Crystalyn Soules helps Isaiah Luna prepare for a game the group is about to play during Mission 20 at Christian Life Church. (Photo by Luke Backus)

Sleeping on floors, eating foreign foods and cleaning house are not usually appealing to most 4th- through 6th-graders, but last Friday, 22 kids came from Lubbock and surrounding areas to Christian Life Assembly of God with those things in mind.

Christian Life Assembly of God, located at 5917 66th St., hosted Mission 20 to bring the idea to local kids of serving as missionaries to local kids said Crystalyn Soules, children’s pastor at the church.

“Mission 20 is kids taking 20 hours to serve as missionaries,” she said. “It’s pretty much teaching them how to be a missionary and what a missionary is.”

That night, the children ate foreign foods and later attended a bonfire where they listened to missionary Mike James.

“He’s going to tell them about their country and what they do in that country,” said Soules prior to the event. “They’re from the Netherlands.”

That night they stayed in the church and slept on the floor, “similar to real missionaries,” said Soules. Saturday morning, they went to help clean the Ronald McDonald house and make cookies for the families who live there.

“They don’t have to go to another country to serve as missionaries,” she said. “They can do it right here in their own town.”

Soules said she got the idea from trying to think of how to get her kids at the church excited.

“I wanted to get my kids more excited about missions, so I decided to plan a missions sleep-over and it became a whole district event,” she said. “We have kids coming from Perryton, Levelland and Hereford.”

Each child had to apply and was chosen based on their “attitudes and willing hearts,” Soules said.

Even though this was the first year for the event, Soules said she hopes to make it annual.

“I hope they get just a heart for missions and learn it’s important think of other people, not just yourself,” said Soules. “I know there are a couple of kids who feel called to be missionaries, so hopefully this will help get them more excited about that. It’s teaching them how to be servants and serve others.”