My Friends – If you want to do a mission trip in the United States, might I suggest the Epworth Project just north of New Orleans, LA? New Orleans and the vicinity is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and then last year they got blasted with Hurricane Isaac. For less than $300 per person, you can stay in their place with a kitchen, wifi, living room with cable television, and his and hers bedrooms and bathrooms. You can buy groceries and cook in the house and pack your lunch and eat very cheap. And that $300 not only covers your stay, but all the tools and materials to work on a hurricane damaged home. I have been there twice (2011 and 2012) and the people at the Epworth Project are great people who love Jesus and want to make a difference to the people in the area. They are caring and professional and will line up work according to the skill of your team. Anyone can lead a team to Epworth. They make it simple. You can see pictures from our New Orleans trip from 2012 here.
If you are interested in a trip to another country, I recommend going to Haiti with Happy Kids International. We just got back from there. They picked us up at the airport. We stayed in a comfortable home with showers and toilets (they have gravity fed water in the house). We ate authentic Haitian food with some familiar American food mixed in. They have great young men who travel around with you to interpret and help in your work. We visited an orphanage and played games with the kids and had a cookout for them, visited a Haitian school and worked with the kids, took sandwiches and fruit to a prison and gave them to prisoners and had prayer with them, delivered rice and beans to people who lived in huts with dirt floors and had nothing, had a cookout and gave clean drinking water to a very poor community, built a chicken coop, and went to the beach! We had Happy Kids people around us all the time who looked out for us and translated for us. It was a greater trip than I could have ever imagined. And at less than $1,500 per person including airfare, lodging, food, and transportation in Haiti, it is a great deal. If you want to see pictures from our Haiti trip, click here. Like the New Orleans people, these are professional people who love Jesus and take care of everything for you on your trip. You don’t have to have ever led a mission trip before. I traveled with my wife and adult son. I will definitely be going back to Haiti with Happy Kids.
If you have questions about either one of these places, email me from my ‘contact me’ page. I would love to answer any questions to make you feel comfortable about going to either one of these wonderful places and working with these great people. You will be blessed.
Scott Knowlton's Blog 