Our final full day here in North Carolina began with a great breakfast at ReCreation and then we headed right out to the work site to spend a full day finishing the project. Much to our dismay, when we arrived, we found the septic trenches that we had worked all week filled with mud and about 4 inches of water. However, even Mother Nature couldn't stop the attempts of our kids to finish the project that we came here to complete and help this family that we have come to love. After spending much of the morning bailing water out of the ditches, our team grabbed their shovels and got to work perfecting the walls and depths for these septic trenches. After spending the day split between putting the new shingles on the roof and crafting our three trenches, we were a little disheartened when we had to leave and only about 80% of the pipes had been placed and recovered.
We said our goodbyes to John, Zachary, and Austin and headed back to ReCreation to clean up and have dinner. After dinner we had a time of worship in the traditional ReCreation way, (lots of dancing and singing and shouting) and were entertained by a short highlight video that the staff had put together with pictures from throughout the week. We transitioned from that into our final porch time where we had special visitors that came to join us. John and Zachary had come to join us for our time of worship and to hear Nick speak on Jacob, the character we had look at in our pre-trip meetings. We talked about how Jacob had had an encounter with God, face to face and that he had left this encounter with a "limp" or something that he carried with him and yet, he was distracted from where God had called him to go.
We concluded that fear is a powerful motive in causing us to put
anything besides God on the throne of our lives, and after the message,
students had an opportunity to reflect on an assignment they had worked
on prior to the trip. They wrote on a card some of the fears and
uncertainty in their lives, and slowly, one by one, they made their way
to a small fire to symbolically burn those fears and doubts. In closing,
we all sang "No Longer Slaves," reinforcing again that we are not slaves to
fear, but are children of God. Small groups continued the discussion of
Jacob's story and his encounter with God in Genesis.
Just as when Jacob wrestled with God, our students had a chance to wrestle physically and emotionally with the strenuous task of digging these trenches. John, the homeowner we had helped all week, during our final porch time ended our night with wise words of encouragement for our students, "Don't feel as though you failed because you didn't finish the work, but know that you showed me what the true blessing of God is." We hope that after
wrestling this week, God's blessing is made clear in our lives.
We are sad to leave, but excited at the prospect of carrying God's blessings with us as we head back to Williamsburg tomorrow!
