Monday's Theme: Mud, Tape, Sand, Repeat

Today we spent most of the day working on construction projects.  We are currently working at the Hope For the Inner City (HFIC) facilities mudding, taping, and sanding the walls of the chapel and dentist office waiting room.  The ministry hosts a dentist clinic for the public through a sliding scale system for anyone in the area without dental insurance.  The executive director shared a story of a woman who was missing her front teeth, and she was not able to find a job because of her appearance.  They were able to provide her with dental repair and dentures, and soon after the dental work she found full time employment.  This is a great service to the community, and they are hoping to have the clinic back open by July 11th.  Several team members also worked on removing a door frame, as well.

During the week, there is a camp that is hosted at the facility for kids in the community.  Megan and another girl had the opportunity to help prepare and serve food for the kids.  We also enjoyed getting to worship with them this morning before we started working.

Tomorrow we hope to sand what we mudded today and hopefully finish painting in the waiting area.  The dry-walling work in the chapel has been more involved, but we hope to be ready to paint by the end of tomorrow.  We have also start working on installing book shelves in an office.

This week there have been some young teenagers that have hung out with the groups and they helped us with our construction projects today.  Dr. Mike had the chance to work directly with some of these kids and this is what he had to say about one of them:
"Today we had the opportunity to work with some of the young men from the local community on our job site.  My team was assigned drywall in the chapel of HFIC headquarters.  The 2 primary guys helping us were KD and Trey (around 14 years of age) and have been given the opportunity to work with the teams at HFIC.  KD worked directly with me and went with us to Ace hardware to pick up necessary materials.  As we chatted, we asked him why he was involved with the ministry.  He said he wanted to be a better leader, because he was the middle brother in his family.  He volunteered the information that many of his brothers have been, or currently are, incarcerated.  He clearly demonstrates great potential for leadership as he matures, and the mentoring that he is able to get from men through the missions teams and staff at HFIC are a positive influence for him.  I look forward to seeing what God has in store for him down the road and appreciate the assistance he has given to our team."

After work, we went to the community where we will be hosting a BBC.  We spread out across the neighborhood and went door to door to invite kids to the BBC tomorrow evening.  Please be praying for the kids that we will be ministering to, and for us as we prepare to share God's love.

This evening, we visited Covenant College where we ate dinner, had our 3rd lesson on poverty, and had a short tour of the campus.  Covenant College has given us 4 short lessons and videos on poverty to discuss as a group.  This has been a very enlightening study that has shown us that material goods do not solve poverty, and that there are different times and ways to approach community needs based on the current situation of that community.

For tomorrow, please pray for safety for the team at worksites and in the neighborhood BBC.  Please also pray for understanding as how best to minister to the people we will come in contact with tomorrow.  Finally, pray for clarity and unity of directions from HFIC leaders as they direct us in construction and BBCs.