Servin' It Up!

What a great day! We started out our day with pancakes at 7AM, thanks to Danny and his team (they were up at least 45 minutes before most of us)! After breakfast, our whole team had a morning of cross culture training. Everyone was more than willing to participate and we learned more practical ways to learn and serve the cultures that surround us here and at home. It was a great morning of role-playing and Biblical truth. Tim talked about 2 Corinthians and that we are the fragrance of God and how sometimes our fragrance isn’t good because of the way that we choose to act! It was a great picture of how to keep our attitudes in the right place.

After lunch, we headed into town and met Ms. Shirley and Pastor Carlos. After a rousing rendition of “The More We Get Together”, in which everyone sang their first and last name as a solo. Yes, I said everyone! We got our assignments and goals and our teams were off! Danny and Lana’s landscape demolition team tackled an overgrown yard with a small folding saw, pruning scissors, and a few rakes. You would have to see what they were up against to truly appreciate the work that this team put in today. Not only did they not complain, but Ethan and Gus single handedly ripped through a couple of trees, bamboo and brush, while their other team members piled up the rubble. The job that probably should have taken 2 days is almost done! They are going to tame a bush tomorrow and begin painting the outside of the house.

Steve and Deana’s team were down the street demoing an old shed and cleaning up the back yard of their assigned house! They by far have had the most interaction with the local rodent life here in Hattiesburg! They piled metal and trash into a pile taller than me and continued sorting through years of neglected tools and building supplies. They also leveled out the ground and stacked lots of old bricks. Just like the other team, a task that should have taken days took this team an afternoon. Their goal tomorrow is to finish up the cleanup and completely level out the area.

Andi and Will’s team were scrapping machines! We prepped a house for painting today. The beautiful thing about this job is that we scraped the old, peeling paint with four-inch plastic putty knives. I will confess, I REALLY wanted to complain, but I chose to follow the example set by my other team members. They smiled, sang and scrapped away, not one complaint. They were definantly a living example of I Timothy 4:12 today. We didn’t quite finish our goal because of the small afternoon rain shower, but tomorrow morning we will finish scrapping and start to paint!

Thank you to all of you that prayed that the weather would be good to work in because God answered your prayers today. The heat was not a factor this afternoon it was cloudy and cooler and then God blessed us with the rain. Although it ended the workday for some of us about 30 minutes early, it was a wonderful gift.

We loaded up and came back to camp for an evening of swimming, debriefing and DINNER! We wanted to do some worship this evening with our devotional/debriefing, but no one brought speakers loud enough to make that happen. So thinking outside the box just a bit, we pulled one of the vans up near the screened in pavilion where we meet and maxed out the radio. The thing was that God honored our efforts and showed up. It really was a fun worship experience, that will be remembered for a while!

You should be proud, every one of them is serving the people of Hattiesburg well. In the midst of serving others, they are loving and honoring each other also. I wish more of you could see them in action here, they are amazing. I won’t lie they are starting to get tired (yes already) and the harder times will come on this trip, but the foundation they are standing on is firm. They seem to understand that serving this week is bigger than themselves. I can not tell you how many times I have heard them say, “ I don’t know how to do that but if you will show me I will gladly do it!” or “Sure, no problem.” They are awesome, thank you so much for letting us borrow them this week to watch God mold their hearts into lives even more beautiful than they already are.

Quotes for the day:

1. “I want to smell like new tennis balls.” Gus

2. What do you smell like today? Tim (our leader)

3. (To Andi) “ Your hair looks like red velvet cake.” Sarah S.

4. (to a person with a pine cone) “That is porcupine poop.” “Really I didn’t know they had porcupines here?”

5. “I am going to need to get gas if we have to drive much farther!” Steve (after Andi led the entire caravan on a slight 30 minute detour)

Prayer Requests :

1. That the World Servants’ truck would be fixed Tuesday, so that Tim can have a dependable vehicle.

2. The heat would not be an issue in the coming days.

3. Our actions and our words would match in the eyes of this community.

4. The great atittudes would continue.

5. As tiredness creeps in that we would give more grace and love to each other.