A life changing mission trip

by Anne Marie Cox | January 26, 2025

A mission trip to South Africa six years ago put Chris Brault on a path of changing his life.

“I came back and said I wanted to make some changes in my life. Some of the things I was doing were pretty shallow. I was running my business successfully. But I was getting tired of contentious situations” like the one job that should have taken six months but he had 11 weeks to do it, he said.

After the mission trip with Blessman International, Chris went to a Christ Renews His Parish retreat at St Francis of Assisi in West Des Moines. 

“Between the Blessman trip and CHRP, I began to think maybe I ought to shut down the business,” he said. 

Then, the pandemic closed businesses and schools. While Chris still had his company, the stress mounted. 

“I decided I wanted to have more peace in my life. I just said, ‘I’m done.’”

Since retiring, he’s helped his parish building and grounds committee, helped Blessman International (which is based in Urbandale), and has freedom to help where ever he wants. 

His trip to South Africa opened his eyes to a poverty he hadn’t seen before. Growing up with the benefit of government assistance, he thought he was poor. On the mission trip, he saw families without running water, without enough food, struggling for basic necessities.

“I want to help people with basic needs,” he said.

He was doing just that prior his current mission trip to South Africa. 

Just before leaving, Chris and his wife, Rita, flew his plane to North Carolina to help those suffering devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene last September. 

Rita supports the mission work, be it close to home or half a world away.

“You have no idea how you might have changed someone,” she said. “Even if you do something tiny, it’s a drop in the bucket that you’re helping someone. Someone else’s drop adds to it and eventually the bucket is filled.”

On this trip, Chris hopes to reaffirm what he experienced on his last trip.

“We went to a church, a simple church. We were their honored guests and they put us up front. They started singing. There was no organ, no piano, no PA system. When they broke out into song, we just looked at each other and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, where is that sound coming from?’

“Honestly, I had tears in my eyes. It was gorgeous! You get there and you see people who are poor and they are happy and they come to church celebrating. It doesn’t take money to buy happiness.” 

To those who are not Catholic, he invites them on a mission trip with Blessman International.

“We’re all in this together.”

If Chris and Rita weren’t in South Africa right now, they’d be in California helping wildfire victims. A mission trip doesn’t have to be in another country. It could be somewhere else in the United States, in Iowa, or even in our own neighborhoods and families. As Catholics, we’re called to serve others. We’re called to mission. 

“Now we’re freed up and we can do this whenever we want,” he said.