Wednesday

Hey, this is Zack, once again, for the Texas Missions Trip 2009, for Wednesday.  This morning, we had some new jobs to do to meet some needs we found out about when we talked to some of the churchgoers on Sunday.  At first, I had planned to go to a lady’s house to help paint, but God lay it on my heart to help Brandon with the Pastor’s roof.  Even those plans changed, as we couldn’t start until after lunch, so Brandon and I helped Elizabeth (the director) and Mrs. Dunker with some cleaning.  After lunch, we went back out and ripped up some broken tin roofing for the pastor, but couldn’t find any replacement, so we couldn’t finish the job today.

            Prayer has been playing a major part in guiding me this week, not only my own but the ones from all the people praying for me.  We’ve been having an amazing time, and it’s so great to know that we’re greatly helping a bunch of people who otherwise wouldn’t have the means or ability to help themselves.  God’s been awesome and has been an amazing help the whole time.

             Hola, personas Esteban here!!! I’m just going to give you the general theme our trip seems to carry. TO RELY ON GOD AND SEEK HIM AND HIS DIRECTION!!! We’ve had plans and God had different plans causing us to seek his face and will. So a lot of prayer and asking Him has been such a benefit to the amazing success of this trip. God is working personally through me so much and is gifting me with the chance to co-lead worship and to lead our group. Pray for us and for God’s favor to reign over us and for us to ultimately seek his face!!!

 Hi this is Marianne! We’ve been working on this guy’s house that got destroyed in the hurricane. He’s paralyzed, so it’s really important to us to be able to fix his house up so he can live in it when he gets out of the hospital. The first day was really hard and I kind of felt like what I was doing didn’t matter, but the last two days God really showed me that even if you don’t do face-to-face interaction with someone that doesn’t mane you’re not making a difference in their life. Debbie Roberts, me, and Paul have been putting up walls in the house and Debbie is amazing at it. She’s basically our construction master. It’s just awesome to be down here doing completely random stuff and knowing that we’re serving God doing it. He’s brought our group so much closer together and he’s showing us how important it is to encourage each other and love each other. We’re learning how to do more than just joke around with each other and I love seeing the kids in youth group doing listening prayers and finding out what God wants them to do and encourage each other. It’s really amazing. Thanks so much for praying for us while we’re down here!

 From Dominick – we went to Mildred’s house – a lady from the church we’re stationed in.  We chopped down a tree and a huge shrub.  And we moved it to the other side of the road.  We also filled in some pot holes in her yard from the storm.  It ripped out all these tanks that were sitting there.  We ended up finding a ring that she lost.  We had a great chance to listen to some of the stories that she had to tell.  She came up with nicknames for each of us.  Mine was “Nick,” Mrs. Bueno was “Goody-Girl,” Liz was “Oleander,” Mr. Kopsick was “Hercules,” and Mrs. Kip was “Wonder Woman.”  She really appreciated the help we gave her.  We were able to do more than she wanted and it was great that we were able to do the extra stuff.

Melissa provides an update on the painting at Margaret’s house.  We used the Kilz paint to cover the water damage on her ceilings.  We did 10 coats so far and it still hasn’t done much because of all the water damage.  We fixed her garage door, trim on the side of her house, Tom Oppito had to get on the room to paint the gables,  The big thing is that they were so impressed with how hard our girls worked and that they didn’t quit.  We have to go back tomorrow to touch some things up and we’ll be all done at their house.  We could tell they appreciated it.  She said that every time she went into her bedroom she would cry because of the water damage.  She so appreciated that we were able to make it a little white. 

Now back to PJ's thoughts...

We had a group stay at the church this morning to pray as a group and do a prayer walk in the community around the church.  so far, all of our prayer walks have been around our construction sites.  A prayer walk is a walk with prayer.  we ask God where we should go, what we should do, who we should meet and then we follow God's direction.  Two groups went out walking and then a group stayed inside the church and we took out the aim training manual and prayed through the important points for each of the teams.  It was a great reminder of why we're here and a hope for what will happen in the time we have left.

While Amy Bueno was checking out the alligators at the swamp she ran into a man who was Jewish.  She said that there are many different things Jewish people think that Jesus was so she asked him what the thought.  He thought Jesus was just a prophet, but that’s it.  The conversation kept on wandering in many directions, but kept coming back to god.  Amy wished that she had a chance to share the gospel message with him, but didn’t find a good spot to do it.  As they were leaving he wished her a Happy Easter.  So, she asked him if he celebrated Easter and he said that he did.  He celebrated Christmas and Easter just for the gifts and candy.  She found out that one of his kids was a Christian missionary.  They talked about john the Baptist and other stuff.  As they were getting towards the parking lot she was really asking God to give her something great to say to him.  As they were getting close to his car she “even if you don’t really know me God is telling me to ask you to read the new testament in the Bible when he gets home.”  He simply stated, “Yeah, I can do that.”  We’re praying that he will read it and will find that Christ is far more than a prophet.

 Rachel felt a calling to the cemetery and the beach today.  She got so spend the morning working at the cemetery with PJ – good father and daughter time.  Then she worked at the house, but they ran out of work that she could do, so she and Jenn went to the beach.  They didn’t run into anyone and she was wondering why she felt led to go to the beach.  Jenn suggested that she might need some alone time with Him.  She felt an instant, “Yes!”  God just wanted to spend some time with her in the midst of His awesome creation.

Tonight we had a chance to go to a service at the local Baptist church.  After we had a time of worship (led by our worship team) we had a time of testimony where members of our group shared how God was at work through this trip, a member of their church got up and gave a heart-felt thanks for the work we've done.  She said they are so tired and weary from working to clean up their town that it is a great blessing for us to come and help - however we can. 

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.  We'll do our best to keep you updated, but there is little left here and an internet connection just hasn't been a priority for those who lost everything in the storm.  Our cell phones are working here, so be sure to check the message update at 315-225-1099 each evening.  We're an hour behind you, but we'll try to post a daily update as we get ready for dinner.

PJ, Liz, and the rest of the gang are loving the home cooking we get every night at dinner.	Tuesday night we all opened the letters from home.  I don't think there was a dry eye in the fellowship hall.  Thanks for your encouragement!
Emily was glad to get a letter from home too.	This was one of the first times on the trip that Brandon was speechless.
Josh using all his might to trim the branches on this tree at Mildred's house.	Amy took a break to talk with Mildred as they were working on her house.
Jan was trimming this bush at Mildred's house.	Kip and Dominic working on cutting down this tree.
Which of these was given the nickname "Hercules" and which is "wimpy kid?"	Now Jan's raking the lawn.
Amy was working hard fixing the lawn.	The crew was working well together today!
Liz and Dominick were holding down the tarp so Kip could fill it up.	Amy was sharing her faith this with this man today.
Jonathan and Sean working on wall sheathing at our project house.	The work crew at Mildred's house today.
The gators were out on the beach today - they look so much bigger out of the water.	More teary eyes as we opened our letters.
Dominick, Josh, and Liz working on taking down the huge bush.	Cindy and Kip working on building meaningful relationships.
Brandon and Zack working on the pastor's house.	Brandon - aren't you supposed to be holding the ladder for Zack???
Josh was on the roof too.	I sure hope Brandon wasn't supposed to be holding the ladder any more!
Zebediah doing a great job putting up drywall.	Jenn doing the last of the exterior painting.
Rachel had a real burden for the families affected by the hurricane.  She climbed the tree in the cemetery after we were done and prayed.	This was a picture on the first day we worked on the cemetery.
Here's another.	This is what it looked like when we were done today.