It's hard to believe this is the end of this service trip for this year, but it's not to be the end of service for any of us. Our faith calls us to be of service to all, to freely give of our talents which God has given us. This is something we've discussed at several evening gatherings this year and in our prayer circles. It's amazing to see the changes in many of the teens as well as the adults even if this is not their first service trip. This week of service has a way of opening one's eyes to all the blessings we have and just how much others need our help and the gifts we've been given.
Tomorrow morning we have our final gathering as a group with others from Minnesota before we depart for home. We'll be traveling in service teams for the morning to discuss what we've experienced this week and what the trip has meant to each of us. Please be sure to ask those you know about the trip and their experience.......I know they will have a lot to share with you. Here are the final thoughts from our teens:
Hi this is Rachel from team Incendio. Our last day at our site went extremely well, but was also very long. We ended up finishing about three hours after our normal finish time! But we got to miss most of the Harry Potter cleaning party: either good or bad depending on who you are (Janine and Becky were extremely disappointed.) We kept up our team spirit, however, while finishing every project that needed to be done. The actual step boards were placed and screwed in, along with the handrails and spindles. "The Spindlers", Janine, Becky, and I, completed three, that's right, THREE WHOLE GUARDRAILS, unlike one rail in two days, along with the handrails on the stairs. We spent the down time falling asleep with the kitten, cuddling dogs (and three stray puppies that paid a visit from up the road), and singing Frozen over and over again. But then came time to say goodbye. Oh and was it hard, a few of us even teared up. After giving them our gifts of a baby gate, chalk, a candle, welcome mats, and a signed frog, we took a group picture with everyone from both groups and the family. Finally getting 18-month old Lydia to stop crying with a sucker, and Novalene to sit still with two, took time. Goodbyes were hard. Hugs were shared and mutual thankfulness was given among everyone. Ending our day out with a pizza place Amber recommended was a great end to our last day in Morgan County, TN (except for the mopping at the school of course.)
Hey this is Ryan from the team of DURO. Its like 12am right now so bare with me on this one. And don't worry mom and dad, I'm only up this late because we just had a massive group reflection with everyone, and we all had a lot to share. Moving on, today was our last day so this is the grand finish. We started off this morning by driving 30 minutes out of town to try and find a new back door for our family's trailer because theirs was a bit withered, and we had just replaced some floor right inside the door. Anyways, we got to the store to find they didn't have the right dimensions for our door. So, Ron and I drove 40 more minutes to get the door, leaving the rest of our group behind at the store to complete the preparation of some of our family presents (potted flowers). We then picked up our group and arrived at the site at about 11:30am instead of our usual 9am. We then removed the door and brought in the new one after finding and fixing a "screwy" obstacle.... get it... because we had a problem with some screws. As the door was placed in we finished the tiling of a small area inside the door and then packed up and had one last meal with our family and to say the least, it was amazing. Our Debby was a heck of a cook! We then proceeded to go to our usual post-work spot...the waterfalls. We swam and dove and showed off our courage as other groups watched in awe and then tried the leap themselves. After all this completion and fun, we headed back to the center, ate, cleaned, and gathered. Which brings us to right now. So there it is for ya, a day in the life of an ASP-
Hi, this is Jared from Homorphous. Today, we finished up the porch that we have been working on throughout the week as well as finishing up the hallway and bathroom work. I am very proud of what our team has been able to accomplish during this week. We started with a daunting task as our home had not started having work done on it until one of the later weeks. Every team member worked incredibly hard today to finish our tasks, with a special mention for team leaders Mark, Doug, and Dan, who stayed out working into the night hours to ensure that the plumbing on the house was finished. Gracelyn, the girl that lives in the house we are working on, took a number of our team members berry-picking today. They returned with naturally-growing raspberries and blackberries, which were delicious. Our team will miss Gracelyn and her parents Bev and Lonnie as they have been very gracious throughout the week. I think that I can speak for the rest of the team in saying that we had an amazing family to work with and we are so proud of the progress we have made at the site.
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