Washington D.C. – Not Just a Visit But an Opportunity

We had 2 great flights and all our bags arrived with us! That is ALWAYS good news to me!

It was late by the time we checked in and most eating places were closed so we ordered pizza in, and now we’re all getting settled in, hopefully getting to sleep soon because we’ve got a LONG day tomorrow!

When we can, we keep our schedule loose so we can change outdoor events to indoor events and dodge weather issues…

Here’s what’s on the agenda for tomorrow –  at one time or another!

1. We will start off with prayer at the Washington Monument.  We’ve done that from our very first trip here 9 years ago (or maybe this is the 10th year)

Then we’ll do our prayer walking on Embassy Row

Hopefully hear part of one of the cases being debated at the Supreme Court

Visit the Library of Congress

Lunch in there somewhere

The Memorials in the afternoon – ending at the Lincoln and the Korean memorial in the evening!

Please pray for us!  Stamina, health, focus, the ability to truly see beyond what I call tourist eyes!

One of Summit’s former students Thomas Moye is joining us when he can. He works here in D.C.  He was on our first D.C. trip!  He is a blessing and tonight encouraged them to really dig into what they were experiencing!  It’s an incredible opportunity to embrace everything about the trip and it will change them. It changed him when he was here!  It can be a powerful trip!

That’s it!

Mrs G

An Amazing Day!

It was a beautiful day for painting in Boswell, Oklahoma! We got to meet Cierra during lunch and her two beautiful children at

We didn’t get the outside completely painted but we did get A LOT of the outside painting accomplish! We were so close to finishing but we needed to return to the cabins to clean up for our evening ministry time with the children at New Life Family Church!

There has been quite a bit of rain here … so much that the home we worked on today should have been moved in to already! But rain, snow and ice has kept her from being able to get her home finished and moved in to!

It’s such an honor when you get to meet with the homeowner and pray with them. That is just what we did at lunch time today! It was a muddy painting day! Very muddy! However, these students sludged through it! It was hard work but we were so proud!

Tonight’s ministry time was fun! Everyone did their part: singing, skits, memory verse, crafts and prayer time.   Some of the prayer requests were for jobs for their dads. Quite a few asked for prayer for their dads who had lost their jobs, sick family members. After craft time we had dinner with the kids! Homemade spaghetti and salad and garlic bread!   This church has been feeding these children for over 8 years. It is an amazing ministry! The pastor shared with us that for many of them, there would be no evening meal if it weren’t for them coming to the church! Those little faces and you think about them going to bed hungry! It’s hard to say goodbye to them!

God is really cool how he does stuff!

1. We had plan on how our days would be here in Hugo
   1. God had another plan
   2. The civic center desperately needed help
   3. We desperately needed to meet Edre (105 year old women) and all her bingo playing friends
2. The Head Start needed our help for their Federal Review – we accomplished 5 playgrounds
   1. Seriously – five is A LOT
3. Cierra needs 700 volunteer hours – We gave her 96 hours today!   A blessing two waysL
4. I’ve been trying to find my {insider info) on the Elephants that are here in Hugo!
   1. Standing in line at Walmart
   2. The young man behind me starts a conversation about my food items
      1. It was ravioli and red and white sauce
   3. I asked where he was from – Long Island – I asked what brought him here – Elephants
      1. His name is Dominick
      2. He tells me how to get a hold of the ‘elephant people’
      3. I contacted them – kind of persuaded them to give us a tour
      4. We get to see and feed the elephants tomorrow morning
   4. When I received the 2^nd call back trying to work through whether or not we could see the elephants…
   5. WE ARE PUMPED! We’ve got our bags of apples and bananas!

It’s been a great week… we don’t want to leave the view! It if hadn’t been a little chilly we were all tempted to just take our sleeping bags and sleep on the decks under the stars!

We’ll send an IRIS text out letting you know when we have left Hugo !

It’s late – tomorrow seems to come early – everyday! : )

 

Be blessed! And Bless others!

 

Mrs. g

 

 

 

 

Work Your Fingers To the Bone … Whadda Ya Get?

Work your fingers to the bone… Whadda ya get?

Five HAPPY Head Start Directors! We went to 5 different head start program today and raked leaves, picked up trash and scrubbed their playground equipment! Believe me when I tell you, this was no easy thing! Their Federal Regulation Inspections are in a week and a half! Tomorrow starts their own pre-inspections!  This is very serious for each one of their daycare/early childhood programs! It helps with their funding and literally keeps them open! One of the directors didn’t know we were coming and was so excited because she was going to have to stay there all night to get everything cleaned for her first inspection in the morning! All of us leaders were so proud of our students as they worked so hard for people we didn’t meet and children we don’t know so they can continue their good work to help these kids get a ‘head start’ in what they should know by the time they begin Kindergarten!

Can I just say that I didn’t know plastic coated swing set chains could get so dirty? Cleaning the chains was extremely important – it was one of the things that other Head Start Programs failed on …. Dirty swing set chains! AND… it’s not easy to clean plastic coated swing set chains! YOWZA! We are now professionals at it, however, we no longer want to do it! HA!

We enjoyed a well-earned dinner at Los Compadres!

We finished our evening practicing our program for tomorrow night at New Life Family Church! Please pray for us and our time of singing, skits, games, story-time and craft time! Our students are very talented and it’s going to be a fun time! Pray for the children that will come tomorrow night! We want to make ‘quick friends’ and be able to pray with them and for them! Everyone participates in making the evening happen!   Please pray for our team!

Introduce group and story teller (Yasmine)     Worship (Brittany, Sara, Mr. Chapman, Yasmine)   Skit (Gabe, Joey, Matthew, Allen, Aston)    Chalk Drawing  (Jay, Jane, Hannah G)   Scripture Game (Mrs. G, Mr. Miller)  Prayer (all of us)  Crafts (all of us)

Tomorrow during the day we will go to Boswell and paint! We will now be working with the Self-Help Housing Department of Little Dixie! Pray for us as we travel, paint, and minister!

These students are WONDERFUL! Thank you for allowing them to come!

Hannah Fron – we miss you girl!

 

Mrs. G

Mrs. Killens sent me a text this morning with a scripture for the team. Psalm 4:6 “Many are asking who can show us any good? Let the light of your face shine upon us oh Lord.” May his love flood the hearts of those they serve as they see His goodness shown to them in so many ways!

Amen! Many times we will minister to others without knowing it! Working at all the places today, I know there were many that were amazed that 10^th grade students had come from Texas to help them!

 

Our devotional this morning was Galatians 5:13-25

Application:

The first part of this passage describes our freedom in Christ: freedom not to live sinfully, but freedom to glorify God through our actions. It is through the actions and the focus of our hearts that we produce the Fruit of the Spirit. We can break down these fruit into four groups:

1. Love: “Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself
2. Joy and Peace: As a believer, we strive to live each day in a state of joyfulness and have our hearts at peace
3. Graces: These are the graces we extend to others: patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness

• Self-Control: The conquering of the flesh

 

Challenge – Look at each one of the Fruits of the Spirit! Ask God to search your heart – How are you doing?

 

 

PLAN B – The REAL Plan A That God Had All Along!

PLAN B – The REAL plan A that God had all along!

I love it when you have a plan and right at the last minute – or hour – or day – everything changes! That’s when you pray, pushing fear of the unknown aside and trust that God has it all under control and then you get to see what God has planned.

We got the call this morning at 8:15 with the news that the rain was indeed going to cancel our previous planned day with working with Head Start. I assured them we would find something to do and would try again on Tuesday to reconnect with a Little Dixie work project!

Two of us went to the nursing home to see if there was anything we could do with or for them today and we were invited back for their Black-Out Bingo game they have every Monday at 2:30 …

Well, there’s one hour of the day down…

Then we went to the Civic Center to see if they had anything we could do for them! The lady yelled at the gentleman in the office next to us, “Hey Marty, did you hear that?  They want to know if we have anything that they can do for us?  Any work project?”  He came out of his office, we explained who we were and that we wanted to serve if they had something we could do! They had just had an award banquet over the weekend and the Civic Center Hall was a mess! 10,000 square feet of mess!

80+ tables, 480+ chairs, Drink dispensers, a portable pen for animals with bleachers, (yes the kind used in barns, to hold FFA animals, with sawdust), and a very messy floor! (food and drink spillage) 10,000 square feet of sweeping and mopping!

This 10^th grade class cleaned that building in 3.5 hours… The 3 people in the office couldn’t believe it. It would have taken them at least a week to clean it up! One of the ladies in the office said to me, “Who just shows up at your door and asks if they can help you? This is such a blessing! Our maintenance man passed away in December and we are so behind with stuff like this. We don’t really have anyone to oversee things like this right now!”

After the Civic Hall cleanup was done, we set up another set of tables and chairs for 100 people in the show barn! Marty said he didn’t want to mess up the clean hall we’d just finished!

The nursing home! Oh My Goodness! Every Monday, Scott Jones and his mom Sue come and play Black-Out Bingo with a few of the residents! This was probably the most fun one of our classes has ever had playing bingo at a nursing home! It’s so fun because EVERYBODY wins! He doesn’t stop calling until every number has been called!

We met the cutest little lady, Edre, she’s 105. I asked her what her secret was for long life, “The Lord!” she says.   A.MA.ZING! She’s still walking… with a walker but she doesn’t look 105! Our kids had so much fun with all of the ladies and gentlemen! They were so interactive, joking, laughing! Everyone was involved! I was so proud of our students! It was hard to leave!

When we debriefed tonight with the students it was evident they all enjoyed they day! The Park here is beautiful… even with the gray skies and the rain… it is beautiful! We enjoyed being able to help at the civic center. It really was a lot of work… Coach Martin… it’s true… Hard Works- Works! J    I loved how a couple of the students commented on how important it is to honor the elderly! Their lives have value and to be able to spend time with them and show them we recognize their value is so important! As we talk about a servant’s heart, Mr. Miller shared how impressive it was to watch Scott really genuinely show his love and respect for the elderly. He not only knows their names but each one of their birthdays! His gentle ways with them and how he joked and laughed with them, you could tell not only do the clients look forward to every Monday, so does Mr. Scott Jones! He is a perfect picture of someone who serves with his whole heart – I know it glorifies the Lord! And the Lord takes great pleasure – every Monday at 2:30 Black-Out-Bingo Time!

You can talk until you are blue in the face, trying to convince others that you can trust God, in every circumstance. However, when you experience His trustworthiness personally it can build your faith in Christ. It will strengthen your trust in the Lord and build up your ‘experiences’ stories so the next time Plan A gets changed, you know you have a God who already has it figured out! Pslams 56:3 What time I am afraid I will trust in you!

 

After dinner we spent time rehearsing for our Wednesday night children’s program! These are some talented kids!

Please pray for the rain to stop!

Pray for our next assignment!

These kids are GREAT!

 

I’ll be checking back in with you tomorrow night!

 

mrs g

Serving Doesn’t = A Servant’s Heart

Hugo, Oklahoma! Who would have imagined about 8+ years ago we would have developed a strong relationship with the Little Dixie organization, then a few years later adding New Life Church in Boswell, Oklahoma!  A former Summit principal Karen Douglas and her daddy John Bates from Idabel, Oklahoma helped us begin this incredible friendship/relationship with the people of Hugo and Little Dixie!  The opportunities Summit has had to be blessed while we get to serve and bless others has been nothing short of amazing!

Even though it is the end of the winter season and green is beginning to peak out, this place is beautiful! Cabins overlooking the lake – it’s so peaceful and such a blessing to be able to be here and serve!

We had a good trip here with a little rain here and there! Lunch at Freebirds! Dinner prepared by cabin 12… Clean up provided by Cabin 14 … then a fun and loud game of fishbowl! Oh my word!

This is a GREAT class and I enjoyed watching them interact with one another. Even though it’s a silly game there was a lot of team building, encouragement and laughter! That’s good stuff!

Tomorrow looks to be a very rainy day… please pray the rain passes on through so we can do the work that Little Dixie needs for us to do! But, never fear… this has happened before and I go knock on the doors of nursing homes, churches and the Chamber of Commerce … we’ll have something to do! Someone will need us I’m sure of it!

Our first devo is titled, “Serving Doesn’t = A Servant’s Heart”!  I have been reading some devotionals by Rick Warren and he touched on this subject.  It seemed so fitting for this trip to use some of his thoughts to challenge each one of us!

We’ll be reading Mark 10:43-45   Pray for us as we ask the Lord to search our hearts, and show each one of us our motive for serving! Do we serve for recognition, power and prestige, the way the world measures greatness? Do we serve from a heart that says, “Lord, please pick me, use me, even if no one knows I’m doing this because it’s not for my glory but for yours”.

So I’ll pose the question for all of us –  What is a servant’s heart?  Do I have a servant’s heart? What is my motivation when I serve others?

Think about it!

Thank you for your prayers! Don’t stop!

I’ll update tomorrow evening

Mrs. G

Making New Friends in the Lower 9th Ward!

Making New Friends!

Today we went to the lower 9^th Ward. This is the area that had the most destruction after the levee’s broke the day after Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005! Each year there are a few more houses that have been erected but it’s been slow going for the last 10 years! Our YWAM team leader, John Martindale, asked me if I would like to meet someone who lived there and loves to have company and tell their families’ story! YES! What a wonderful experience for us!

The experience was beyond what I could have imagined! Shelethe, whom we were told we should call her Lethe (sounds like leetha) has the gift of hospitality. She welcomed us into her tiny home and we crowded in the living room and she shared her story. She wasn’t going to leave New Orleans but her son’s nanny (baby sitter) called her and begged her to take that baby out of town. She did and it saved her family’s life! When they were able to return, there was nothing left of her house. It was totally destroyed and if they had stayed they would have perished! They made their way all the way up to Tennessee! She had 2 videos for us to watch and it was heart wrenching. AND to think these 9^th graders were only 5 when the tragedy happened, but here 10 years later, people are still rebuilding and they are still affected by what they went through! She spoke of her faith and God’s protection and His mercy that saved them. Alethe was disappointed that we couldn’t stay for a couple of hours and let her fix us jambalaya! MAN! ‘We gotta go back’. She gave us her address and phone number and we’ve got a date…. Next year! We’re gonna have a party and prayer time with Alethe! It was a morning of making new friends!

We were honored to be able to pray for her and her family before we left! It was a precious time!

We returned back to the base, said goodbye to John as he was returning back to Tyler base. Then we rode the ferry across the Mississippi and had GREAT Cajun food (we have some new fans of alligator – David and JT claim it tastes better than chicken!) After lunch we spent a little time shopping!

Returning to the base again, we cleaned everything, preparing for our departure tomorrow!

After another great meal – for a few it was one last stab at Cajun fixins! We ate at New Orleans Burger and Seafood! Delish!

We closed the evening with our final debrief. We all loved our time with Lethe and her son Deuce and her husband Ronald! Their amazing hospitality will not be quickly forgotten! Their story impacting. Then we each took turns sharing whose name we drew and the blessed them with words of encouragement! I always love this time! It is very personal as the kids share with each other the wonderful things about them! We encouraged the students to continue to do this with one another. To spend more time speaking words of life to each other rather than looking at ways to tease, cut down, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. These are great kids as I full well know, but they are also human. We live in a society that is always trying to one up the other person. or pushing teasing too far only to call it a joke when we realize we’ve gone too far with our words, jokes, etc.   We each have great value because we are fashioned in God’s image and we are created to glorify him. Pray for our students, that they would be known as the class that honors God as they honor one another!

Thank you so much for allowing your student to participate on this trip! You and your student are a blessing to me!

Pray we get a good rest tonight and have a safe drive home.

 

Aren’t we all… blessed to be a blessing? Find someone to speak life to! Watch their face and body language… and you’ll look for ways to bless again!

I’ll be combining pictures and posting them somewhere for you all to see and get copies from!

Mrs. G

We are getting up at 6am and loading up and leaving! Pray for safe clear roads and that we are drivers will be alert and bring your precious cargo home!  We’ll be keeping in touch and hope to be home between 5 -7. It’s hard to really know.  Traffic sometimes comes to a complete stop on I10 in LA.  They don’t have as many exits to get off and on so if there are delays because of road work… there’s no where to go but just sit and wait!