Summer Rewind - Week Six

Originally Written on July 21st, 2012

Kentucky Mountain Lessons

Hello ya'll from the mountains of Kentucky,
The summer adventures continued as we packed up and left Dayton last Saturday and made our way to Kentucky to join the team that has been here for the past 5 weeks.

Main Themes of Kentucky:
1) YEILD: For this past week I have not been commanding trip leader. This was a difficult role for me to give up - a role that I had been very comfortable in. God taught me this past week how destructive I can be (without even meaning to) by not giving up this role when necessary. 1 Peter 3:13 calls me to submit (yield) to the work that he is doing through those he has placed in charge. This week that was my co-worker Shane and we've begun to work out what that means for my role on these trips in Kentucky
2) CONVERSATIONS: This week I got to have more intentional and deep in conversations with students because I was not in the role of commanding trip leader. I realized I'm a little rusty because I haven't had so much time with students over the past 5 weeks, but God is faithful and continues to work through me despite myself.

3) DEPENDENCE on God in ALL things: Even in times of doubt, God is the first I should run to, and then to take it to friends and family who can also lift me up in prayer for these things.
4) CONTENTMENT: God is working on my heart in many situations to help me find peace beyond understanding for where he is taking me on this crazy adventure.

Summer Rewind - Week Five

Originally written on July 14, 2012

Hey Gang,
If week 4 was awesome because I felt like God used me and spoke through me so much - week 5 (this past week) was just as awesome because I feel like God just let me observe all the work that He is doing. Because the truth is, he doesn't really need me... he just chooses to use me as I open up myself deeper and deeper to him.

This week we started on the house that will most likely turn into the last house we work on in Dayton. A little bit about the family. Zewdie (mom) and Yalu (dad) have two beautiful kids (Jeremiah & Merav). They've lived there just under a year and it has been a tough year. The biggest problem is that the kids, especially Jeremiah, have asthma really bad. Jeremiah so much so that every time he plays on their carpet he begins to cough and even has had several asthma attacks that have sent him to the hospital. Going into the home we planned on focusing on the downstairs removal of the carpet and painting. However I realized on Monday that the whole house had good (messy looking) but good wood floors underneath the carpet. So we switched gears and Day one the team got EVERY little bit of carpet out of the house. After finishing cleaning up we decided to focus on painting to see if the land lord might possibly help to restore the good wood flooring. We got to paint 4 rooms and a stair well plus put up a clothesline. We got a TON accomplished this week, but there is still plenty of work to be done in the house - so after we get done in Kentucky we'll be returning to finish painting the other rooms and re-floor the areas in which we removed the carpet.

This team also put on a great kid-focused VBS and had a ton of fun hanging out at the team house. (If you've never heard of the game Jungle Speed, you should go check it out)

Summer Rewind - Week Three

Originally written on July 8th, 2012

Saturdays are always the hardest - Teams leave and my energy just drops, but I know the Lord sustains me as I continue to push forward and cross things off the never ending Trip Leader Check List.

Today, we said goodbye to a great team of 15 amazing people. This past week we became part of a team from Northwood, MN. Our 1st high school team of the summer and what a refreshment. 

This was also the first team to run an Educational VBS. Our Dayton missionary partners work mainly with African refugees who have been relocated here. There are so many needs for a person who is on the run from war and strife. One that we're trying to meet is the educational component for the kids. They are struggling in school because of language barriers, teasing and un-acceptance from american kids, and a general lack of care from the school system. So the students from NorthWood church were set up with the difficult task of taking a VBS and making it educational. Instead of crafts, skit & Bible Study - they taught math, reading, & writing. Games of course stayed because what's a VBS without a games rotation. This team really stepped it up. Everywhere I walked around at VBS I saw the students loving on kids, telling them they care for them, and teaching them in fun creative ways (reading stories, creating math games & writing about things they loved). By the end of the week, the students weren't just teaching these kids educational skills but fully communicating the extent of God's love.

We not only got to complete 4 work projects on Neil Street (a street with several refugee occupants), but also spent Friday morning building 3 new picnic tables for Emmanual Lutheran. This church has been such a blessing to me and my fellow staff members over the past 3 weeks it was fun to get to bless them with new, safe & pretty looking tables.

God also gave me an opportunity to think on my toes Friday night when a huge storm rolled in and knocked out the power around 5:00 pm. Luckily we were already planning to go out to eat to celebrate, but we had to get creative for our final team time (evening meeting where we evaluate, discuss scripture, worship & encourage together). I had planned to move the meeting to the church sanctuary for a more special night, but with the power out I knew it would get quite dark in there. So I pulled a Pinterest Idea out of my back pocket and attached my headlamp to my clear water bottle. The water in the bottle refracted the light and with about 10 water bottles we had enough light to sort of make out faces. Without being cheesy it gave us the right mood lighting for a great final team time. The power stayed off all night, but luckily came back on shortly after the team pulled out so we will hopefully not have the same challenge as we greet the new team on Sunday.

Summer Rewind - Week Two

Originally written on June 25, 2012

Well Gang,

The weekend flew by and here I am with only 13 kids sleeping in my church hallway home. Crazy how sleep and laundry take up weekend time. But I wanted to keep all of you up to date on what God has done this past week

This past week was a difficult one. The group was completely different than the week before and the switch over was more difficult for myself and Adam and Alissa than expected. There were some great moments that the team was working perfectly together and everything was running full force while other times we as adult staff felt like we were pulling teeth. Definitely found ourselves on a roller coaster of emotion - real glad God is my track and that this roller coaster will never break down.

Bright Moment of the week: We built 4 new fowerbeds for families. I decided to wait to buy the flowers and take a team of students with me to Home Depot. This was great because these students got to meet my friend Kat and allow her to see the leadership development process. It also gave them a safe place to make choices that really helped them own this project. During that trip two students really shined and I ended up placing them into Leadership roles over the flower beds for the final day. God definitely showed me the pearl within the clam this week as I pried and pried just to see those priceless moments.

Summer Rewind - Week One

Originally written June 21, 2012

Well Ladies and Gents,

I survived the first week. Heck, I wouldn't even call it surviving - it was more like thriving. There were so many points this past week with 30 middle school students from Hudson, OH that showed me so strongly that I am exactly where God wants me to be.  From the three amazing adult volunteers to every student there is so much joy I'd love to share with you… however, it would take a whole book to describe the adventure God just took me on.

So enjoy the few pictures I snapped of different parts of my week.

What I do want to share with you is the relationships I've begun to build with people I was not expecting. Part of my job requires me to purchase many an item at the grocery store and the hardware store. Kettering (the Dayton suburb we live in) has several options for both. 

So Saturday came around and we decided Mejier would be a great spot to make our local grocery store. After 2 hours of shopping, I went in search for a lane and a sweet cashier to ring everything up. This is how I met Morgan. In her early 20s, Morgan has lived in the Dayton area her whole life and is not super excited about her job as a cashier. It took her an hour to ring us out, and during that time we got to know her a little better.

On Sunday morning we decided to handle our work site shopping at Home Depot before church. A couple days before I had had Adam and Alissa go into Home Depot to map out the basic sections in hopes of making the actual shopping trip a little faster. It did, but soon our odd shopping mound brought the attention of a store employee who offered us a personal shopper - we were almost done with our list, but decided to say yes anyways. This is how I met Kat. She's a woman in her late 30s who's a little rough around the edges. She took us all around the store, introducing us to everyone in the other departments and was simply a huge help.

Since the team last week was so large I had to make several more runs to both locations for supplies and God happened to bring them both back into my path. It's been quite fun to make friends who brighten my day as I cover the logistical side of my job, and both of these women's faces brighten when they see me also. Yesterday while Morgan was ringing up our 2nd weeks worth of groceries I asked her if she attended a church in the area. She said not anymore since she moved in with her boyfriend. I invited her to come to Emmanual Lutheran to join us for Sunday worship. She didn't show up today, but I'll keep trying.

I don't know Kat's religious background yet, but I feel so blessed that God is using both of these women to bless my week, and will you please join me in praying that if they do not know God personally themselves, then he might deem me, Adam & Alissa worthy to show them how deep, wide, high and unimaginable God's love truly is. Pray that he continues to give us opportunities to see and talk to them both as we continue our ministry here in Dayton.

Summer Rewind - Intern Training

Originally written June 9, 2012

Hello All!

I am at the end of my pre-summer week. It has been absolutely flying by. Interns arrived on Friday afternoon and we all got to hang out and get to begin building relationships at a barbecue held at Doug Franklin (LeaderTreks Founder & President)'s house. Saturday thru Tuesday the Interns were up at a camp in WI getting oriented to LeaderTreks... or as we affectionately called it, the fire hose of information. This gave me some time to get a little more prepared to leave the Chicago area for 10 weeks, finish my site specific intern training plan and finalize some logistical information for our arrival in Dayton.

Thursday morning rolled around way too quickly and before I knew it, we (Adam, Alissa & I) were packed in the van and headed to Dayton, OH. God blessed us with some caravan buddies. The team headed to Kentucky were traveling the same roads until Indianapolis. We took a slight detour off the highway to a random dairy farm in Indiana, and shuffled cars a little bit so that all four interns could ride together and Shane (the LT staff running the Kentucky site) and myself could get some last minute encouragement and prayer for each other. (We'll see this team again in the middle of July while the Dayton site has a hiatus). 

Since our arrival in Dayton, nothing has gone according to my plans.. ha ha - but I am living in continual trust in God that he is directing my steps. Today was quite the adventure with our first grocery shopping trip where we bought 75% of the needed groceries for the week, and scoped out our work site options and got introduced around the whole neighborhood where we will be working this summer. Tomorrow still holds a full day with work site supply shopping, one-on-ones with interns, an encouraging visit from John (the LT executive director), and rearranging church rooms to prepare for the team's arrival. This time tomorrow night hopefully we will be finishing our first team time with 30 amazing 8th graders and slipping off into peaceful slumber. 

The emotion "overwhelmed" would be an understatement. However, I came to the realization yesterday and today that I'm here to help students and interns grow this summer, but I believe that I'll be the one growing the most. There will be a lot of risk taking for me this summer and I'm praying that I continue to live rooted in my trust in God that he will work out all of my words, actions, and decisions for his glory and that I might see him work more clearly than I ever have before.

Controlling Your Space

3rd week in Dayton with our 1st High School Team
First Day of VBS had its hectic moments,
But I loved how they totally remade the space.
A little bit of tape, some paper signs and the right attitude
and these Leaders were ready to not only control their space
but also the kids as well.

(sorry, video won't load :( perhaps I'll snag some photos and share a photo tour tomorrow.)

Can't wait to see what this team brings during the rest of the week.

How to Live A LT Day

So LT runs their mission trips in a number of ways that differentiate us from other mission organizations - probably one of the most noticeable ones is our busy schedule.

A normal LT day looks like this:

6:30 - Breakfast Prep

(students are broken up into groups and a different group cooks each morning)

7:15 - Breakfast
8:00 - Devotionals

(We set aside 45 minutes every morning to spend with God. We guard this time and it may start at different times, but it's never shorter than 45 minutes)

8:45 - Fast Break

(Time to grab gear and get to the cars)

9:00 - Leave for Work Site
12:00 - Lunch
12:30 - Work Site
2:00 - Leave for VBS
3:00 - VBS
5:00 - Leave for Team House
5:30 - Dinner Prep

(again, students cook, during dinner prep students not cooking get time to shower and hang out)

6:30 - Dinner
7:30 - Team Time

(this is our evening meeting, typically lasting 1 1/2 to 2 hours we evaluate the teams performance, discuss the morning's Bible study, talk about our personal growth and take time to encourage each other)

9:30 - Free Time - to Bed

(once team time is over it is up to the Youth Pastor to set lights out time, but we try to allow them enough time to give the students the option for 8 hours of sleep. We've found that students who are not rested are not ready to be challenged.)

As you can see, there is not a lot of free time. We try to be intentional with every moment of every day. Some people come on the trips and think this is bad - "kids need to work hard yes, but they also need to play hard" - and I agree, to some level. But I also think they can work a lot harder and a lot longer than our society gives them credit.

I love the schedule on trips - it's tiring, but good. However, I also see it as one of the biggest temptations when students return home, when I return home. 

Satan tells me that because I don't have a busy schedule like this that I can put off my devotions. That there will be time to pray later, to read my Bible later, just do it later. And we listen, because we are relaxed and not on a mission trip. But the truth is, schedule or no schedule, we are not promised a later. It should not be about the mission trip, it should be about a mission life.

Lord, Please give the students I've worked with this spring that urgency. May your voice be louder than all the other things calling to them in their daily lives. May they choose to spend time with you NOW. May they choose to pray NOW. May they choose to live a mission life NOW rather than waiting for next year's trip.

Luk 10:2

He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

How to Build a Fence

I talked about how to find a work site in my last post. Our work projects is one of the main ways that we as staff use to teach Leadership principles. This also requires us to be able to train students in the skills that they need to complete the work projects. This is the reason that my Summit class took a week out of the fall to learn how to build a deck together (check it out HERE!)

However, there is not enough time in the office to teach us all construction skills that we might possibly need. Therefore there is some learning on the job. For last week's trip with Faith Bible Church (from Edmond, OK), one of our projects was building a privacy fence - a task I'd never done before. So my assistant leader explained each step to me as we bought the supplies, but it was going to be up to me to explain that to the students.

However, I'm of the honest opinion that experience is better than just head knowledge, so I polled the youth pastor and discovered that not only had he built a fence before, there were two students on the trip who had worked for a metal fencing company.

So in true LeaderTreks fashion, I passed off leadership of the project to the two students and stuck around as "foreman" to guard safety, excellence, and learn a little bit more about building a fence.

Here was our process.

Step One: Dig Hole

The students were very thankful for the Memphis  Dirt
A little softer to dig into.

Place post in hole, level and
pour in cement mix & water

Micah (l) and Anna (r) by the post they
completed on their own.

Matt is super excited about Step Two

The nailing up of stringers. Team work was important on this step
to make sure each stringer was level, and then hold the post to
minimize bouncing to make it easy to hammer the nail in.

After all the stringers are up, you put on the facing boards.
This is also a task where leveling is important.

It took the whole team to start the corner

Corner completed

We hit a snag or two closer to the end of this project, but ALL of the students responded fantastically when we had to pull out some boards to make sure the fence looked its best. Anna was so strong she broke a board in half.

Final Fence Team

So proud of you guys!
Thanks for teaching me how to build my first fence!!

How to Find A Work Site

So part of my job entails a lot of what I'll call the "behind the scenes" work.

Hours spent in the office making phone calls to youth pastors,

digging through our work shed

making meal plans, recipe guides, and shopping lists

Then the long drives to our sites and set-up. 

Not only do we buy ridiculousness amounts of food -

feeding 15-25 people takes "a lot of bread" (as the patient woman behind us in the check-out line put it)

But we also must find enough manual labor (that is at the right challenge level) for a team - or in our case this weekend, two teams (one with 15 members and one with 25).

Julie and I were both excited and very hopeful as we headed drove the 9 hours down to Memphis, TN. Julie had spent all of last summer at this site and was chopping at the bit to see old friends and continue to deepen relationships. She'd spent the past several weeks making phone calls and connections to find possible work sites and maybe even some ministry outreach. She'd gotten several positive replies and all we had to do was check them out to ensure they fit our program.
We arrived Thursday night and spent most of Friday relaxing thinking there was plenty of time and everything was pretty much planned.

Unfortunately God decided to send us a big wake-up call this morning. Julie awoke to several text messages relaying the big news to her...

We could not use any work project we had initially been planning on.

8AM and we were starting from scratch. 

All throughout the day God continually brought my mind to the story of His feeding the 5,000. This story was so important that it is included in all four of the gospels, but I especially love John's version found in chapter six.

Why do I love this version?

Because of verse 5-6

"When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, 'Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?' He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do."

I feel like God is testing us right now. I feel like he is asking me,

"Heather, where do you think you can find a work site for 15 people (and then 25 for the next week)?" 

And I've looked at my physical capabilities just like Philip did when he commented that it would take too much money to buy bread for all the people. Our physical capabilities say we've exhausted all of our contacts and there are no BIG work projects to be found.

With the help of our missionary partners we met two people today who are in need of some "minor" help. To me, it looks a little like 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. A backyard clean up here, a tilling of a garden there, a trash clean up down the road... Not enough to keep a whole team occupied for a week.

But God promises something BIG through this story -

HE PROVIDES! 

The disciples had everyone sit down and they began to pass out their meager amount of food - and they continued to pass it out - and they continued... "until everyone had had enough to eat"
And then what happens? Jesus has the disciples go around and pick up the excess and there were
12 baskets of leftovers.

So here I sit in Memphis, TN, with a pretty meager list of possible jobs we can do this week,
and all I can do right now is pray.

Pray with the knowledge that God is faithful. 

Pray with the knowledge that if he feed over 5,000 people with that meager meal, that he will fill the hands of 35 people with work that will build his Kingdom from a meager work site list.

Pray that through his provision lives will be changed and Kingdom work will be accomplished.

And pray that even in the "behind the scenes" work that his Name is GLORIFIED!

How to Tear Up A Floor

On the Road! Finally!! 

Myself and two fellow staff members crammed all of our work supplies, luggage and ourselves into one of our trusty LeaderTreks vans and pulled away from the office before the sun came up on February 16th. 15 hours and 6 states later we found ourselves in West Sayville, Long Island, New York.
The following 3 days were full of introductions, delicious New York meals, an NHL game, lots of laughter and of course - TRIP PREP. On Saturday we went to tour a couple of the houses that we would be working on for the week. One family, the Thomas', had plenty of work for us to do, including retiling their kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and upstairs landing - comparatively small spaces, but we knew it would be a project that lasted the whole week for several of our students.

So STEP ONE in putting down new sticky tile is to get rid of the old tile. Monday the students worked with all their hearts and hammers and chisels. The first layer of tile came up quite easily, but SURPRISE, there was another layer of tile and this one came up in two parts. Therefore the next three days my hardworking students endured many a splinter and sore knees as they scraped and pulled up what was stuck to the floor.

About the middle of Day 3 after checking on students in other parts of the work site I returned to the kitchen to find them singing this quaint little tune:

As exhausted and frustrated as they were at the task, they encouraged me with their silly song.

 What a great picture of how to keep spirits high and 

continue working with all your heart as working for the Lord (Col 3:23).

I pray that the Lord teaches students on future trips the importance of a joyful heart while working.

And hopefully He'll allow me to be around with a camera to catch their creative songs as well.

Check back later for pictures and video of the finished project.

How To Build A Deck

If you are a follower of my newsletters you know that in the past two months of my job I've spent a lot of time in the office with fellow new staff members in a "class format" learning about principles and processes of Trip and LTE (Leadership Training Event). We also got a week to head out to our mission site in Houck, AZ (Navajo Nation) and apply some of those principles and processes on work projects out there which included dry-walling, painting, and re-tiling floors.

However, a large majority of our stateside projects consist of building decks... and it just so happens that the Executive Director of LeaderTreks needed a new deck, so Summit Year One staff members took a week out of the office to learn and practice the very specific details of

DECK BUILDING!

Before ~

I promise this is an old deck behind these massive trees. The first morning we demolished the deck and that afternoon two team members took our van full of wood to the dump to dispose of it while myself and Brandon headed for Menard's to buy all of the new wood and supplies needed.

That evening John took out the trees himself.

 Figuring out how to best remove the old railing. Saw? Hammer? Sledge Hammer?

We ended up mostly kicking it down.

John's (boss & home owner) kids were around throughout the week to help out and provide encouragement.

 Robbie took charge of taking down the old awning that was falling apart.

After lots of blood sweat and tears we got to this point

  We decided to leave two of the base pieces from the old deck because they were still in good enough condition. On other decks that I will build though we will have to dig holes for new posts and fill in concrete.

Abby and Brandon are figuring how to attach a third base piece to the side out of the house for final support.

*Note: Even though it seems wise to start from the back of the deck because that is where you already have something in place. Don't. Start from the house and make everything level from there. This small fact will save you some time ;)

Level is the key!

We all worked together to make sure this base was perfect.

Once we had those three planks in and level we started attaching 2x6 planks across them.

This takes the skill of toe-nailing the screw in.

The technique of driving a nail at an angle to join two pieces of lumber
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/toenailing#ixzz1buZ7u9eG

Once those are all attached it is necessary with this set up to brace these boards so once we get the planking boards attached the whole deck doesn't wobble.

 I measured the appropriate lenghts and passed that info on to Brandon who skillfully cut more 2x6s into the right lenght so that...

Abby & Robbie could attach them.

No toe-nailing needed here!

Once those were all attached we all began attaching the planking boards that are the face of the deck.

 This takes the work of the whole crew. Brandon (yellow shirt) was in charge of making sure the boards on his end lined up and were perfectly level. We each were in charge of making sure that the board was the right distance apart on the section in front of us. We used a nail to determine distance.

 Abby challenged herself during this process by using a corded drill. This was a difficult task because it does not have the automatic stop that a cordless drill has, but she stuck with it and will have the ability to challenge students with finishing what you start.

Our very straight edged deck.

Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday were bitterly cold

But we pressed through the weather to complete our tasks!

Once the planking was done we began figuring out how to attach our posts.

Because we added the posts after planking we had to chisel out the

spots to attach to our deck. I warred with this one because it had

several nasty knots. But we got through it.

After cutting holes we then had to attach them.

Which required some dirty work under the deck.

But it was quickly over.

Once the posts are attached, the railing and steps are the last thing you do.

The railing takes a lot of planning because they have to be evenly spaced along the whole deck.

This is a lot of detail work.

But so worth it when done correctly.

Steps are the final step ;D

 This also takes some leveling and toe-nailing skills.

We surrounded the the base of the deck with planking cut to size so that animals can't get underneath it.

So here is our finished deck.

You can see the finished steps and Abby entering through our gate.

It looks so much more open after removing those trees and leaving the side open to the rest of the backyard.

And the finished deck with most of our building team.

 Brandon, Myself, John & Abby

(Robbie took the day off for his birthday)

I hope you enjoyed getting to see us do a little hard work.
If you ever need a deck built just give me a call.