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)