2020 Mission IS Possible Spring Cote d'Ivoire Trip
Our spring Mission IS Possible trip for 2020 was conducted from March 12-22 in Abebekroi, Cote d'Ivoire. We built two school classrooms and conducted a dental clinic for the area. We had 31 volunteers that attended this mission trip.
This trip was conducted during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our group left the day that the WHO declared a global pandemic. Our team decided that the need was great enough in Cote d'Ivoire to go and fulfill the mission. However, soon after we arrived, we realized that the world was shutting down around us and made plans to return as soon as possible after the work was completed.
Our group of construction volunteers were able to complete the two school classrooms in six days. We were able to dedicate the completed school on Friday afternoon with the entire school and community. The school is a new one in a largely Muslim area and now has well over 100 students.
Our dental team was able to serve over 100 patients during their time in the community and conducted the clinic at the church on the school campus. We were able to meet the most urgent needs of the community through our team!
Part of our group flew out on Friday night after the school was completed. They had numerous challenges in getting checked in, but an awesome Air France executive was there and helped them get through check-in. The rest of our crew that wasn't flying to Atlanta had their original flights cancelled and were on our backup flights leaving Sabbath morning. We got to the airport and through security only to find out we were barred from boarding our flights due to a new United States restriction that we couldn't fly back to Houston because we had spent two hours in the Brussels airport ten days prior. Needless to say, we were distraught as there were no more flights and we were told that the airport was shutting down that night.
We went to an apartment complex closer to the airport that our church let us stay in and begin planning to be there till the US Embassy could get us home. We were working the Embassy angle, a charter flight to London and called the Air France executive to see if he could get us home. We almost made a decision to pay an exorbitant fee to get out on a charter flight, but were able to delay that decision because the aircraft and crew became unavailable.
On Sunday, I got a call from the US Embassy asking our group to pray (!) for a solution that she was working on. We promptly did so and gave it all to God for Him to get us home. Within 30 minutes of that prayer meeting, i got a call from the Air France executive asking if we still needed to get home as he had one last flight out before the airport shut down. I told him he was an answer to prayer and within two hours, we were ALL booked to go home (well, to Los Angeles) and were at the airport. What an amazing deliverance and answer to prayer! I kept in touch with the embassy and it was NINE DAYS before they had a repatriation flight back to the USA!
Needless to say, no excursion, but an amazing experience to talk about and multiple modern day miracles.
If you are interested in taking part in a future mission trip. please reach out via the Contact page for more information about short term missionary opportunities.
You can watch a video about our MIRACULOUS journey back home from Cote d'Ivoire below.
