Maple Grove Mission Trips to Jamaica

They call it “a vacation with a purpose” but members of Lord of Life Lutheran Church aren’t lying on the beach during their annual trips to Jamaica. For the past 15 years, church members have been visiting Westhaven Children’s Home and Clifton Boys’ Home to help repair buildings and bring joy to the children who live there. The homes provide a place for mentally and physically disabled children who are either orphans or have nowhere else to go.
    
Kelly Jordahl, a 2012 Maple Grove Senior High graduate, has gone to Jamaica five times and realizes that not only do the homes provide important basic necessities, but they offer a family. “Even though they are all orphans and are all on their own, they help each other and love each other like brothers and sisters,” Jordahl says.
    
While these homes have seen a tremendous amount of help from the Lord of Life volunteers, they have also given back a great deal to the missionaries who visit. Phil Leith has traveled to Jamaica for 13 years and says it has changed his life to see the way these young children live. He calls the experience a two-way street: “you help them and they give you a lot just by their smiles.”