Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Mosey Monday









Mosey Monday.


Looking out the window at 6:00 AM and the skies are gray and a cold rain is
falling. It would be so easy to just pull the covers back up over my head
and drift back to sleep. But this week that is not what it's about. It's
about a call that you can't really explain. It's about a feeling that you
are some where that you are suppose to be but you're not always sure why.

Struggling off the air mattress. Feeling for your shoes in the dark. Trying
not to wake the others in the room as you get dressed. Heading out of your
warm building into cold drizzling rain to the next building to start the
day. The sound and smell of the coffee brewing (refer to yesterday's email
to know my feeling here) as you get the stuff in the kitchen ready for the
team. Soon others are following you. Some dressed for the day while others
are still in their sweats and one is even in a pink fluffy robe. Everyone
gets their breakfast items. Some have oatmeal most have cold cereal. Some go
for the leftover pizza, always a good choice. The work day has begun.

After breakfast, clean up and back to the rooms to change we all gather for
the day. We break up into our two teams. Rich, Marissa, Molly and Parker will be going to the trailer to start there. The rest of us, Marisa, Megan, Amy, Cindy, Ford, Morgan and I will be doing the painting. After a quick prayer and rousing send off by Molly the teams go their way.

Our task is to paint primer on the boards for use at a job later in the week
and also to paint the walls in the Family Life Center at Henryville.
Basically it's the walls around the gym. Soon 3 other members of Henryville UMC show up to work with us. One member, Don Stroud, we remembered from our previous missions here. They spent most of the day working on fixing a water fountain in the gym that had been leaking. After that they helped us paint
the walls. Some of the pictures that are attached are of the paint team and
their handy work. Some members of my team had never painted before or used
rollers. It's always fun watch someone try new things. At first they are
very tentative then as time goes on their confidence grows and you can
really see them taking ownership of what they are doing.

The other team had gone to Billy and Kathy's trailer. Their jobs were to
work on installing a sink, relocating a portable clothes washer and to fix a
counter top. Marissa spent much of her time talking and sharing with Kathy.
The some of the attached pictures are of Rich's team and the areas that they
were working in.

The teams met back at Henryville UMC for lunch. It was good to sit back and listen to the team talk about what was going on at their respective sites. Lunch was surprising short since everyone was anxious to get back to work.

Back into the painting we returned. When all was said and done we had
painted 24 fascia boards (all sides), 20 full size sheets of plywood and all
of the major walls of the gym. We wrapped up our painting around 3 but the
clean up (wash brushes, pulling off the blue tape, getting up drop cloths
and getting up spots) took about 30 more minutes. It was obvious that we
were tired of painting. Fortunately being in the building where we are
staying it was a short walk back to the rooms for a quick power nap for
some.

Rich's team rolled back into the church around 4. They too had wrapped up
what they could but needed some more plumbing supplies so they took a trip
to Lowes for them.

Those that were awake got their showers. A few of us sat around discussing
the day's activities while waiting for our showers.

Dinner tonight was being provided by some members of Henryville UMC. It was
homemade chicken noodle soup and a delicious homemade lemon cake. To go
along with this we sliced up some of Regina Hux's bread that she had made
for us and toasted that with cheese on it. Once again no one went hungry.

Our devotions tonight were lead by Parker and Ford. It was from Mark 2:3-5.
The story of the friends bringing a man to Jesus and having to work together
to get him there. Their theme was teamwork and how that was going to play
out for us this week. How we as a team were going to need to work together
to get what needed to be done accomplished. Ford and Parker then had us go
out into the gym and work together to move the team from one point to
another by only using so many body parts. It took a little while of us
discussing various steps to take. One of those was for Rich to carry two
members across on his shoulders. Needless to say some of the girls' faith
was tested this evening. We eventual got across the gym floor. After some
good laughs we discussed that it took us working as a team to accomplish our
task.

During the team meeting I asked how all thought things went on day one. All
had good things to say and were positive. Ford said that he was glad we were
able to do the painting at the church as a way to give back to them who have
given so much to us. We all agreed. Marissa spoke up about spending time in
fellowship with Kathy and encouraged all to talk with her and Billy
tomorrow. One of the things that is stressed in the UMVIM training is that
it's the relationships with the people are far more important that any other
work you will do on a mission. It is apparent that relationships are being
built already. The Holy Spirit is truly moving in our midst.

Tomorrow the whole team is going out to Billy and Kathy's. There is still
some work to be done inside but a lot more to be done outside. We are hoping
for some warmer weather. It only got to 32 here today. While yes it was
colder back home 32 is cold for Alabama this time of year. I am looking
forward to meeting Billy and Kathy and spending some time with them.

We are praying for all back home and hope that all are safe and warm with
the recent snow. We thank you for your prayers and support while we are
away. Please continue to be in prayer for the mission team, the people that
we will be serving as well as the people that are serving us.

Goodnight and may God bless!

1 comment:

  1. Love your pictures, love your stories, love YOU for being the hands of Jesus -- hammering, hauling, painting, hard-working hands!

    ReplyDelete