They say a picture is worth a thousand words... so here's a few thousand words instead of our typical post...

last day on the sites tomorrow! looking forward to it!

The "love works" crew

Whimsical Wednesday

We had a wonderful wednesday!

What a great time.

So this morning, bright and early, we got up and got on the road

The flood relief crews were both together today working on gutting two houses. We discovered some boards that were under some other boards that had remained wet since the flood LAST YEAR! Talk about rotten. We had some wonderful adventures as we finished both houses. Jenny got gum stuck on her butt, brady chris and briggs accidently tore out a rathar large second story window (whoops!), we scraped several inches of mud from the basement, we found some rather interesting items on the street (e.g., little boy's underwear), and we took the most bathroom breaks the site has ever taken!

The VBC crew had more kids today than any other day! The kids are having a lot of fun! Here are some highlights: we made tiles, we ate animal crackers and drank apple juice, hung out with some awesome children, plus paige taught us an awesome camp song with the words "nano nano" in it. Amazing!!!

Kitchen crew: When sherri and betsy went to walmart to get groceries, they got two full carts of groceries. Then they went to take it to the car but couldn't find the car at all! Unfortunately, this car doesn't have power locks so they couldn't use the clicker to find it. About ten minutes later, they finally found their car! Luckily iowa's high temp today was 80 degrees!

Much love,

Holla at us!

Terrific Tuesday!

Dear Eager Blog Readers,

Wondering what FUMC-GT has been doing since yesterday? I am here to inform you.

With everyone running on sleep deprivation the daily activities have been a lot stranger than usual and quite terrifying at times..but that is what makes the best memories.

Here are a few of todays highlights:

1. Abby wet her pants over a butterfly....sad day. :]

2. Jennifer fell in a hole at the consruction site.

3. Jenny and Chelsea went to the Indy 500 and Chelsea got hit with a tire ( not really ;] ).

and chelsea got hit with a tire...

AND THE FINAL HIGHLIGHT...

JENNY GOT THIRD PLACE ( HER RECORD) IN COACH SAYS.....she cried.

Flood Relief Group 1:

Part of the group did the tedious task of taping and floating. The other part scrapped paint and hauled off brush. Then the demolition began! Clap for Group #1!

Flood Relief Group 2:

They had to clean out a basement full of mud. They had to pull out nails from the wall and ceiling studs. Then next task was to pull up the floor with cro bars...fun fun fun.. HARD WORK!

VBS:

Today at VBS was a fun day. We danced, sang, played games, and taught a bible story. The best part of the day though was the arts & crafts ( and coincidentally I am the Art Leader :] ) because we made the coolest bead designs. The kids had so much fun and I can not wait for the future VBS days!

Remember......LOVE WORKS!

Hope you enjoy the blog and remember to comment :]

updated video

whoops, we forgot the music 

Welcome To Cedar Rapids Iowa, The City of Five Seasons

Hey Friends!

Greetings from Iowa. We had a long trek up here but we finally made it. 

Here's what our route looked like:

Drive, Drive, Drive, stop for lunch in texas, Drive, stop at the oklahoma state line, Drive, Drive, stop at the Kansas state line (unless you're too tired), eat dinner, Drive, Drive, Stay in Prairie Village, KS overnight, wake up to the smells of kansas, get back on the road, have rain fall on our cars (most of us couldn't remember what it was like), drive, drive, stop in Des Moines for Church, drive, drive, play the alphabet game, drive, get to cedar rapids! Unload our stuff, take a picture, celebrate good times, Come on!

So we are having an awesome time here in cedar rapids. After our first day of work we are officially tired! We have three sites on this trip, VBS, and two flood relief sites. Here's a summary of the happenings today:

VBS:

The VBS group set up two locations for VBS - the morning session is in an apartment building complex and the afternoon is in a church.  The VBS group did so much dancing, playing, and giving piggy-back rides that they are also officially tired!  They had a great day with the children of the Cedar Rapids area!! 

Flood Relief Group 1: 

Today our group went to a building in Cedar Rapids that will eventually be used as a center for arts. We spent most of the time scraping layers of paint off cement pillars and off the floor, but we also helped paint a couple of bathrooms, pick up brush and trash from outside.

Flood Relief Group 2:

Today Group 2 went to work with Rebuild Iowa.  Spent the day tearing down walls and ceilings in a home that backs up to the river.  It was a real dirty job - Charles and Jeff were proof of that.  They brought back a lot of dirty and dust on them. 

Tonight we went BOWLING! We had a really good time, dancing, eating $1 hot dogs, and bowling our socks off. 

After that we came back for devo and at the nightly news tonight we showed this video:

Comment on our blog and we'll read your comments at the nightly news tomorrow!

Wacky Wednesday!

Today's blog, by Hayley B. 

Today was a wonderful day.  Group 1 did a wonderful job and almost finished the sheet rocking project. Group 2 finished the paint job on the church and only have to clean a few spots of paint off of the carpet. Group 3 went to a new paint site today to paint a house and being the AMAZING mission trippers that we are...we finished the whole house (except the trim)! For fun time today we went to the lake in Vidor, which was complete with a zip-line and multiple slides. Fun fun fun.

Now for the funnies....

1. Jeff's car loved tapped (rear-ended) Dan's car at a stop sign.....wow.

2.Charles had to hold a 2X4 with his profusly sweating head.....eewww.

3.We could only be at the lake until 6:00. We got there at 4:45. After everyone swam we had 10 minutes to feed 30 children and leaders. Can you say OMG? We pulled out of the parking lot at 6:04. Success! 

Tomorrow is our last day of work and we are determinded to finish all of our projects and be the hands and feet of God! 

Please comment on our blog if you read this.

:]

Enjoy Jenny's amazing video!

Work Day 2

So today, instead of giving you the "boring" details about our progress on our job sites, I thought I would share more random tidbits from the day!

From the Sheetrocking site.

Today, everyone arrived on the site, got ready to go and put the first piece of sheet rock in. Charles, Coach Jeff, and Hayley B. put the sheet rock up against the studs in the ceiling and Hayley V. started to drill the screw in. Just as the screw passed the sheet rock it started spinning and stopped making progress "PUSH HARDER" people yelled as the screw continued not to go anywhere and the sheet rock got heavier. Finally, after several holes and several screws they put the sheet rock board down, dejected. Then, coach looked at the drill... it was in reverse.

Also today, we picked up another house to paint! (i know, i know, we're crazy!)

Tonight's dinner featured DINO BITES! Then we had an awesome worship and we played "coach says," which is basically an ultimate version of simon says led by Coach Jeff Shafer! 

Don't forget to comment on the blog, we're sharing them at the nightly news!

Check out some of our pics so far! (p.s., these are actually pics of pics, because we're missing a camera cord, we'll fix that tomorrow)

Mission Trip- First Work Day

Hey blog followers!

 

We had a wonderful day today in the Beaumont, Port Arthur, Nederland area! Today we started off strong at 4 sites: Painting a Church in Port A, Sheet-rocking a house in Nederland, and working for the salvation army and a place called “some other place” in Beaumont!

 

News from the paint site:

 

In the morning we started prepping our site, FUMC Port Arthur, by putting down drop cloths through the entire hallway. After lunch we started painting the hallway, (the exact same color miraculously) and finished a good first coat of paint. The students had a bunch of fun with our site leader, a pastor of the church who is a former police officer. Owns a tazer.

 

News from the sheet rock site:

 

After a very fun adventure getting to our site we got there just in time to meet our clients the Buches (the husband was just leaving for work). They are an awesome couple who has been affected by two hurricanes (Rita and Ike). Unfortunately, they are currently in an insurance battle because their insurance company is saying they are only responsible for “one house repair of this size.” So for now, we’re what they’ve got.  With two rooms (including 1/2 of a small living room) out of commission, the Buches are really glad to have us there to provide some assistance. We had many fun adventures on our worksite putting up sheetrock, and we learned how heavy those things really are and how important it is to have a good drill and a solid surface on which to put your table saw J. We’re very excited about tomorrow!

 

 

News from salvation army:

 

News from some other place:

 

It was a very exciting first day at Some Other Place on Monday, as a group we got to tour the facility and see what it is exactly they do.  It is a very cool place that is three separate buildings and a community center.  They give homeless people a place to go during the day to keep them off the street and out of trouble.  Our first task was at a place called Henry’s Place which is a part of Some other place where they allow people to come in, shower and wash their clothes during the day.  Our task was to re-organize a big storage shed, and the kids worked very hard and we finished it ahead of schedule.  After Henry’s Place we did prep work at their soup kitchen for their lunch the next day, by cutting up squash, peppers and carrots.  After that we were done for the day, but not before Henry the head of the kitchen gave us cheesecake to take with us.  Tomorrow we will be going back and actually getting to serve them lunch.  It was a very good first day and I hope that it continues all week while we are there.

 

Well, I guess its hasta luego! Sorry if the updates come in at funny times, we are having some internet connection problems!

 

JFTB, Chelsea, Dan, and Elise

We Arrived!!

Hello from Beaumont!

 

Today we found out why they’re considering changing the star on the Texas state flag into a construction barrel. After a 6 hour commute to the most humid place this side of the Mississippi we arrived at the church we are staying at!

 

The youth of Trinity UMC made us some excellent nachos and goodie bags that included candy and some very encouraging notes!

 

We stuffed our faces, played some rock band/Mario cart, and headed over to unpack the trailer.

 

We got moved in to all the rooms and the kitchen and the band set up for worship while the adults helped set up our eating space. The health inspector is supposedly coming tomorrow so we had to make sure everything was stored perfectly!

 

Then, we had devo where we talked about how God is Love and how we’re going to be working this week to live in God through our work.

 

Now its 11:30pm were headed to wally world to pick up all of the items we forgot!

 

Send our students a note on the blog and we’ll be sure to pass it on tomorrow!

 

Check out tomorrows blog for stories of the day and more updates on our most wonderful adventure

 

Catchyalllata!

JFTB

We got 4 new GPS!

Please welcome the newest members of our mission trip:
Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael (they are quadruplets, pictured below). Thanks to everyone who is helping bring our mission trip up to speed on technology

A special thanks to anyone who donated a youth scholarship to make sure ANY and EVERY youth who feels a call to service can come on this trip!

Welcome welcome to our blog! Follow us daily to see what we're up to in Beaumont and Cedar Rapids.

Beaumont trip is only 2 days away! Don't forget to come pack Saturday at 7! Buy your secret pal gifts and we'll be on our way!!!

I am so excited to be going to Beaumont. With such a need in that area after the hurricane, it is a great opportunity we have to serve the ministries of the Beaumont community. We'll be working with some organizations that really need some love, and that's why our theme this year is "love works." In addition to doing some basic hurricane relief work at a house, we will also be serving ministries who's donors have had to pull funding because they (the donors) were repairing their own houses from the hurricane! Just think about it: economic crisis + hurricane = little or no $ and volunteers for a bunch of people. They are so grateful to have us come, but we're even more grateful that they are having us!

So pack your bag and get your mission trip shoes on. We're going to Beaumont!