Guest Speaker: Joe Munro
It started as a one-time invitation to help out with his church's youth group, and grew into a full-time passion...which has spawned a new youth service organization, which helps the teens who volunteer for it as well as those in need around the country.
Joe Munro took over the youth service group at Sycamore United Methodist Church in 2008, and sought to expand it into something more; from an initial team of 13 students, it evolved into what's now known as Life Missions. Each year, dozens of teens embark on a nine-month effort to raise funds, to cover the cost of their one-week trip to a U.S.-based service project. Life Missions is open to any teen of high school age, including eighth graders who will be incoming freshmen by summertime; they need not be members of Sycamore UMC, nor even affiliated with any church.
The first mission was to the impoverished town of Cleveland, Georgia; since then, they've ranged afield to locations between there and Native American reservations out west, helping to fix homes, clean up grounds and provide for the needs of communities which require their help. This year, 187 youths and 24 adults are signed up -- so many, that they've had to split up into two units; each group will go to Kissimmee, Florida to serve the area families...as well as a camp for children dealing with cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
So many participants have gone through Life Missions that they've had to expand into an adult program; while the teen missions are strictly to United States destinations, the adult groups go abroad to places such as Jamaica, Belize and this year to Nicaragua.
Munro says the missions not only bond together youths who might otherwise not interact with each other, but it also serves to help them realize what they can achieve in their faith and in their everyday lives.