, and hygiene as a means of initiating conversation.
High schoolers in my youth group at Eastside Church of Christ ventured to Fort Worth to serve on a mission trip Tuesday, June 23 at the Beautiful Feet Ministries.
The ministry focuses on the homeless and needy, providing them with meals, clothing, showers, and many other physical needs. However, the ministry also supplies spiritual needs by sharing the Gospel through daily worship. These acts of service and evangelism help those who need it daily.
Volunteering for the first time in this capacity was exciting. I felt strengthened and ready to serve an unfamiliar community in a new way.
Each day, we worked a rigorous but easy to follow schedule. Worship, prepare, serve, worship, cleanup and repeat. Our group even led the worship, songs and service projects.
These activities only fueled our desire to complete everything the best we could. The whole week went by without a hitch and soon we were getting ready to be back on our way home. However, several of us felt like something would be missing once we got back.
Throughout the week, we had felt as if something had changed within all of us. Something that needed to be recreated back in Graham. That something was spirit.
Coming back from the mission trip, we felt as if the spirit in not only our own lives, but Graham as a whole, was lacking. So many people who live here are suffering from issues that we are unaware of or even turn a blind eye to.
By recreating the spirit we had cultivated at Beautiful Feet Ministries, hopefully the same wonderful effects can happen.
According to our Youth Minister at Eastside, Avery Caddell, we plan on doing this through acts of service similar to those we saw and performed.
One of these acts of service includes running our own ‘kid’s club’ for the children of the Indiana Crossing apartment complexes.
“We are wanting to use a Wednesday night each month to put on some kind of VBS style kids club throughout the year,” Caddell said. “It would be a cool way for all of our church to connect with some families we don’t serve currently.”
Caddell hopes that Eastside is able to adapt to the same attitude the ministry does when filling needs and holding events similar to the kids club.
The youth minister said that by providing these, we will be able to change the community around us into something better and more beautiful day by day.
Kenzie Kline is the summer intern for The Graham Leader.
