Lets talk about the why behind this trip….

As a kid i just wanted to be a missionary. I took my first mission trip to Haiti at age 16. It impacted me so much & i wanted my kids to go on a mission trip (out of the country) at an earlier age. When Kendra was in 7’th grade She & I took a trip to Guatemala with Orphan Ministries Internation. Ivan stayed home with the boys. When Virgil was in 7’th grade his dad took him to Guatemala with ORI. I stayed home with Kendra & Kyle. Kendra & Virgil also took some mission trips with their youth group. In 2011 Kendra & I went on another mission trip, this time with a group of nurses to Haiti. the guys stayed home.

After this trip Kendra commented several times that she loved the trips but wished we could all go together as a family. I didn’t see how it was possible with Kyle’s feeding tube, needing electric for the pump & refrigeration for the formula and the possibility of Kyle needing medical care in another country would be scary. However I did start looking at cruises again. Kyle had done so well on the Make A Wish cruise so I started doing some research. I found a ministry called Cruise With A Cause. They traveled into other countries & set up huge outside meetings with lots of Speakers & Artists who came on the ship. They also went into school to share & invite people to come out & they took some groups in to minister at the prison as well. I thought this would be a perfect Graduation gift for Kendra so the week after her High School graduation we drove to Florida and got aboard the ship there. Once on board you could attend concerts & listen to speakers every night. When it came time to sign up for the outreaches into the school and the prisons however, we found out the buses in Jamaica were not handicap accessible. Again we would need to leave someone behind with Kyle. Staying behind on a cruise ship wouldn’t be awful, but the idea was to do this trip together. As it turned out Ivan had a nephew in Jamaica with his family serving in missions. We had told them we were coming and they had planned to meet us at the evening meeting. We contacted them about out situation and they said no problem, we will pick you up with our vehicle and take you to our mission house, the orphanage we sponsor & the beach!!! It was a win win for all of us! We spent 2 days with them, going back to the ship in the evening. We got a taste of missions, shared with people about the evening meeting & then also attended the meeting with them plus we got to taste great Jamaican food & see more of the island. I am so grateful to God for this trip with my family. We met many great people on this trip, the most memorable being a friendship with the band Newsong, and their tour chaplain, Bobby. Because of this we made many trips to Reading, PA for the yearly Winter Jam concert where Bobby always got us in free with great seats up front. Our friendship with Siran Stacy also came about because of this trip although we didn’t actually meet until after the trip. God connections are always the best!1