GAINESVILLE — The idea of working on a mission team often conjures up images of construction and heavy work, according to Lisa Rhan, a member of Trinity United Methodist Church here, but that’s not always what happens.

Mission work can involve a variety of activities, she says, including packing and inspecting health kits the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) will send to victims of natural disasters around the world.

Rhan was a member of a 12-woman work team from the Gainesville District that went to UMCOR’s Sager-Brown Depot in Baldwin, La., Oct. 21-24 to prepare kits and supplies for delivery. It was a joint effort between Trinity’s missions work area and the Gainesville District United Methodist Women (UMW), and participants ranged in age from a teenager and college student to retirees and seniors.

"They feel really good about doing the work and being able to go out," Rhan said.

The team delivered supplies they had collected during the past year for 100 school kits, and packed and inspected their kits, as well as 700 health kits and 250 baby layettes.

According to UMCOR’s Web site, those emergency kits will most likely be sent to the Kosovo region to help people recover from more than 18 months of ethnic war.

"The mission opened their eyes to a lot of things: that they can help and that there’s needs out there," Rhan said.

The team is carrying that message back to their district and home churches, according to Rhan. "The hope was that the ladies would see what’s there and inspire others to go," she said.

Team members are preparing a slide show of pictures taken during the trip that will be made available to UMW groups throughout the conference to help raise awareness of the Sager-Brown depot and the work that it does, Rhan said. She also hopes it will inspire people to send items for kits or to organize mission teams of their own.

Another goal of the slide program is to teach people how to pack kits. Kits with used clothing or items or with extra items cannot be used and must be inspected and repacked.

Once people are aware of the proper way to pack an emergency kit, Rhan said, they can mark their kits "inspected" and the people at Sager-Brown will not have to reinspect them.