Cedar River Trip

Let me take a moment and fill you in on some of the details of the trip I went on with some young men from the community (July 27 - August 1) to Cedar River, MI. Including myself there were six in all. I was the oldest on the group at 24 years old. Some group!

Here is an excerpt from Village Missions' website of a prayer spotlight for Cedar River (posted in June of this year):

Cedar River is a small fishing and hunting community just off the shores of Lake Michigan on the Green Bay. There is much natural beauty here. Ice piles up on the lake in the winter months and form “ice shoves” which can sometimes get up to 15 feet high in some parts. The town consists of a township hall, gas station with a small restaurant, marina, bait shop, and the church. Many here are retired and some go south for the winter. Church attendees consist of Catholic and Protestant backgrounds. The church just celebrated its 125th anniversary. Pray that the people that attend the church would grow deeper in their faith, that the Lord would raise up godly leaders to serve on the church board, and that God would open eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of the gospel in this community.

While we were in Cedar River that week we were supposed to have been helping with part of the construction of their new addition to the church building, but the contractor had not started the work yet due to soft ground. Instead, we were asked to help with various tasks for people in the community or who went to the church. We stayed at J. W. Wells State Park in Cedar River.

During the week our group from Volga, IA worked with a group from West Liberty, OH. Jeremy Sarver is the pastor of the church in West Liberty and he is the one who was the previous pastor at Calvary Bible Church here in Volga. For the most part our work was planned out for us in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Our work consisted of lots of pulling of weeds, trimming trees, clearing brush, mowing, painting, washing windows, demolishing sheds, knocking down plaster and insulation in a fire-damaged home, and installing closet shelving.

I feel as though the group had a good experience of serving others and was able to see that sometimes what people really need more than work done to their house or yard is just a friend to talk to. I look forward to seeing how these same men face opportunities to show kindness to the people in their communities and seek opportunities to share with them the love of Christ. They showed me that age should be no obstacle to talking to others about spiritual things.

Some pictures of our trip are posted below:

Here is a picture of our crew from Volga . Yes, we survived.

First work, then there was play.