When I went to Atlanta over the summer, my life was changed for the better. Before the trip, people who had previously went had said that you learn more then you expect and how it changes your view on life completely. I never took their testimonies to heart but at the end of the trip what they had said about the trip, adventure, and journey for my heart was completely true.
A humid mid July early morning I take a gander out my father’s passenger window to the vans being loaded up, stuffed as tight as a Thanksgiving turkey. After we say our goodbyes I start my way toward the loading in progress vans. Inching my feet to the open doors of the bright red trailer. Drop my bags at the door way, and scrape the morning grub out of my eyes.

“Are you ready to get going?” a familiar voice announces.

“Yeah, I’m so ready to just sleep for the next 10 hours.”

“Well you’ll be getting tons of sleep all the way down to Atlanta.” says my pastor after revealing himself.

I lazily shuffle my way to an available van, and take my seat. I’m going to change so many people’s lives this week. The caravan of our vans leave the church, and onward toward our final destination.

Lets just fast forward to the point of us arriving to Atlanta. It was around dusk that we arrived in Atlanta. For the first few hours we just stayed around, and talked to each other getting to know everyone else that had joined us. In the group on the trip were forty youth, and five adults from Clarkston Community Church, and three adults from the church in Atlanta

On the first full day our group joined dozens of homeless people for breakfast, and just talked to them, got to know them personally. We did this every morning until we left a week later. One of these breakfasts I met a man named Curkwood. He was a regular at the breakfasts, and just loved talking about music. He also taught me that a smile can change anyone’s day. No matter what mood the persons in, just to stay positive and always see the brighter side of everything. Because in reality, there is a brighter side to every negative part of life. After breakfast we went out to the community of Atlanta, and met new people on the streets of Atlanta. Some days we help with local community projects such as a block party or cleaning an old storage building for a temporary church.

The most intense mental and physical challenge was climbing Stone Mountain. We started at the base (of course), and worked our way up. The rule though was we had to climb as a group. Be as fast as our slowest person. Work as a team, and we couldn’t climb ahead. When we all got to the top of the mountain, we had a prayer group, and a teaching about how we need to live life, the way we climbed the mountain united, and working with one another. One of the homeless men came with us and really opened up to the group. He spoke about how he’s ashamed with our world. He told us that when he has our age the families that lived around him looked out for one another. Now people just look out for themselves, and don’t flitch to throw somebody under the bus to make a few bucks. As we sat on top of the mountain, all that was running through my mind was how I was living my life and that I wasn’t proud of how I treated everyone else. I was disappointed in myself, and how I was living. It was then and there that I had decided that I needed, and wanted to change who I was. I wanted to live my life differently. Moving down the mountain gave me time to think about how I was going to change and how I was going to change other people’s lives through myself. I had come to Atlanta Ignorant but god opened my eyes to the true reason why I was there in Atlanta. In reality god gave me an opportunity to see that I need to change, and I took it. If I hadn’t taken the opportunity to take the trip to Atlanta I would have never been affected how I was.