Tuesday in Odessa...

The service project could not have gone much better today. The students had all of the paint scraping done well before lunch. Mark “The Animal” Manso worked through the lunch hour power washing the entire building. Thanks to warm weather the siding dried quickly, and we were able to caulk everything by the time we broke for dinner. We will start on the first coat of primer tomorrow morning!

In addition, a group of students broke off after lunch to do weeding for an elderly couple in the community. The students transformed the yard and the couple was moved by the work that had been done. Almost as much of a blessing as the work, was the time spent talking with our students. Several of them did a great job of explaining why we are here and what God has done for us. Janice Nehren showed amazing commitment to finishing the project, even as almost every other student had gotten up and left.

We talked about our favorite parts of the week tonight during family time. Nearly every student mentioned the relationships with the local youth. We have picked up a handful of students that spend the entire day with us, from work projects to youth outreach at night. We had 25 youth at outreach tonight to worship and hear testimonies from Ty Helgeson and Anne Rendle. They both did an amazing job! Anne wrapped it up with a “5 Truths About God” gospel presentation, she nailed it! The authority and boldness with which she proclaimed the gospel is one of my prouder moments in youth ministry.

Lastly, one of our goals at the start of the week was to use our attitudes and work ethic to display Christ’s love to the people around us. The students have embraced this and the Lord has used us in ways we could never imagine. The Odessa newspaper (which has yet to go green and get on the inter-web) came out and did a story on us repainting the church. The mayor met all of us today and we will be working directly with him tomorrow on a side landscaping project. Not to mention to dozens of individuals who have stopped by the church to ask what is going on… suffice it to say we are a bigger deal in Odessa than we ought to be.

Thank you for your continued prayer, more to come tomorrow....

-Jake