Regional mission efforts have traditionally gone to Mexico as well as hurricane relief.

Our youth and adults have gone to Mexico six times in the last seven years and five times to the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina, providing a mission of labor and love. Both of these efforts involve challenging physical labor as well as spiritually challenging experiences.

The youth mission trip April 12-19,2010, was to the state of Campeche in the Yucatan peninsula area of Mexico. They worked with villagers in Tenabo to put a roof on a Presbyterian pastor's house. They also painted at the offices of the Presbytery of Campeche. The team members are Jim and Kathy Reichhart, Ken Reed, Eric Kendrew, John Langone, Brett Holberg, Mitesh Panwala, Collin Devlin, Emily Tinsley, Brynne Sturge, Sarah Riendeau, Zoë Garry and Logan Barnard. To see some stories from the trip, view the trip blog. Our prayers continue as the staffs there work to grow the church in this area of Mexico, which is very beautiful and sees much less drug violence than the northern border area we visited in the past.

The mid high youth traveled to the Promised Land Retreat Center for a combined work/retreat weekend on June 11-13, 2010.They constructed picnic tables, stacked wood, and did other miscellaneous projects to spruce up the center for the summer season. Rev. Jane Wagner, the center's director also provided a retreat program.

In 2009 we expanded our regional efforts to include our own. We worked for five days in Heuvelton, New York, remodeling a farmhouse by replacing flooring, kitchen cabinets, doors and bookshelves. In 2010 we worked on 5 houses on Hamilton Street right in Watertown painting, installing siding, building a deck, and total renovation of a kitchen and 2 bathrooms.

In April 2011 the senior high youth group returned to New Orleans, joining forces with Operation Southern Comfort to remove and then build 2 fences and a sidewalk and install sheetrock.

click here to view the Watertown Daily Times article on our 2009 mission trip to New Orleans!