What is GO?

June 6-10, 2011 was one of the most incredible weeks of my life. It was the first ever GO! camp hosted at Freed Hardeman University. The mission: Love God. Love your neighbor. Change the world.

I can honestly say I have never been happier to be a part of something. This camp showed all the students as well as adults how much there is to be done around the world, what other people are doing about it, and how each of us can be involved. I was an intern at Jefferson Avenue church of Christ for the youth group (7th-12th grade) for the summer of 2011. We took a group of teenagers to this camp, not really knowing much about it.

But we all left having been changed more than we ever imagined. I speak for all of us when I saw the experiences we had and the people we met will stay with us forever. 

We learned from speakers such as Derreck Kayongo, who originally from Uganda, formed The Global Soap Project. You know when you stay at a hotel how they have all those bars of soap laid out for you that most people don't even use? The Global Soap Project is out of Atlanta and their work is to sanitize and melt down the soap from hotels, form it into bars, and from there it is taken to Africa and places like Uganda that are so overcome with diseases simply because they do not have the resources to be clean. They are going to hotels asking for them to get on board and donate their unused or gently used soaps to this project to improve health around the world. 

Another favorite speaker was Zach Hunter, who at twelve years old founded an organization called Loose Change to Loosen Chains. After learning about the Civil War in school, Zach was shocked to find out that slavery was still happening all over the world, and was determined to do something about it. This is a powerful work that goes on in several countries investigating those who are selling women or children for sex slavery or other human trafficking and prosecuting them. He has written several books and speaks to groups to raise funds and awareness. Incredibly inspiring.

We also heard from William Williams. I mean his name is already awesome! He is an ex-con who works for a company called Triple Thread Apparel. This is a company that makes clothes and gives jobs to people who have been in prison. They work side by side with The Dismas House to provide job training, references, and even employment to former criminals who otherwise would have a great difficulty finding work and steering clear from a crime filled life. This company even made our GO! Camp T-shirts!

And those are only a few of the amazing things we got to learn about and be a part of. We also packed meals for Haiti (another post will be coming on that), collected shoes for Soles for Souls, learned about missions in several countries, and so much more. I can't even begin to describe the impact that GO! 2011 had on my life.

So needless to say we were all extremely excited for GO! 2012. The theme was The Love Mission. And the group basically doubled in size!

2011:

2012:

Incredible right?

 I will be doing a series of blog posts about my week at this year's camp so I hope you will keep up with these to learn about all the amazing things I and all the people who were part of GO! experienced this year as part of the love mission.