Traveling 11 countries in 11 months: 27-year-old Hoover woman takes extended mission trip around world

Many people take mission trips to foreign countries, but not a lot of people give up their jobs and the comforts of home for 11 months to travel around the world, ministering to people in need.

But that’s exactly what Hoover’s Sara Kidd has been doing. Kidd, 27, left the United States in October 2018 to go on a Christian mission trip to 11 countries.

She started off working with a church in Colombia and since has worked with other churches in Peru, Bolivia and Nepal, a food kitchen in Ecuador, a high-ropes camp for kids in Argentina, an orphanage in India and other Christian ministries in Armenia, Georgia and Romania. Her last stop will be in Spain before she returns to the United States in August.

The trip was organized by the World Race organization, which sends groups of young people ages 21 to 35 on extended international mission trips to serve others and share their faith.

Kidd has been with a group of 24 people— four men and 20 women. They come from all across the United States, and one is from Canada.

Kidd, a 2010 graduate of Hoover High School who graduated from Auburn University with a degree in apparel design in 2014, said she had wanted to go on a World Race trip years ago but decided she needed to get a job instead and start working.

She got a job as creative director for Nations Outfitters, a small boutique in Birmingham. She managed the store’s website, set up photo shoots, served as a fashion stylist, created designs for hangtags and flyers, designed T-shirts and helped with customers.

The job was a blessing, but Kidd said she felt God was calling her to do something different. She looked into many jobs across the country, but one door after another was closing, she said. That’s when, she remembered the World Race. She prayed about it, filled out the application and was accepted.

She then raised the $18,700 required to pay for the trip by sending letters to people and posting on social media, explaining about the mission trip and asking for donations.

In August of last year, all the team members flew to Gainesville, Georgia, for a 10-day training session. Then they left on the journey in October. As the group goes to different countries, the missionaries are split into teams to go to different cities.

Kidd said they’ve had a lot of different ministry opportunities. In Colombia, she worked and lived at an after-school ministry for kids. They taught about their faith through activities, songs and lessons and prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 60 people. They peeled potatoes and tomatoes until their hands were sore, chopped beans, swept and mopped.

“Some of the kids come from really hard backgrounds, so they were split up into little families with a makeshift mom and dad,” Kidd wrote in her online blog. “They ate together, prayed together and learned together. It was really cool to see the importance and emphasis they have on family.”

One night, all the boys and girls watched a video of their real parents speaking to them. Some parents talked about how much they loved their children, while others apologized for hurts they had caused and said they were trying the best they could to be a good mom or dad, Kidd wrote.

“By the end of it, all the kids were crying,” she said. “It was a sobering moment to see a brief reality of the pain that was harbored in each one of them.”

In Quito, Ecuador, her team helped build a new home for a family of 10 people that lost their home to a fire and soon afterward lost the father in the family. “We learned a lot about construction,” Kidd wrote in her blog. “We are shoveling dirt, cementing walls, digging holes for posts, separating metal, wood and trash from the home remains and more. It’s hard work, but so, so rewarding.”

In India, she worked in an orphanage. “It broke my heart thinking about how kids get adopted and then have to say goodbye to their brothers and sisters at the orphanage,” Kidd said in written answers to questions from the Hoover Sun. “I have a whole new appreciation and thanks for people who care for and invest so much in the process of adoption.”

While they are serving, the missionaries are living in humble settings and learning how to live in a foreign culture where most people speak another language and eat different foods.

There were times when everyone got sick, they had freezing-cold showers, there weren’t enough toilets and they had to remember to throw their used toilet paper in the trash, team members said in online reports.

Some days were physically and mentally challenging, but through it all, Kidd said she could clearly see why she feels God sent her on this trip. “I’ve learned many things about myself, the world and Jesus,” she said.

She has seen her selfishness, her pride and the weights of life that she has tried to carry on her own, she said in her blog. She has learned to lean on her faith to find rest for her soul and the strength and encouragement to move forward in life.

Kidd said she has learned that God takes you through really hard things to reveal more of himself to you, and she has learned what community living means and looks like.

“Fighting for one another and listening to what one another needs takes time, patience and understanding,” she said. “It’s been a process, but I’m so thankful for what I’ve learned through it all.”

While her locations, climate, people, cultures and emotions have changed, she has realized that the one who never changes is Jesus, she said. “He’s my constant and my rock and will always be the same.”