Boissevain youth group heading to Florida in March

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This article was published 23/12/2023 (702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A group of students from Boissevain is looking forward to the spring, when they’ll fly to Florida to help provide humanitarian relief for people living in Fort Myers.

The youth group of the Boissevain Mennonite Brethren Church, located 73 kilometres southwest of Brandon, made up of about a dozen young people and adult chaperones, will be visiting the community from March 22-30.

“Fort Myers was hit by Hurricane Ian in September of 2022, and the surges of waves and impact was pretty significant for a number of miles inland,” youth pastor Shannon Wiebe, who is overseeing the trip, told the Sun. “A lot of houses dealt with flooding, loss of electricity, and a variety of different things.”

Harlem Heights — the community in Fort Myers that the students will be working in — has a population of around 1,930, according to the latest U.S. census data. Of the 1,930 residents, 1,200 are Hispanic. Thirty per cent of the people in Harlem Heights live below the federal poverty level.

“Because it’s a lower income community, people didn’t have the resources to rebuild and to deal with the devastation,” Wiebe said. “Last summer, there were a lot of businesses that still weren’t open, and so a lot of people lost their livelihoods.”

The students and their chaperones will be working with Adventures in Missions, an interdenominational mission organization that, according to its website, focuses on discipleship. Established in 1989, more than 160,000 people have worked with Adventures in Missions, which ministers year-round through ministry bases and partnerships. The organization has partnered the students with The Heights Foundation, whose website calls Harlem Heights a “severely distressed community,” with children living in poverty at twice the rate of the rest of the county.

The Heights Foundation’s mission is to support education and wellness, promote family and community development, and provide the benefits of enrichment and the arts.

Adventures in Missions brings in volunteer teams who work with the foundation to do different kinds of work, from skilled labour to remedial work, Wiebe said. Whether help is needed for drywalling and painting, lawn care or yard maintenance, demolition and more, she said the students are up for the task.

“They’ve asked us to be prepared to do whatever we’re asked when we get there, whatever is needed with the timeframe they’re at,” Wiebe said. “The group I have is willing to do whatever they can to help.”

But more than just labouring, the students will get a chance to really get to know the community and the people in it, and hear their stories, which will be a huge motivator for their work.

“We’ll be living there and working and helping in the same exact neighbourhood that we’re serving in, so we’ll really be shoulder to shoulder with the people who live there, and we’ll get to hear their stories and become part of that for a little bit in a meaningful way.”

Although the youth group is run out of the Boissevain Mennonite Brethren Church, it’s a community-focused group, so some of the students don’t attend the church. The group is welcoming to people of all backgrounds, Wiebe said.

“Anyone within our community is welcome to attend. Our students don’t have to be tied to the church. We do offer faith-based programming, but also social stuff throughout the week, too.”

The last missions trip the group went on was in 2017. A trip would have been planned for 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t feasible, Wiebe said. In the meantime, however, the youth group has been able to travel to Winnipeg for a week to serve people in the inner city.

The students in the youth group, who have been busy fundraising for the endeavour, are feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness about the upcoming trip.

“I think that it’s going to be a new experience for many of them,” Wiebe said. “They’re eager to serve, and they have hearts that want to serve in any way they can to make a difference and to help.”

Many of the students are also drawn to the youth group because it offers them a chance to make a difference in the world while being in a community with their peers, Wiebe added. Working with Adventures in Missions and The Heights Foundation will also be a great experience, she said.

“This team has been working down in this area of Florida for many, many months, and I think it’s a real privilege for our group to be a part of that.”

Serving in such a hands-on way is a great chance for the young people to grow their faith, Wiebe said. And when young people step out of their comfort zone through acts of service, it helps them to appreciate all they have at home.

“It’s OK to be uncomfortable, and it’s OK to be stretched and to challenge ourselves,” she said. “I really value the learning opportunity that this provides, as well as opportunities to grow in faith and faith formation. I think those are really valuable things.”

Rain Margetts is one of the students who is looking forward to going to Florida in the spring. The 15-year-old Grade 10 student told the Sun she has never been on a trip like this before, although she has been an active volunteer in her community.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting the locals, helping them build their houses and getting to know them,” she said. “I think it’ll be a really good experience for me.”

Margetts has only been on an airplane once, when she was much younger, but says she feels as though she is in very good hands with Wiebe. And being able to serve in such a deserving community that has been impacted so negatively by a catastrophic event such as Hurricane Ian has motivated Margetts to want to do as much as she can to help, she said.

“When you’re in a place like they are, where they’ve had something huge happen to them it’s important for other communities to reach out and help them, because I would hope that someone would do the same for us if something like that happened here.”

Margetts also hopes to get some practical, hands-on knowledge of how to do things such as put up drywall, which will serve her well later in life, she said.

“I think it’s also super good for me to learn how to do stuff like that.”

Margetts hopes this mission trip is just a jumping-off point for her, and that she’ll be able to attend many more in the future, helping even more people as she gets older.

The youth group is a great place to have fun and make a difference, and Margetts encourages any youth in Boissevain who is interested to try it out and see if it’s a good fit for them.

“It’s been a year and a half now that I’ve been part of this group, and I’ve met so many amazing people. We’ve had canoe trips and retreats with everyone,” she said. “It’s a lot more laid back than some people think. It’s like a little family.”

» mleybourne@brandonsun.com

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