Kaylee Beck, vice president of the Student Leadership Team at First Baptist Christian School in Butler, sweeps a floor at the Youth Haven Bible Camp in Kentucky while Reilly Martin, team president, follows with a scrub brush. The team went on a mission trip to the camp this month. Submitted Photo

Reilly Martin, president of the Student Leadership Team at First Baptist Christian School in Butler, said her team learned about poverty, charity and hard work at its annual mission trip, and had some fun, too.

Seventeen students who are on the team spent June 4 to 6 at the Kentucky Mountain Mission’s Youth Haven Bible Camp in rural Lee County, Ky.

It is a Christian camp but also welcomes impoverished local youth to the grounds each summer for a week of swimming, playing and forgetting about the hardships that accompany life in the rural South.

The First Baptist students, who were in grades six through 12, got the camp ready for the annual onslaught of counselors and children who will descend on the facility this summer.

The students gave the kitchen and bathrooms a deep clean, scrubbed all the floors and swept out the camp’s cabins.

The team stayed in the cabins while there.

A missionary from Papua New Guinea who is a resident at the Youth Haven Bible Camp in Kentucky, poses with Noah Anderson, middle, and Michael Sarver, right, who are members of the First Baptist Christian School’s Student Leadership Team. The boys sanded and repaired the bed of the camp truck in the photo during the team’s missionary trip to the camp this month. Submitted Photo

Reilly said a group of boys on the team took it upon themselves to sand, repaint and rebuild a truck bed for the camp’s pickup.

On one day, the team went to the Lee County Recreation Center, which they also scrubbed from top to bottom, including wiping down all the exercise equipment and every pair of bowling shoes there.

“We cleaned everything you can think of,” Reilly said.

She said the group was very proud to provide services at the two places, but especially at the Bible camp.

“They take in a lot of troubled youths and (the children of) people who can’t afford to send their kids to summer camp, and they really try to reach them,” Reilly said.

She said the trip taught many on the team the value of a dirty job.

The Student Leadership Team from First Baptist Christian School in Butler took a mission trip this month to deep clean a camp and recreation center in an impoverished Kentucky county. Submitted photo

“The response of the people at the camp really just showed me hard work pays off, and God can turn it into something beautiful,” Reilly said.

With their mission complete, the team visited Red River Gorge in east-central Kentucky, where it participated in a challenging hike to the top of a mountain.

“My calves were burning, but we got to the top, and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life,” Reilly said of the view from the summit, “and I was like ‘God put me here.’”

She said the team then piled back into the First Baptist Christian Church van and headed for Tennessee, where members enjoyed the Dixie Stampede and Dollywood for a day before making the nine-hour trip home June 10.

“I’m so proud of the whole team for just going outside their comfort zone and going to a place they didn’t know anything about,” Reilly said of the students’ mission work. “They put their personal lives aside to help these people.”

Andrea Anderson, of Connoquenessing Township, oversees the team with her husband, Travis.

Members and adult team leaders of the First Baptist Christian School Student Leadership Team take a break from their missionary work in Lee County, Kentucky, to pet a four-legged resident of Youth Haven Bible Camp. Submitted photo

She has accompanied the team, which she and her husband created, on all three summer mission trips they have completed.

“One of the goals of the team is to foster leadership skills, specifically, servant leadership like Jesus was for us,” Anderson said.

She said the team worked diligently to spruce up the camp and county recreation center.

“It was a good opportunity,” Andrews said. “We felt like we were really able to help the camp and recreation center. I think we were a blessing to the staff.”

Judging by Kentucky Mountain Mission’s post on Facebook after the team left, Anderson is correct:

“We want to take the time to give a HUGE thank you to the leaders and teens from First Baptist School of Butler, Pa. for their mission trip to Youth Haven Bible Camp! In only four days time, this team has prepared our campus for camp, rebuilt a truck bed, and cleaned the Lee County Rec Center from top to bottom,” the post reads. “Their projects were a massive undertaking that we don’t otherwise have the current staff to keep up with. This would have taken our small staff weeks to complete. We cannot thank you enough! We look forward to when we will get to meet again, Lord willing!”

Anderson said the team’s previous two mission trips were to another Kentucky Mountain Mission facility last year, and refurbishing a widow’s house and helping with a vacation Bible school program in Indian River, Mich.

“They work hard and do a good job,” Anderson said of the First Baptist Student Leadership Team. “We’re very proud of them.”