Hannah Parnell is back home after participating in her first Christian mission trip with Teen Missions International of Merritt Island, Fla.

The 14-year-old home-schooled freshman recently spent six weeks attending boot camp at the Teen Missions base in Florida, evangelizing and teaching English as a missionary in Mahajanga, Madagascar.

"We shared testimonies about how two people accepted Jesus; sang songs in their native language, Malagasy; English songs with motion and performed dramas of God creating us, and Jesus dying for us," Parnell said.

The mission team also participated in soccer evangelism for two days and gave the indigenous people pamphlets and spoke to them about God.

Parnell taught phonics and the English alphabet for two weeks to children attending the kindergarten through eighth-grade school at the Teen Missions base in Mahajanga.

"We also went to a high school and spoke to the students in English, so they could practice speaking," she said.

The mission team took a three-day trip by truck to a waterfall in Mahajanga, fed lemurs, went to a cave with an underground river and skinned and cooked a wild boar for food.

Parnell said by going on this mission trip, she wanted to become closer to God and to experience some of His miracles in another country.

"We prayed for one lady who was partially deaf," Parnall said. "After we prayed for her, her eyes teared up, because she could hear us clap and the birds chirp.

"I can definitely say I saw a miracle happen, while in Madagascar."

Parnall said at the church where she was, the people sang, talked about their faith and prayed on their knees.

"The people didn't care about what others thought about them," she said. "They just cared about their relationship to God. They were definitely an example to me."

Going on this mission trip has helped Parnall decide she wants to do more mission work.

"I want to keep doing mission trips, until I am older, so I can get into it full time," Parnell said. "I am thinking about going on a soccer mission to Honduras."

Parnell's mother and her aunt, Karen Pennington of Delaware, got her interested in Teen Missions International, because as teenagers they took part in the program.

"Overall, the mission trip was really cool and I would definitely do it again," Parnell said. "It was an amazing experience."

Parnell is not new to mission work. She has been involved in missionary work for several years with her family.

Over Christmas vacation last year, her entire family went to Haiti for a week of evangelizing.

When she was younger, Parnall participated in a mission program in Philadelphia.

"The first time I worked with kids was in Philadelphia," Parnell said. "I felt like I could open up to the kids very well and since then I have always wanted to center my missions working with kids."

Parnell, her parents Jessica and Mark, and sisters Abigail, 16, and Amanda, 11, live in South Whitehall.

For information about Teen Missions International, log onto teenmissions.org.