Powered by Compassion
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
It’s finally here! Today, I am traveling to Cambodia on a humanitarian mission trip with a group of twenty people from Trinity Church, Miami, Florida. This will be my 35th humanitarian mission trip. Our primary goal is to provide a mobile medical clinic for the children who attend Cambodian Care Ministries’ Light of Future Schools. There are now three Light of Future Schools with a total enrollment of approximately 500 children. We will be utilizing medications provided by MAP International and providing the children with a pair of shoes from
The Shoe That Grows. This trip is very special not only because of the work we plan to do, but also because of people who make up our team. Some of them are mission trip veterans. Others have never traveled outside of the United States. Some of our team members aren’t traveling with us at all. They are our support team members. They have raised funds and gathered resources to make our project possible and will also provide ongoing support to our group from home. All of our team members are people of compassion and action.
When I traveled on my first mission trip over twenty years ago, my children were small. My son, Zachary, was 7 years old and my daughter, Vanessa, was 5. They couldn’t really understand why Mom was going to Mexico for a week and they were sure that their Dad wasn’t completely capable of taking care of them. Twenty years later, I am still traveling on mission trips. Vanessa is in her final year of medical school and Zachary is married with two small children of his own.
Zachary’s wife, Daniella, is one of our support team members. For her birthday last year, she decided to initiate a fundraiser to purchase The Shoe That Grows for the children at Light of Future Schools. She set her fundraising goal at $3,000.00 or 200 pairs of shoes. As of yesterday, Daniella’s fundraiser has provided our team with 510 pair of shoes to take with us to Cambodia – enough for each child at Light of Future Schools to have a pair. I can’t wait to see the kids faces when they receive these shoes!
In the coming weeks, I will be posting pictures and writing blog posts about our team’s progress in Cambodia.
What People Are Saying
I love so much of this. I can only imagine the joy everyone felt when ALL those pairs of shoes came flooding in!
Paula!
Thank you! Pictures to follow…
Linda