I read the lead story in today’s Winston-Salem Journal with great interest.  You see it’s about the folks at King Moravian Church putting together a "Mission Blitz" and what’s really cool is that the idea came from their youth group.  From the article:

King Moravian had its first mission blitz last year. Volunteers from
the church worked on 10 homes around the county that needed everything
from new roofs to wheelchair ramps.

The Rev. Jim Newsom, the church’s pastor, said that young people in
the church gave older church members the idea for the program after
they had undertaken home-improvement projects in Ashe and Alleghany
counties through Laurel Ridge, a Moravian Church camp in Laurel Springs.

"(Our) church said, ‘What if we did a Stokes County mission camp?’" Newsom said.

Word of last year’s effort spread, and this year eight other local
churches signed on to help, including Methodists, Baptists and
Episcopalians.

My kids have done the mission camp at Laurel Ridge with their youth group for the last few years and every year they come back with great stories and a better sense of the world around them.  They also see how rewarding it is to do things that aren’t totally self-centered.

There’s a little family pride involved here since my Dad’s sister Debbie helped start the mission camp program at Laurel Ridge and ran it until last year.  I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see that the Mission Camp concept has been taken home by some of the participants and is spreading like a virus, in a good way.

If you’re interested in the Laurel Ridge Mission Camps here’s the website.