East County residents travel on mission trip

EAST COUNTY — After battling breast cancer, local Realtor Beth Barnett felt like she’d been given a new chance at life.

With it, she realized, she had a chance to give back.

“I had survived cancer; I felt so grateful for my recovery,” Barnett said. “I started feeling the need to give back. (Going on a mission trip) was on my bucket list.”

Then, about six months ago, Barnett’s daughter, Ashley Barnett, asked if Beth would consider joining her on a mission trip to Africa. Beth’s answer was yes.

And July 28, Ashley and Beth Barnett and trip leaders, father-and-daughter team, Ernie McFarland and Ashlie Fulmer, from Woodland Community Church, were on their way to Africa with more than 20 other individuals from across the nation.

“I never dreamed I’d go to Africa,” Beth Barnett said, noting they went through the organization, Visiting Orphans. “You just have to see it with your own eyes. There’s poverty everywhere. It totally broke me.”

Mission team members visited nine orphanages in Uganda and Kenya, as well as two baby homes. At each location, they played games with the children, smothered them with hugs and kisses and painted the children’s fingernails, among other activities. Local Realtor friends and others had pitched in, donating bracelets and other items to take to the children at the orphanages the Barnetts and fellow mission team members visited.

Beth Barnett said she especially loved watching her daughter work with the children. And because Ashley Barnett was adopted, it gave her a unique opportunity to share what it was like being adopted.

“(The children) knew they weren’t alone,” Beth Barnett said.

She said the trip also made her realize how much she had at home and how much she had to be thankful for.

“I came back with a whole new understanding of poverty and how we can help with one child a time,” she said, noting she sponsored a 3-year-old girl named Stella. “I will never be the same.”

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].