Hello, family and friends!
God continues to show up here in North Carolina and we are so thankful. Our students have spent another day serving the local community here with servant hearts that always leave us so encouraged. Thank you for checking in on our team and for all the prayers we know you are covering us in.
Once again we rose early and joined in the morning routine of ReCreation. The students had breakfast and then spent some time in worship with the other teams that have gathered here this week. We continue to be amazed that despite the early hour these middle school students are so willing to jump right into the day. After breakfast we loaded up team supplies for the day and headed back out to our work site.
Back at Paint Rock Baptist Church the kids continued in their work project of digging out trenches for the drainage field of a septic system. The morning brought rain here in Weaverville, so there was plenty of mud to go around. The students didn't hesitate for a second, but rather grabbed shovels and headed straight up the mountain to work. Throughout the morning they moved dirt and cleared out roots and debris in the three different trenches. A few new girls jumped in and made lunch today to help serve their fellow team members.
After lunch most students returned to the hill for work and have now nearly completed all three trenches. Most are completely cleared and are on the final step of leveling the bottoms of the out so that pipes can be laid. They will be beginning that step of the project on Thursday. Following lunch we also had a few small groups that helped clean up our team buses. With everyone working so tirelessly in the mud all day it has been hard to keep them clean, but these groups were a great vision of Christ as they restored them to some semblance of order. :)
We returned to ReCreation to enjoy dinner and free time. Soccer was the game of choice today for a lot of the students and we were encouraged to see many of them use this time for personal devotionals. We had porch time a short while ago to wrap up the day. Two of our rituals at porch time is to let the students remember funny times from the day and also share all the ways they saw God as they worked together. It is always a beautiful moment of seeing Christ in the flesh to watch these middle school students seek out their Savior in each other. We finished tonight with small group time and will be heading to bed soon.
Tomorrow is our day off, so the students will be enjoying different activities. They'll spend the morning visiting with residents at a local retirement community. We'll have lunch there and then we'll take the students to two different swimming sites here in the NC mountains. They'll have porch time together at a park area on the Blue Ridge Parkway before returning to ReCreation tomorrow night.
Thank you again for all the prayers and for letting us share this week of service with your students. We feel so blessed to experience this with them as they grow in their faith. God bless!
Love in Christ,
SM Staff Team
HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY, LUKE KINCAID!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!
