Day 6 was our final day at the work site and so we got an early start by leaving immediately after breakfast. The normal morning worship time is always moved to the evening on Friday, so that we can start earlier and finish the day with a time to praise God for all that He has done. Upon arrival the work site everyone immediately began to work because we all knew what needed to be done at this point in the week. At the end of our time working we had completely finished one house and finished everything but some of the trim in the other. The ReCreation team will be finishing the trim tomorrow. Everyone was blown away by the fact that 61 middle school students hand-painted the exterior of two entire houses in 4 days. A local pastor drove by at the end of the day and told us that not only was he personally inspired by our team, but that we had really touched the entire community surrounding the two homes. God has done great things through your kids!
The team enjoyed a burger and hotdogs dinner after returning back to our housing site followed immediately by a time of corporate worship together with all the other teams and ReCreation Staff. It ended with a slideshow of pictures from the week showing all the work that had been done by everyone. Following the corporate worship, our team split off for our final porch time out back around a fire. The team sang some more worship songs and then Luke finished the story of Gideon that the team had studied in their pre-trip training meetings. He re-visited the idea of living weak. Gideon's story finishes with a warning to all of us because he ends up becoming ensnared to an idol instead of fully committing to God. Luke challenged everyone to keep their attitude of service and not become ensnared by an idol in their own life. The porch time ended with the leaders giving each kid a card on which they wrote an encouraging note about where they had seen God show up in each of them. Also, everyone got a bracelet with the phrase "LiveWEAK" written on it as a reminder of all that God had done this week. God really filled the circle with his presence as everyone was challenged to engage in the things that each of them knew they were going to have to face as they returned home.
Day 6 ended with everyone heading to small groups where they had a chance to verbalize and share all that God had been doing throughout the week. We sincerely believe that a short-term mission trip that is unexamined is a short-term mission trip not worth taking and so these small group times are essential for everyone on this trip. Your kids have had their faith strengthened in so many ways and we can't wait for them to share them with you. We also wanted to let you know that a short highlight video will be shown on Sunday morning in the SM Worship room if you would like to come join us for the video and then on August 5th a longer highlight video as well as some testimonies will be shared at our SM Missions Experience.
Finally, there will be one more final blog update when we arrive at the Chapel tomorrow letting everyone know we arrived safely.
God Bless,
The SM Staff Team
