Today was the final day at our work site for the NC team. However, similar to yesterday, the 7th grade girls spent the morning at the local Manna Food bank where they sorted food as well as stacked packages of diapers that will be distributed to families in need. The girls loved getting to serve alongside each other and it was neat to watch the team of girls work diligently to sort things for people they will probably never meet. They came back from Manna with stories of all the things they stacked and were excited to tell everyone how much they had done.
While the 7th grade girls were gone the rest of the team continued our project at Miriam's house. We were able to finish our final trench after only a couple hours in the morning. Then we quickly began digging the trenches to connect all the pipes, finishing the supply line trench, and attaching all the pipes together. It was truly special to see the God-given joy on everyones faces as we threw the last shovel of dirt on to the trenches. We wholeheartedly realized that only God could have inspired and strengthened our group to dig for 4 days!
While the digging was being finished up, some of our team continued to paint Miriam's house. All of the trim needed to be painted beige and all of the siding needed to be painted blue. Some of our team was on ladders to reach the higher spots, some of our team was walking around the bottom making sure every spot was covered with blue paint, and some of our team was painting the shutters. At the end of the week we were able to not only finish priming her house, but also finish putting a first coat of colored paint on her entire house. Miriam's neighbors and family were all astonished by the transformation, which was great to see how God used our team to impact an entire neighborhood.
After all of our work, Miriam and her daughter-in-law came out to thank all of us. In addition to some very heartfelt words of gratitude they gave us a laminated piece of paper that has notes from all the family members and pictures of everyone in the family. Here is what the family wrote to our team:
We are overwhelmed at the outpouring of love and generosity you have given to our family. Just when you reach the very end and doubt if God even hears your prayers, 70 people show up at your home with their arms stretched open wide. Thank you for bringing Romans 8:28 to life for us because it is clear that ALL things work together for good...even a broken down septic tank!
Forever your friends in Christ,
The Porter Family
It has been a blessing for our team to be able to serve and share Christ's love with the Porter family!
The team headed back to our housing site after finishing up our work project. We cleaned up, ate dinner and then joined the ReCreation staff for some evening worship music and a highlight video from the week. We enjoyed getting to see pictures from all the work we did and remembering all that God had done throughout the week.
Finally, our team gathered out back around a fire pit for our final porch time together. We sang some more worship songs and then Luke closed out our time by re-visiting the story of Moses that we studied in our pre-trip training meetings. He reminded us of the excuses that Moses made for why God shouldn't use him to free the Israelites from slavery in Exodus 4. Then he transitioned that into reminding the team that we need to stop making excuses in our own lives for why we aren't willing to follow what God is asking us to do. Then he closed by reminding the team that God is with us and will provide for us whenever He asks us to do something. After Luke's talk everyone was given the opportunity to burn up the excuses they had written down on their card at the missions overnight and they were given a holding cross with Exodus 4:2 engraved on one side and the phrase No Excuses engraved on the other. The hope is that we will all return to Williamsburg with these lessons in our minds and a cross to remind us whenever we begin to make excuses for not following God.
The evening ended with a final time in small groups to finish processing the trip. It truly has been an extraordinary week where God did great things in and through everyone on the trip. Thank you for all your prayers and don't forget to join us on August 2nd at 6:30pm at the Chapel to hear more stories and see a highlight video of the trip.
