If our first trip’s mission was a series of vivid single days, our second trip’s was a marathon: a whole week helping run a sports camp for local children on one of the most deprived parts of Antigua, in partnership with Pastor Billy and a local church. Over 200 children came through those gates, and each of our four boys was handed a sport and told to run it.
Serving every day changes the whole shape of a trip. The mornings started early. The breakfasts got bigger, egg and bacon rolls, breakfast burritos, pancakes when they had been earned. And the evenings back on the boat felt less like a holiday and more like a crew coming home from a shift, tired in the good way. Day after day the boys turned up, coached, refereed, and cheered, then gathered the children for a Bible story, songs, and prayer at the end of each session.
It was the small, thoughtful touches that stood out. Andrew had made gift bags at home before the trip, each with a little prayer card, a Bible-verse bracelet, and some sweets, and he handed them out to the children as prizes. Every boy had brought toys from home to give away. On family day the camp transformed into face painting, balloons, a bouncy castle, volleyball, and an ice cream van for all the kids, and still found time for the Bible verse of the day and worship songs.
There were harder, quieter moments woven through the week too. A visit to the community centre to see the building work. A trip to Grey’s Farm, where an entire village shares a single water tap. These are the days that stay with a teenager long after the tan has faded, the days that gently rearrange what they think they need.
And there was rest, because a mission trip is not a boot camp. A day off at Nelson’s Dockyard and the museum, a hike up to the fort above English Harbour, church on Sunday in English and Spanish with a few of the boys helping run kids’ church again. By the end of the week the campers knew our boys by name, and our boys had learned the lesson every voyage teaches: that showing up, consistently and cheerfully, for someone who cannot repay you, is the real adventure.
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