Love Begins Here - Middle School & High School Summer Mission Trips

Lots! High School weeks span 6 days, while Middle School weeks span 4 days. The first and last days look a little different - parish groups arrive around 4:30pm on the first day and leave around noon on the last day. The full days in between typically look like this (times are approximate and fluxuate based on many factors):

7:00am - Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, make lunches
8:15am - Mass (depends on parish Mass schedule)
9:00am - Head to work sites with your car group (lunch on site)
3:30pm - Wrap up at work site, grab ice cream, swim and shower
5:00pm - Rosary and dinner back at home base
6:30pm - Evening fun and community time
8:30pm - Large group sharing, talk, and prayer
9:30pm - Parish Time (time to debrief the day with your parish group)
10:00pm - Bedtime

Missionaries stay at a host parish throughout the week, where we eat, sleep, and pray in community. Typically, we sleep in school classrooms (separated by gender), and eat in the parish hall. Missionaries are encouraged to bring an air mattress or mattress pad to sleep on. 

LBH emphasizes doing small things with great love. Mother Teresa said that the world longs for love more than it longs for bread, so while we work hard, the focus is much more on building relationships with those we serve. Missionaries serve at different service sites throughout the week. Our work can include weeding, painting, visiting and playing games with nursing home residents, lifting items, cleaning, raking, yard work, landscaping, sorting clothes/food for local shelters, trimming, cleaning windows, and simple acts with great love for those in the community. 

Teens are organized into car groups, which are led by an adult missionary for the week. Adult missionaries drive their car group (typically 4-6 teens from different parish groups) to work sites, the pool, etc. each day.

Absolutely NOT! We work hard to provide an opportunity to shower every day on the mission field (except the first and last day of each trip, when you can shower at home). Often, this opportunity happens at a campground, YMCA, or pool facility. These facilities typically do not have individual showers, so a swimsuit is a good idea. 

Love Begins Here is a mission experience. Just like we wouldn’t be able to return home if we went on an out of state mission, Love Begins Here wants to emphasize how important it is to detach from our normal and chaotic daily activity. We ask that all teen and adult missionaries sleep on site and stay for the entire experience.