The youth group at Luther Memorial Church is part of the larger family of Lutheran Youth Organization (LYO). Some years we go on a mission trip to help less fortunate families make needed repairs to their home. Every year we think we are going to help someone else and come home realizing that we are the ones who were helped; helped to grow spiritually, emotionally and as a group. In the summer of 2005 we went to Colorado. The mission trips are hosted by a local church, school or service organization and are organized by Group Workcamps. There will be 400+ people attending the camp from all across the country and a few possibly from outside the country. Crews are divided with 1 adult and 5 youth in a crew, rarely are any members of a crew from the same church. The day starts early with breakfast in the cafeteria, the Breakmaker fixes lunch and loads snacks into a cooler for the day, the Quartermaster goes to the tool room and gets tools and orders supplies for the day. We head out to the job site and meet our resident. After meeting our resident we get right to work, it might be painting, building fence, repairing a roof or building a wheel chair ramp, what ever the family needs. Sometimes the needs aren't obvious and may seem trivial, until you get to know the family. One member of our group was assigned to build a fence, he thought it seemed like there might be better uses of the crew's time & resources but they started in on fence building as assigned. That after noon, Pedro (the resident) came out and visited with the crew, explaining how dangerous the neighborhood was where they lived, later by a police officer verified that when he stopped by to say hello and thank for helping out. The next day the crew found out for themselves why the fence was important; many of the materials were stolen out of the yard over night. They worked hard to get the fence finished so Pedro's girls would have a safe place to play. Pedro helped as much (and more) as he could, he had injured his back and was recovering from surgeries. The crew finished the fence and had enough time to build a new deck on the front of the house with the help from another crew that had finished their jobs early. At some point during day, the crew takes a break for a snack or maybe during lunch, the devo leader leads that days devotion. The devo always relates to our evening session that is loaded with pictures from various crews from earlier in the day, skits and music that really helps everyone grow their faith in Jesus.