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Thursday, June 30

Day 6

After having Wednesday night off, the squads rolled out early again this morning to get back to work! It was a fairly cool morning, so the workers took advantage of that and got in as much work as they could before the sun came out! Most of the squads are almost done with their jobs, and a few even finished today. Those squads will travel tomorrow to help out some sites that are a little more challenging and need some extra hands to get finished.

Tonight's message was based on being Grounded in Accountability. We looked at 1 Corinthians 3:10

"By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care."

A special song tonight was "Come Thou Fount" because of its final verse "Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above." Troy also spoke about how God is always pursuing us, even when we wander away from Him.

If you read the Mission Serve blog, you will see a story about a lady named Ms. McNair. Tonight Troy did something never done before and asked us to give an offering to buy shingles for Ms. McNair's roof. Our participants raised almost $600! Hopefully we will be able to buy enough shingles to help her cover her roof. After worship we had the annual Mission Serve/SPLASH talent show. We had a lot of great talent this year and some interesting judges too!

Tomorrow is the last work day for our squads. It's been a great week and we can't wait to celebrate it together!

Tuesday, June 28

Day 4

Another hard day at work! We had a few workers come in sick from heat exhaustion today. Just goes to show how hard they are working in this suffocating heat! But luckily the rain held off today so the squads were able to get alot of work done. Tomorrow is a half day, and then starts the last couple of work days, so everyone tried to get as much done today as possible!

Tonight was the concert of prayer. This is a very moving worship service that is best described as self-led. Everyone enters in silence and the band is hidden from view. Tonight they were asked to focus on God's majesty by looking to a throne. Then to focus on God's love for us by looking at the cross. The room was dark except for candlelight and the band plays very worshipful moving music. It is the most impactful worship service of the week and the most involved. We also incorporated the mission offering at the end of the service. This year's offering is going to future projects for tornado disaster relief in Alabama. We raised over $1600 during the service!

Afterwards, we had a last-minute auction to see if we could break the $2000 mark. Items included a private shower, an extra hour of sleep with a trip to starbucks, buying a staff member to work on your squad for a day, and getting to pie a staff member in the face! And we reached the $2000 mark!! But we don't plan to stop there. We will most likely have some more items for auction on Thursday night.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. It's really turning out to be a great week!

 

 

 

Monday, June 27

Day 3

First day on sites for the squads! The vans and buses pulled out around 7 this morning and got traight to work right away. We have 8 roofing squads and 9 paint squads. Unfortunately, we had rain showers for most of the day, but that didn't stop the squads! Most of them still worked through the whole day, roofing and all. Needless to say, they were soaked when they came back to the school! But a great first work day nonetheless.

Tonight's worship was awesome. Everyone had a lot of energy, and we had some extra voices since a local youth group came to join us. Troy spoke about being Grounded in your calling from God. We read from 2 Timothy 1:8-10

"So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

Hopefully the rain will hold off for the rest of the week so our squads can get their jobs done! Keep us in your prayers!

 

Sunday, June 26

Day 2

This morning, we had a very unique service opportunity. All of us loaded into chuch vans at 8:30 am and drove out to Central City Park. Apparently there is usually a crowd of homeless that sort of congregate there on Sunday mornings. So we took 500 McDonald's biscuits and drinks with us and served breakfast to anyone who wanted it (we ate some too:) Afterwards we had a worship service right there in the park! Our PC, Troy's, daughter and her praise band led us in worship together. Afterwards, Troy shared a message while our hot dog were grilling! So as you can guess, we then served hot dogs and chips to everyone there. There were at least 20 homeless people that came to join us and a few others in the park that ate wth us as well. All of us were wearing matching t-shirts, so we all got many questions as to what we were doing this week. What a joy to share God with others!

After lunch, the squads loaded up and went to visit their worksites for the week. Most of them got to meet the homeowners and pray with them. When the kids came back, we ate a wonderful supper of tacos! Then onto worship. Tonight was an interesting worship time because right before we started, the weather got pretty bad. Most of all, there was raining pounding down on the roof of the worship center. We had a few technical difficulties, but the band pulled through and still helped us rock it out! During Troy's message, the power actually black out for a few seconds, but quickly came back on. In the words of Troy, "Satan does not like to hear God's word." But we pulled through the difficulties and had a powerful invitation time to prepare for the work week ahead. We were influenced by Jesus' last words in Acts 1:8, "But you shall receive power..."

Tomorrow starts the work week for our squads. Keep them in your prayers this week! If you'd like to send a participant some mail, click here!

 

Saturday, June 25

Day 1

Welcome to Macon, GA! Everyone arrived safely this afternoon and got settled in at Tatnall Square Academy. We have groups from right here in Macon, to one group all the way from Maryland! For those of you that don't know, Mission Serve partners in Macon with an organization called SPLASH (which stands for Showing People Love And Serving Him). it is sponsored by the Macon Baptist Association, and basically offers the same opportunites as Mission Serve, but to local kids here in Macon. After we got everyone situated, the band played some games with the kids to break the ice and have some fun! Then we all ate pizza outside on the deck together for supper. Tonight's worship was kicked off by Transformation 122, our band for the week. They are gonna be an awesome group to have around.The kids then met their squads and assigned a chaplain, a medic, and a breakmaster.

Tomorrow we will have an awesome opportunity to serve the community here in Macon. Check in tomorrow to read more about it :)

We're excited to get this project started!