How to Serve After You Leave

1. Speak with respect. Others will ask how the trip went. Use your words to lift up the people you met. Honor them with what you say and how you say it.

2. Say a prayer. Keeping a community in your prayers will also keep them in your heart.

3. Stay in touch. Write, type or call. Keeping in contact will communicate your care.

4. Help with a need. Did you notice a need? Do a drive in your own community and send some clothes, books, supplies… The possibilities are endless.

5. Go back! Whether it’s on next year’s YouthWorks trip or a weekend away with the youth group, go back to visit and serve the people you met.

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Sam Townsend helps write training, programming and marketing materials for YouthWorks mission trips. When he isn’t hanging around teenagers at church or digging into seminary homework, he is generally looking for a good conversation and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant to have it in. Sam still considers his first couple summers working for YouthWorks in Virginia and Pennsylvania communities some of the most transformative times of his life.