Laurie Pearson Photography » Nashville Photographer

This summer I got the amazing experience to participate in a mission trip. I went with a group of 10 from Crosspoint Community Church in Nashville TN and we visited a small community in Kenya, Africa. Crosspoint is helping to build a school for the elementary students of the village of Kahuria and help improve their education.

I’ve always had 2 things on my ‘bucket list’ one of them was to participate in a mission trip and another was to visit Africa. About 2 months before the trip I dug out the list I had written several years before and saw those two items on there. I decided to check out Crosspoint’s website and saw there were still spots available on the July/August trip and decided to begin the process of making it happen.

I was told before I left on my mission trip that the experience would be life changing but I didn’t know what to expect as I ventured half way around the world. I was never fearful or anxious to go but I didn’t know what to expect. What I felt from the people of Kenya and the people of Kahuria was nothing but welcoming warmth and love. The people were so happy and so full of God’s love. They literally have nothing (their schools and homes have dirt floors) but they were rich with community and faith.

The children of the community had the purest hearts and I will never forget them as long as I live. The moment we arrived they ran up to our bus singing and presenting us with handmade bouquets of wildflowers. It was a welcome I wasn’t expecting but it was so emotional and moving. We had a chance to teach at their school and build at the new school and visit people of the village in their homes. One woman’s home we visited, 80 year old Virginia, told us it was one of the happiest/proudest moments that we were able to visit her … little did she know she was blessing us with that experience much more than we were blessing her.

I am so grateful that I was able to bring my camera along on the trip and capture the feel of the trip and the people in photograph. I absolutely fell in love with this type of photography. I fell in love with capturing the portraits of these beautiful people. Please enjoy some of the images below.

Crosspoint’s global trips: http://www.crosspoint.tv/global

Sponsor a child from Kahuria:

410sponsor.org/2016K-07Q

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Our team (GoPro shot by Dan & Christine Trimmer)