When their annual summer mission trip had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, Youth Pastor Jeremiah Lee and the youth group at Community UMC in Naperville were left searching for a way to still make an impact. Enter Kids Above All and their new virtual mission experience.

In August, Kids Above All (formerly ChildServ) facilitated a safe, socially distanced online mission experience for 10 Community UMC students in grades 6 through 12. Over three days, Pastor Lee and the students learned about Kids Above All’s programs and its 126-year-old mission to build better lives for children and families. They also made no-sew masks from unused Grateful Dead T-shirts and created identity collages to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to love yourself and your neighbor.

The online mission experience focused on the agency’s DuPage County Group Homes Program, which provides safe, supportive living environments for 18 teens and helps them become independent adults through therapy, life skills training and educational assistance. The youth group met Kids Above All staff and heard about the realities and trauma the youth had experienced prior to their coming to the group homes.

Community UMC youth also learned about the importance of mental health and the basics of managing stress and anxiety using the United Methodist Women Mission U resource “Managing Anxiety: a Youth Study” by Trudy Rankin and Faye Wilson. They also took time to study and find out more about the Shema, the Hebrew version of the Jesus Creed.

During a worship service later that month, Pastor Jeremiah talked about the mission experience and how proud he was of the youth who participated. He emphasized how the event challenged the youth group to ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ and seek a greater understanding of what it means today to love God and share God’s love to everyone, as God loves us.

Kids Above All appreciates the partnership of North Central College, as well as the hard work of Lily Stamper, a rising North Central junior and virtual Kids Above All summer intern who helped to design, plan and execute this virtual mission experience.

Finally, Kids Above All would like to express its gratitude to Pastor Lee, the youth group and the entire Community UMC congregation for their continued support. The church’s generosity and steadfast mission partnership includes giving school supplies for the Kids Above All Back-To-School Drive, collecting 141 dry erase boards with markers for e-learners and providing quarterly pizza dinners for the group homes as an outward sign of loving their neighbors.

Since 1894, Kids Above All’s (formerly ChildServ) mission has been to protect, heal and educate children and families so they can build better lives. Visit kidsaboveall.org to learn more about how to step up a