Stories From My Trip!

I'm so glad to be home! But to be honest, I wish my mission trip could have lasted longer. I wanted to be more immersed in the culture, get used to the routines of the town, and maybe have a little more time for sight seeing in the country.

Don't get me wrong . . . the time we had there was SOOOO good!

Before we ever actually arrived in York, I felt like we had already traversed the whole world. We had been on a plane for about 10 hours total, taken two subway lines in London, caught a train in the Kings Cross Station (yes the one from Harry Potter, it was soo cool!), and rode the train for 2 hours through the English countryside. Once we arrived in the city, we walked for 10-15 minutes to get our rental vans. Then, we met the team.

Our first activity was Sunday night when we had a barbecue to introduce ourselves to the team that lives in York (we call them the Yorkies).

In true English fashion it was cold and rainy throughout our time there that night, but honestly I didn't mind it as the rain was a reminder of home.

Right off the bat we all noticed the cultural and linguistic differences between our countries. The Yorkies all had thick British Yorkshire accents (if you don't know how hard it can be to understand, I encourage you to look it up) and we had to figure out what we call different things. The first example we noticed, was "hot dogs." With a barbecue one has grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and to them that's exactly what they had. However, in American English, they had hamburgers and grilled sausage links, with corn and pasta salad.

I'm not sure if it was because we had been living off of airport food for the past two days, but the meal was sooo good!

On Monday, we split up. The group I was with started off in the sixth form school (like high school) and we got to talk to one of the classes about our testimonies and what it is like in America. The group of girls that I was talking to were really interested in learning about what high school is like in America. They also asked some really good spiritual questions and were open when I asked them about their religions.

After a few minutes in the groups we did a panel activity, where the Americans stood in a line in the front and answered some deep and religious questions that the students asked. For example, one that most of us on the panel answered was "What is your proof in believing in Jesus?" This one honestly caught me off guard and made me think. I initially answered by saying that the Bible is our main proof, but next would be the fact that I have physically felt and heard God in my own life. Someone else answered that they keep thinking about the disciples and why 12 men would willingly die for something if they knew it wasn't true.

After going to the school, we walked around a neighborhood by the church we were partnering with and handed out flyer to kids walking home from school. The flyers were for events the church was hosting throughout the week. It was really cool to see people actually open to what we had to give them. In America, a large portion of society would refuse the paper or immediately crumple it up, but the people of York read the whole thing and took it home with them.

On Tuesday, my group from the day before went to a local primary school and played with some of the kids during their recess. The older kids came out first. Most of them were just interested in playing football (soccer for us Americans). But a few of the girls were content to walk around and talk to each other. One little boy, named Tyler, came out a few minutes later with his aid. He was adorable and really wanted to play "tig" (the British version of tag) with me and one of the leaders, but he couldn't run very well and he really just wanted us to chase him around. He went back inside shortly after, but the little kids came out about then as well.

The little ones were all adorable and mainly wanted to either play tig or rock paper scissors. They had the cutest little British sayings if they got out, and we even had the opportunity to talk to one of the little girls about going to church.

The majority of Wednesday was spent playing games at a primary school with kids at recess. This was similar to Tuesday, but it was more organized: we had different station running different games. My station was in charge of duck duck goose with the little kids and sharks and minnows with the older ones. All of the kids were well behaved and loved getting to chase us around! I had some really sweet conversation with the kids at our station and learned a lot about the culture and the schools.

One of my favorite interactions on this day was with a little boy named Charley. He didn't want to play duck duck goose at first so he sat out. I sat with him and got him talking about what he likes, especially history. This totally works for me as I love learning about events and wars. He was specifically fixated on the world wars and ended up acting out the entire start of World War 1! It was adorable and amazing to see him fully in his element while talking about what he loves.

When he had finished explaining it to me, he came back to where I was sitting and said, "You know, duck duck goose doesn't sound so bad anymore!" with a big smile on his face as he ran over to the circle. That moment right there was so minimal, yet made me feel like I can really help people. Most people only need someone to listen to what they want to talk about to make them feel better.

The first part of the week was mostly about building relationships with schools and playing with kids in the neighborhood. In my next blog post, I'll talk about some moment that I skipped from the first half of the week that were really impactful, and I'll unpack the rest of the week!

Thank you so much for supporting me on this journey!!