Our day began with an early but tasty breakfast followed by some worship through singing and a short talk given by one of the Recreation Experience Directors. Each morning starts with worship in order to get everyone awake, energized, and focused for the work project that we head to each day. After worship, we loaded up the buses and drove to our worksite where we were introduced to Mr. Hughes and his home. Due to throat cancer Mr. Hughes no longer can speak on his own. He has to have a mechanical device that picks up the vibrations in his throat and turns them into audible sounds. Mr. Hughes lives by himself and may seem to have a rough life, but many of the kids talked about how they saw God in the simple fact that amidst all his crazy circumstances Mr. Hughes still smiled at them.
After the introduction, we hiked up a hill in his backyard to the site where we began digging trenches to put a septic system in place for Mr. Hughes. After an hour or so it began to rain which brought a nice cool breeze and cooled us off. However the rain continued on after our lunch break which made the digging a little more difficult, but it was so impressive to see your children pushing through the minor difficulty caused by the rain because they really wanted to serve Mr. Hughes by giving him a septic system. Along with the digging a small team went and began painting the inside of Mr. Hughes kitchen. We ended up leaving the work site early because of the rain and came back to our home base to take warm showers and relax.
After dinner we had our first evening porch time where we gather together as a group to remember the day, listen to a talk, and praise God through music. It was great to hear where students have already begun to see Jesus in each other, Mr. Hughes, and others we work with. Luke gave a talk looking at Matthew 24:31-42 and Colossians 1:27 and challenged the kids to not just see our work project as a simple act of kindness, but rather as a way to literally live out Scripture by being Jesus with skin on to each other and Mr. Hughes. Finally, we split up into small groups and finished the night relaxing in fellowship with each other. It has been an exciting and God-filled first day and we really do appreciate all the prayer and support from back home. Goodnight and check back into tomorrow night!
