March 18, 2024

Youth group member: ‘It is life changing. It changes your heart.’

FRC Senior High Youth group return from mission in Florida

More than 1,000 miles separate Prairie City and Gretna, Fla.

Despite the distance, the two cities have many things in common. They both serve small communities. They both are home to numerous churches. They both have people that will never forget what happened over spring break.

“It has really changed me as a person and it is something I will have with me for the rest of my life,” 18-year-old Mark Bruxvoort said.

Bruxvoort and 56 other area residents spent their spring break in Gretna for a mission with the First Reformed Church Senior High Youth group. On March 10, the team began their nine-day trek to Florida to work with a Gretna-based missional ministry that serves children and families in the community.

“My freshman and sophomore years, we went to Texas and we built houses down there. Last year, we built the community center in (Gretna),” Bruxvoort said. “This year, I feel like we built relationships.”

Last year, the group traveled to Gretna to help build a community center, improve the missional ministry’s community garden and hold worship service in the city. This year, the group continued their work by adding an outdoor kitchen and classroom to the community center, setting up an irrigation system in the community garden and spending time with kids at the organization’s daycare.

“The difference between this year and last year was last year the kids were not on spring break, so we didn’t have a lot of personal contact with the kids. It was more working in the community and on the community, but there was not a lot of personal contact,” youth group leader, Ava Telfer said. “This year, the kids were on spring break. The younger kids got to go to day camp so there was a lot of loving on the kids and just being there with them. The high schoolers came on the sites and worked with us. So they were working right along side of us, improving their building and their community center.”

According to Telfer, these interactions changed the trip from being a typical mission they do every year to an unforgettable experience.

“In the town that they live in, their culture is different then ours,” she said. “They have a completely different background. Their stories are different than our kids’ life stories.”

The youth group leader said many of the children they served live in tough situations. With 19.6 percent of its residents living under poverty line according to the American Community Survey, Telfer said the kids they met in Gretna have lived different lives than what she comes to expect for the youth in Prairie City.

“One of the (Gretna) students, like within the last year, his dad was not in the picture. He lost his mom, a brother, a best friend and an uncle in all different circumstances in the last year,” Telfer said. “School isn’t a priority a lot of the times. They definitely could be pulled to a lifestyle of crime, drugs and alcohol. Not that that can’t happen here, but here, typically, you grow up on a farm with a mom and a dad, and a community that supports them and wants them to go to college.”

For many of the FRC SHY members, like 15-year-old Gabe Steenhoek, this trip gave them a taste of what life is like outside of Prairie City.

“It was extremely different. It was definitely a change from Prairie City,” he said. “Getting to know the kids from Gretna who are older, high school age, they are good kids. It is just kind of unfortunate the situation they are in.”

The group members said that they also developed several life-long relationships with the Gretna kids they worked with.

“I think it was cooler to build relationships because if you keep in contact with them, you can keep that (relationship) for the rest of your lives,” Bruxvoort said. “There was this one kid who said he would miss us so much when we leave. He said all the people who come in his life stay for a short time and leave him. My mom (who went on the trip) went on to say don’t think that we are leaving you. Think of it as we are building a relationship now, and we will continue that relationship. In this day in age, with texting, Skype and email, you can keep in touch with them no matter what.”

Telfer said that despite the group initially traveling to Florida to help the Gretna community, the Florida kids helped them grow as people.

“It changed our kids’ outlook. Everyone keeps saying we are such a blessing to them, but really, our kids were blessed to be able to make these friendships. They grew,” Telfer said. “It wasn’t just about us giving to them, they gave to us too. There was definitely spiritual and emotional growth happening with our kids, and there kids also.”

Contact Anthony Victor Reyes at
areyes@myprairiecitynews.com.