Our Summer of Service

This summer Bob and I (and Lily for one) served on 2 mission trips. The first trip was to Chattanooga TN with our Jr. High students. They spend that week loving the elderly and playing with a ton of kids at different HeadStart programs throughout the city. It was an incredible week for them to see just how much they can serve and love others like Christ has loved them. They worked so hard and really began to look at what it really means to love and to serve like Jesus. This trip was a great way for them to start to dig deeper into their faith. Plus Chattanooga is GREAT city with a ton of fun things to do and see. Lily and I traveled down for most of the week to be with the team. We didn't do much work but it was fun to be with everyone.




Beautiful Chattanooga!!





Clearly we were hard at work


The second trip was to Logan WV and we just got home last night. Lily stayed home with family and friends for the week and had herself a great little vacation. Bob, myself and 4 other leaders took 20 high school students to a small, very poor town in West Virgina. Logan is not known for very much and nearly 4 weeks ago suffered a flood , but the damage was still evident when we got there. Our week was spent serving the local kids at Kids Club, as well as many work projects at homes; doing things like painting, cleaning and flood clean up. Kids Club was an intense week for our students (most of the guys), the kids there were rude and crazy. At the beginning of the week our students spent time just trying to get them to respect them and to not fight! But by the last day our guys were in tears as they said goodbye to the boys they worked with all week. It was an amazing thing to watch these high school guys melt when talking about the boys they were with. The girls spent the week in the incredible heat ( high 90's or 100) painting houses, picking up trash and working at the Appalachian Dream Center ( a local ministry that serves lunch daily and is working with FEMA and the Red Cross to hand out clean up supplies for the flood). This week was such an great experience for me and for our students. It was a week filled with Christ invading the hearts our our students. To hear them speak every night of what they saw and how He touched their lives, makes me so excited to see how they will continue to seek Christ everyday and always be willing to serve those who the world forgets. And trust me, the world has forgotten about Logan WV. I have never had students ask me to return to the same site before this week. I don't think I can fully describe how AMAZING this week was, God is truly moving in our students lives in a way that I have never seen. Bob and I were so encouraged by this week. We are so lucky to have this job!!!

Sean and Chris at Kids Club




Evan cleaning gutters