Team Detroit Finishes Strong

The Detroit team has finished strong on these final two days of work, ministry and play. Thursday and Friday were our longest work days, basically sun up to sun down. The team worked super hard, and stayed faithful to the projects all the way through. Our new Friends at Redeemer Presbyterian are very pleased with our progress on their campus. We brought everything we could to completion, and brought some of the larger projects as far as we could. 

This later week we welcomed Matt Hannan, illustrious JRHS Bible Teacher, to the Team. The adult team has served boldly and faithfully. Mrs. Joan Comrie has been chief of Commissary; Jeff Philbrick, Ed Cross and Jacob Cross have been the Project Managers. The Redeemer men Abe and James have set up all the work and given us the necessary direction.

We finished our day with an awesome MLB Baseball game, the Detroit Tigers vs the Minnesota Twins. The Lord gave us a glorious afternoon at Comerica Stadium, full sun and nearly 70 degrees - so wonderful! The Home Team didn’t pull out the “W”, but it was a wonderful outing. We completed our Saturday evening with our final team devotion. After a time of praise and worship, each missionary was challenged to verbalize the greatest value and takeaway of the trip. 

"This trip has been a great learning experience for me, learning life skills. I have learned how to paint, how to apply drywall compound (mudding!) and all forms of team work. This church has significant need, and our team has been able to serve them greatly with our skills and talents and faithfulness. This has been rewarding.

In our devotion time, I have grown closer to God, learning about faithfulness. We are studying the Parables in our Devotion time, and how we can apply the concept into our lives.

Visiting Detroit has shown me the diversity of the people, and the economy. There are very poor, very dirty sections of this city. I enjoyed the Henry Ford Museum, mostly the automobiles and Rosa Parks Bus, the woman who began the Civil Rights movement." - Stephen ‘27

"This was my first missions experience with the school, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but whatever my expectations were, this blew them out of the park. First and foremost, it’s been a great growing opportunity for my faith. As a junior, I am leaning into a position of spiritual leadership for the younger students, which in turn spurs my own faith forward. Whether it be teaching a parable, helping lead worship, or being available for prayer, this trip has strengthened my relationship with Jesus Christ.

The factor that attracted me most to this mission trip was the physical aspect. I love working with my hands and laboring, and this has been perfect for me. Between building a drop ceiling, painting, mudding, drywalling, and any other small task or project that needed to be completed, I’ve grown in my skills and learned so much.

The final aspect of this trip to Detroit that has impacted me the most are the relationships. On the trip I’ve made new friends and grown closer to old ones alike. I’ve been able to teach some younger students and I’ve learned so much from the adults. I had the chance to talk with Pastor Jon and I learned about the church and their mission, and I also had the chance to have some fun with the students of Detroit Christian School. The relationships that I’ve made and grown on this trip will be something that I’ll remember for a very long time, and they really made this trip an amazing experience." - Elliot ‘25

Pastor Jon asked one student to speak to the Church, and we selected Jacob to speak for our team:

 "This is my second time coming here to Detroit.  The first time I came as a freshman on missions, and I was definitely surprised.  I had never seen a church with architecture quite like this nor had I seen any buildings really abandoned so seeing the basement and being told that we are going to renovate it was a surprise and I was a little bit in disbelief like there’s no way were going to clean that up! Yet, by the end of the week, we had loaded 3 or 4 dumpsters, and accomplished many great improvements.

This year, it has been rewarding for me to come back and see how much that week of work that we did 2 years ago has helped the church and the school. This trip means a lot to me because I love working with my hands on various types of projects and this gave me an opportunity to use those skills to help grow the Kingdom of God and has given the church and the school more resources to grow in the city and spread the Gospel."- Jacob 25

"I was asked to come on this trip to be the girl’s chaperone and cook for the entire group of 15 people. Strangely, I said yes right away. I think that was the Holy Spirit because I do usually take more time making decisions. My husband and I have sent 8 of our kids on mission trips and I have never been on one myself. I didn’t know what to expect. I was impacted by how eager the kids were to work hard and make a difference. This has been a grueling week. Everyone worked harder than they are used to. I think after getting the tour of part of the city I understood more of what we’re doing. Pastor Johnathan has such a heart for the people and wants to see Christ shared throughout the city so this work that our Team did feels like such a blessing to this place that desire to be a light to a city that’s trying to get back on its feet." - Mrs. Joan Comrie, Team Chef and Medic