Dear Blog, I miss you. -Ben

Right. So I'm leading a team on the CollegeLife Urban Experience Spring break mission trip (UrbEx) to Minneapolis this March. Co-leading, that is, with one of the other interns actually. She'll handle the gals, I'll handle the guy. That's right - singular.

You see, there were about twice as many girls who signed up to go on the Spring break mission trips as guys, so each group is pretty short on dudes. And then when each life group stays together, you have even fewer in most groups (and more in a few). 29 people were split into three teams for the Minneapolis trip. Including me, there are 3 male leaders and four other guys. 7 out of 29. Yikes.

CollegeLife is also sending teams to New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Eastern Tennessee. In each of these cities/regions, the teams will venture into the poorest, most run-down, most neglected, most uneducated, and/or least Christian areas to help out in various ways. This could mean helping rebuild a destroyed city, tutoring elementary kids, painting a church, or feeding the hungry. But at all times, we are expected to live the Christian life and spread the Word.

I'm not afraid to tell you that I'm uncomfortable with all this. I have only been on one mission trip in my life. As you may recall, I went to Chicago with DBC on an UrbEx trip in 2007. It definitely changed the way I see missions. However, does going on one previous trip qualify me to lead others on a similar trip? Hardly! I barely know what I'm doing! BUT, God knows what he is doing.

My co-leader has been on several mission trips. She's comfortable with the whole scene. She's an accounting major at UNT, so she loves organizing finances and will be dealing with all the money and receipts. She's also very detail-oriented. I, on the other hand, am a bit of a people person. I think I'm good at getting people motivated and leading them to accomplish tasks. Thus, we're the perfect match to lead a team together. Way to go Michael Pirtle, planner extraordinaire!

Anyway, we have about a month to gather $350 so I may be hitting you up for help. :-) I only know one other person on my team, so I'm anxious to see how this goes. Anxious, but excited.