Notes

One example that sticks out in my mind was last summer when I traveled to Heifer International in Arkansas with my church youth group. As my first mission trip, I was excited to travel on my own for the first time and visit a state I had never been to. The purpose of our trip was to learn about how Heifer International provides food sources around the world to people in struggling communities. They do that by taking donations from nice people and using the money to give animals and seeds to people in need. While on the trip we were assigned randomly into small groups to represent different parts of the world that Heifer helps. The groups represented different lower classes of societies. I was assigned to Guatamala, one of the better off countries but there were slums, Applachia and refugees. Each group pretended to have a burden and a pregnant person and had to spend 24 hours in that environment. Guatamala was given rice, egg, spice, potatoes and water, but others were not given so many supplies. The slums only had a couple spices and a table spoon of rice and the refugees had an onion and just a small tented room for 4 people. I worked with the communities to share resources and created a rice meal for everyone. It was fun but also eye opening to learn about conditions in other places.