Photo: Tremederated Youth Ministry Serves Milwaukee

A special thanks to Emily Barr, Youth Pastor at Trinity Church of Yorkville, for providing the following news release and photograph.

Tremederated Youth Ministry, a cluster youth ministry combining youth groups from of Yorkville, Federated Church of Sandwich, and United Church of Sandwich, came together to form this youth ministry 2 years ago. It is a great chance for a few smaller groups to come together and form a larger group for fellowship, service, and learning more about God.

Earlier this summer, Emily Barr, Youth Pastor of Tremederated, and 2 adult volunteers took 20 kids from Yorkville and Sandwich to the city of Milwaukee on a YouthWorks Mission Trip. YouthWorks is a Christian organization that provides week-long work trips for youth to learn service, grow together as a group, and to experience life in a different culture.

While Milwaukee is just about two hours Northeast, for some of these kids it might as well have been a different country. The group worked at soup kitchens, nursing homes, disability camps, and helped by doing manual labor for ministries in the area. While some of our youth may have been exposed to this type of work here at home in our communities, they were certainly exposed to more poverty and its effects than most of them were used to.

The week was a great one. During the evenings the group had the opportunity to see a different side of Milwaukee while they visited the beach, attended a community cookout, and heard local teenagers from the area share how they turned their lives from violence, drugs, and gangs to God.

Upon returning, some of the kids have shared that this trip changed their lives. What a week can do. Our mission now is to look around at our communities today and look at how we can bring what we learned in Milwaukee to our own homes, schools, and communities.