TPP - Wednesday

What a week this has been and it is only Wednesday!  It truly has been a blessing for me to be working alongside our students commitments: commitment to God, commitment to themselves, commitment to others.  This really became evident today at the worksite when a little situation happened (nothing major don’t worry).  For the last couple of weeks Ms. Linda’s grandson Deshaun (I think I said that earlier in the that he was her son but he is not he is her grandson) has been living at her house because his mother kicked him out of the house and didn’t have a place to sleep so Ms. Linda welcomed him into her home.  Needless to say that Deshaun and his mother don’t get along very well together and I am sure there is a lot more to their history together but we don’t know what that history is.  What we did find out today was that Deshauns mother called the police and said that he ran away from home so the cops came to pick him up.  As soon as our students saw the cops and heard that they were looking for Deshaun at this point we had no idea why so we all gathered in the back yard to pray for Deshaun, Larry, and Ms. Linda, and Deshaun’s mother!  The rest of the day the students really loved on Ms. Linda and  worked even harder to get the projects done.                                        

After our work day we had the opportunity to go and swim and a public pool in Mt. Airy and it was a blast!  Our kids had a great time swimming and we welcomed with open arms from the kids from the community.  Here are some pictures from our time at the pool.

Sorry for the short but I am exhausted!  Goodnight

TPP - Tuesday

Tuesday – today did not seem like Tuesday, I don’t know why but it feels like we have been here longer than just two and a half days!  God has been working in the lives of our students and it has been such a blessing to be working alongside of them.  I don’t know how I forgot to mention in yesterday post but every night here at the project they give out the DuckTape Award to a guy and girl who worked extra hard all day and really poured their heart out at the worksite and our very Own Steven Charlemagne won the DuckTape Award on Monday night.  We were very proud of him!

Today at the work site Madalyn and Willow put up the first coat of paint on the ceiling!  They are very excited about putting the second coat up tomorrow and then doing a little touch up work where a couple of drops of paint may have gotten onto the walls rather than ceiling  but that happens to the best of us!

Vincent and William continued to scrape the rest of the paint off of the wall in the hallway upstairs while Steven and Andy started to prime the same wall at the other end of the hallway and down the stairs.

Joe and Caleb were with me working on the upstairs bathroom, which is actually the only bathroom in the house.  When you walk into this bathroom it doesn’t take you very long to notice that there is no sink and not only is there no sink there is no room to put a sink in this bathroom.  Today started with Joe and Caleb taking out a section of wall to make room for a small sink.  We all had fun taking the wall out and after the wall was out came time for us to frame out a new wall, the funny part about that is that neither Caleb, Joe, or myself have never framed a wall before but we were willing to take on the project, and I am proud to say that by the end of our work day the new wall was framed.  Did this little project take us longer than it should have, yeah I am sure it did but we had a blast doing it!

Thanks for stopping by and checking up on our week with the Philadelphia Project.

TPP - Monday

Today was our first day at our worksite and our students poured their hearts out into the work that they were doing today.  The first thing that we did today was meet our homeowner Ms. Linda Thompson who lives with her sister who has cerebral palsy and her two sons Larry and Deshaun.   I will get to the different projects that we are working on this week but first I want to share one way that God has already been working on our students hearts.  On Sunday night Ray’s message to the students was about being right with God and before we can truly love ourselves and others we have to be right God.  It doesn’t matter if we put a mask on to make it look like everything is going good what matters in our life in what is happening inside.  When we pulled up to Ms. Linda’s house it looked great from the outside, there was some nice flours, mulch, and other plants but when you walked inside you saw how desperately Ms. Linda need the help from the Philadelphia Project.  Thankfully Ms. Linda was willing to humble herself and call out to the Project and ask for their assistance to help repair her home.  That is exactly what we have to do in our spiritual lives when we are not right with God.  God already knows when things are not right but we have to be willing to humble ourselves and call out for his help and that might mean talking with someone else to support us in the journey to restoration. It was such a God moment to see our students make this connection during our huddle time after being on the work site.

So what are we working on this week? 

Caleb and William trimmed an evergreen tree outside the front of the house.

I think at some point throughout the day everyone was outback helping to re-landscape the backyard but Joe was out back all day going hard doing whatever needed to be done; pulling weeds, digging up bricks, raking debris, spraying insects, you name it he was doing it alongside everyone else!

Inside the house Madalyn and Willow alongside the occasionally William when he was not helping Caleb were in charge of priming the ceiling in the living room.  They taped the room, covered everything with plastic, and painted the entire ceiling except for maybe a one square foot area where I got them started.  It was awesome to see them get so much work done.

Upstairs, Vincent, Andy  and Steven were scraping paint and sanding a wall like there was no tomorrow but thankfully there is a tomorrow because there is still more scraping and painting to do and then there will be plenty of painting for them to do as well.

I think that was all of the projects that we worked on today but there will be some new ones tomorrow.

Thanks for all prayers and please leave comments for the students I will pass them on to them!

The Philadelphia Project - Sunday Night

Tonight has been an incredible night and a great start to our mission trip!  When we arrived in the city we got our bags unpacked in the ridiculously cold sleeping room (what a glorious thing), and then set out on a prayer tour around parts of the city that we will be serving in this week and we ended the prayer tour at a beautiful overlook of the city in Fairmount Park.  This was a great way to get our students in the right mindset for week and I so thankful that at each of the stops our students were so willing to volunteer and pray out loud for the different parts of the city and the people living  in the city. 

One of the highlight of the week I believe is going to be club, what is club that is such a great question.  every night at 7:15 we gather in the Sanctuary for some games, worship, testimonies, and a message.  nothing like a bunch of middle school and high school students jumping up and down and praising Jesus!

I am so excited to see how God is going to be working in the lives of our students this week!  thank you for all of the prayers!

You may not know a couple of faces in these pictures that is because a couple of other students had to ride with us for the prayer tour for logistical reason.   

HS Mission Trip Day 5 - LOVE

This has been an incredible week!  Thank you all so much for your prayers and support while were serving this week.  I am thankful that God blessed us with his protection this week and that everyone made it through the week with only a couple of cuts and bruises.  Today we were actually able to finish all of the projects that we set out to do.  We put on a new metal roof, installed a new bedroom window, hung new drywall in the ceiling of the kitchen (a job we were not planning on doing), installed a new bedroom floor, replaced the skirting around the side and back of the house, but I truly believe the most important thing that we did this week was share our lives and the love of Jesus Christ with Ernie and Linda and they also shared their lives with us.  It brings me joy to see God working in the lives of our students and He was at work this entire week!  When our work day was coming to close today we had an emotional goodbye with Ernie and Linda, it was one of those moments that our students will hold close to their hearts for years to come.

I am excited to see what God has planned for our all of our students when we return home and continue to share God’s love with our families, friends, and even people that we have not even meet yet.  We have an incredible group of students at Grace and I know that God is going to be using them in some incredible ways over the next couple of years and I feel blessed to be a part of it all.

Here are some pictures of our last day.  Please be sure to ask everyone who came on the trip to share their experiences with you!

HS Mission Trip Day 4 - LOVE

Thanks for all the comments so far!  The students love to hear from you!

Where has this week gone?  I cannot believe that when I wake up in the morning (about 5 hours from now because I have to run to the grocery store and buy some more cereal before breakfast because all we have left is some raisin bran crunch and cheerios) it will be Friday and our last day working on Ernie and Linda’s home.  My prayer for us tonight is that God will give us the strength and stamina tomorrow to push through and keep our energy up to either finish our projects or leave them at a spot for the group coming in next week to pick up where we left off. 

I was very proud of our students today when Ernie and Linda told me that this was the nicest group of teenagers that they have ever met.  Ernie and Linda still can’t get over the idea that they would give up a week of the summer and work for free, but they are so thankful for the work that God is doing in their lives and that they were in fact willing to come and be in service this week.  When we were packing up for the day today Ernie and Linda made us promise that if we ever came back up to Camden that we would stop in and say hello.  It has been such a blessing to get to know Ernie and Linda so personally because that is not the experience we had two years ago when we were up here.

After working today we went back to the church and got our swim suits and supplies to go and have a cookout at Lake Oneida.  It was such a beautiful night and Mary took a great group picture for us but I forgot to have her put her pictures on my computer before she went to bed so you will have to wait until tomorrow to see more pictures, I know I am sooo sorry.  (all of the pictures that I have posted have been from Mary’s camera so be sure to thank her the next time that you see her)

Thank you all for your love and prayers, they have all been felt this week!