Final day in Trenton NC

Wow! This week has flown by! All are tired but all are praising God.

Our morning devotion was on II Corinthians 9:6-15. These verses reminded us to be cheerful servers and that God will supply everything we need for the jobs He has given us to do.

Ms. Lindora was feeling good enough today to go out for lunch. Her friends stopped by to pick her up. The neighborhood is busy today preparing for a community party planned for tomorrow.

The house finally looks significantly different than when we arrived, because we got a lot of priming and painting done. Dan Prins also began to put up window molding.

Two rooms (JJ's and the master bedroom) are fully primed and painted and the master bedroom has trim around the windows. The master bath closet has both coats of paint on the wall and the bathroom has been primed and is awaiting a shower liner and fixtures. The living room is about half painted (the other side still needs sanding and priming) and the dividing wall between the kitchen and living room has been painted twice. The second bathroom has a first coat of paint and will get a second coat tomorrow by Dan Prins from Peace Presbyterian Church in Cary, who is staying for the weekend. The only room that still needs quite a bit of attention (final sanding, priming, and painting) is Ms. Lindy's room and that is because she has been recovering there.

The entire team

Alex led a lunchtime devotion based on Romans 12: 14-21 that he and Pastor Nate had worked on earlier in the day.

After lunch, part of the crew headed back to Village Chapel to begin the long packing-clean up projects. We did not think to get a picture with Ms. Lindora before this crew left for Village Chapel. But Ms. Lindora did come out of her room before the remaining crew left for a smaller group photo.

Once the other workers arrived back home and got showers, the vans were packed and the team headed home....hopefully for a long, deep sleep after a job well done.

Happy Fourth of July

Another productive day. Dan Prins, an elder from Peace who has already been working some at Lindora's joined us and brought much expertise and encouragement. In J.J.'s room, the drywall mud was sanded and re-mudded and re-sanded, primed and painted (i.e. we are finished with J.J.'s room)! Likewise, we have finished Ms. Lindora's master bedroom.

Tom and J.J.

The working bathroom has been mudded, sanded and primed.

Lots of sanding!

Much mudding and sanding has been done in the master bathroom and kitchen.

After sanding one must vacuum

We added a dryer exhaust from the floor to the outside and then connected the dryer to the exhaust.

But the biggest things were things that God is doing. J.J. did not have to work today, so he spent the whole day helping us.

We had several God appointed conversations with him. God has answered our prayers for safety, patience and help. We got to meet Eddie Jones, the president of Jones County Coming Together in Unity. This group of folks is multi-denominational and is praying for revival and planning a week of services in August. God is breaking down barriers in Jones County.



The evening ended with a delicious Bojangles tailgate with folks from Village Chapel sharing how the experience of Hurricane Florence has changed them. Many talked about how they had lost everything but they saw the faithfulness and provision of God in the midst of that disaster.

Once it got dark we enjoyed a personal sparkler and fireworks show put on by Alex and Nathan. In the background, we were also treated to a "seen over the trees" firework show by the city of New Bern.

Tomorrow is our last day. We hope to get as far on priming and painting as possible, as well as hanging some ceiling molding. Then it will be back to the church for clean up, tool organization, packing up and heading back to Raleigh.

Day 3 Successful Surgery

Praise God for Ms. Lindora's surgery! We were very skeptical when she told us that she had a 9:30 a.m. surgery time in Greenville NC but would be home by noon. She was correct plus or minus 15 minutes. Her surgery went well and she suffered no complications. We welcomed her home with a nice flower arrangement. Some of you that know our team well might not believe this but we did a pretty good job of keeping the noise down all afternoon so Ms Lindy could rest.

Today was the day where the question was answered....will this home look any different the day that we leave than it did the day that we came?! We finally, in two rooms, were able to move on from mudding taping and sanding to....PRIMING!!!! The master bedroom and JJ's (Ms Lindy's son) room look so much bigger and brighter with some paint on the walls. Tomorrow it will be on to at least a first (and maybe second) coat of "sanctuary grey".

Another blessing of our week has been the showers at the YMCA. At our sleeping site there is a shower trailer with two showers which honestly might take forever for us all to get through each night. Instead, the local Y has opened their locker room to us and it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to warm (or cool...your choice) water, clean hair, and fresh smelling bodies!


The Ice Cream fairy left the Calvary Team money for ice cream. We all rejoiced when the vans stopped at The Cow Café. We left with full bellies after being entertained by a plethora of cow memorabilia and some team members were observed consuming Tums before bed.

Besides work and play the team has been studying community as it is described in Romans 11:33-12:21. Each night we have been challenged with what it means to love one another, honor one another above yourself and serve on another. Even if the work of the trip doesn't change us, God's word certainly has. We are blessed to have our team coordinator Ellen participating with us in our discussion time as well as hearing a message from her over breakfast each morning.

Tomorrow morning is bacon and scrambled eggs 'a la Reams and Hobgood before another full day of looking to outdo each other with honor and blessings....always seeking to give God the glory.

Day 2

 The mudding of drywall seemed to be completed yesterday and the plan was to sand all bedrooms bathrooms and kitchen. We all headed out the door for a thirty-minute drive to our work site. We all had our marching orders AKA room assignments. Ms. Lindora had an early morning doctor appointment so we planned to get there early and especially wanted to tackle her room while she was away.

"A plan is a platform for her change." God had a different plan. The more we worked, the more we found places that needed more mudding. At the end of the day, most of the rooms had been sanded with various degrees of mudding left to do. The master bathroom has been a serious challenge for Gwen and Lilly in the morning but it became a matter of prayer in the famous prayer chair and God answered !!!

The afternoon went infinitely better. We even received a delivery of flooring materials at the end of the day.

Tomorrow, Ms. Lindora is having foot surgery due to ongoing pain and has to be at the hospital very early in the morning. The plan -- that is subject to change -- AGAIN -- is for the team to head out at 6 30 AM and get an early start while she is at the hospital and conquer a lot of work during her time at the hospital. That way we can get in a full day of work and still allow her to rest quietly at home when she arrives from the hospital.

Please pray that Ms. Lindora will have peace and comfort as she undergoes surgery and pray for wisdom for her doctor. Ask God to give us wisdom, to lead us and guide us, and help us to prioritize our work. Ask God to give us a productive day.

Day 1 of working on Lindora Toudle's house.

For this mission trip, we decided to split the team of 8 into 4 different teams: N2 (Nathan Bowyer and Nate Wilks), Hollywood (LA - Lisa Gyori and Anne Lukhard), Life is Good (Lily Davis and Gwen Wiggs), and Trans Air (Tom Gyori and Alex Reams). The dubbing of these names came from our wonderful team leader, Ellen. The work we have been doing has centered around putting mud on drywall and sanding. Team N2 worked mainly in the master bedroom and put on the final coat of mud and sanded it. Team Life is Good worked in the master bath and closet and made great progress! Team Hollywood worked on measuring and prepping for painting. Team Trans Air worked in the kitchen, mainly mudding to prep for sanding tomorrow.

The folks at Village Chapel fed us a wonderful home-cooked dinner with ham and mac and cheese!

God allowed us to meet Ms. Lindora's son JJ today who is friendly like his mom.

All in all, a good but exhausting day.

Ms. Lindora's home

The Livingroom

Ms. Lindora's son JJ

A challenge from pastor Norm Evans

We attended today's worship service at Village Chapel Presbyterian church in New Bern. Pastor Evans is preaching through the book of Philippians. Today he emphasized Philippians 2:16, "Holding fast to the word of life." He challenged all of us to read Psalm 119 today and pick five verses from that Psalm to memorize. We want to hold fast to the Bible and to Jesus so that we can hold our Jesus and the truths in God's word out to this dark world.

Lunch after the Worship service

We are waiting for Pastor Nate's arrival and are planning a trip to Lowes this afternoon to gather supplies.

Our fearless leader Ellen has a canine friend Benny who is very happy to have the attention of our team.

Safe arrival in New Bern NC

The Calvary Missions team has safely arrived in New Bern NC.

We had a delightful visit with Ms. Lindora Toudle on our way in and were pleased to meet Dan Prins (from Peace Presbyterian Church in Cary NC) who has been hard at work getting the sheetrock in Ms. Lindora's home ready for painting. We thought that we would only be doing painting on this missions trip, but we will first have to complete the mudding and sanding that Dan has begun. It appears that God again has some lessons for us on how to trust Him and be flexible with our plans :-)

Here is a picture of the flood in Jones County published by Samaritan's Purse's Prayer Point Magazine.

On the Road Again

Twelve well-rested souls embarked from Bremen, GA this morning en route to Raleigh in a three-van convoy, arriving at 6:15 pm. We reviewed highlights of the week as we rode, discussing what we learned and preparing some of what we will share at a presentation, tentatively set for mid-August. 

Lisa, Tom, Steve,Jay, Julie, Mike, Kristin, Andrew, Gwen, Nate, Bonnie, and Nathan.
Happy to be back in Raleigh

A little friend we saw at a rest stop

Thanks for joining us on our journey!

Fruits of our Labors

We spent the morning finishing projects at UCA. We finished:

• painting the geometry formulas on the math classroom wall
• organizing the library
• painting the cubby shelves
• staining the new cabinet top we installed yesterday
• decorating the main bulletin board to welcome students

Mrs. Rust's new geometry wall

Sorting books in the library

A final coat

Staining the new countertop

Welcome to UCA!

We made progress on a few other projects as well. We removed shelving in the future cafeteria on a wall that will become a large chalkboard calendar. The room is currently used for storage, but as the school grows, they won't be able to fit everyone in the small kitchen area like they could this past year. We were able to add shelves in the English classroom too.

Removing old shelves

Cutting shelves for the English classroom

While we couldn't stay and work with the students today, we were still given a grand send-off, each sharing something we enjoyed about this week and praying together.

With our new friends

Our plans originally had been to stay one more night at FPC and drive ALL the way back to Raleigh on Saturday. Thankfully we listened to some good advice and decided to drive partway this afternoon. A delicious lunch was provided at FPC once again, and then we loaded up. We will sleep in Bremen, GA, and hope to be home by suppertime tomorrow.

Redirection

We have been reminding ourselves throughout this trip to be flexible. A lot of rain changed today's tasks. It was too wet to do much work rebuilding Mr. Price's home. So we called Mrs. Richardson, the head of United Christian Academy (UCA). She was thrilled to hear we were willing and able to help at UCA for more than just two hours. We arrived a little after 9:30 and helped some of the summer students with some tutoring while other team members worked in the Library and did a few other tasks.

We went back to FPC for lunch and a productive discussion with Pastor Siggers, a very influential African American pastor in Hattiesburg. Pastor Siggers invited frank questions regarding bridging racial and other gaps in the body of Christ.

Pastor Siggers

Next we returned to UCA. We were able to play educational games with the students, freeing up the teachers to do some much needed planning for the Fall semester.

Playing Fishbowl

Pastor Nate Celebrating

Playing Trash

Playing Spot-it

After the children left, we:

• Painted a bulletin board.
• Re-planted some flowers and herbs.
• Outlined some formulas on the wall of the Math classroom. They will get painted tomorrow.
• Put a top on a floor cabinet in the Math classroom.
• Continued to organize the Library
• Began to organize a large storage room that will be converted in to their cafeteria.
• Put another coat of paint on the cubby-style bookshelf.

After dinner tonight at FPC, Dr. Larsen took the team on a tour of downtown Hattiesburg and William Carey University, which sustained a lot of tornado damage this past January.

If the rain continues tomorrow, we will not be able to work at Mr. Price's house. This will allow us to finish several tasks we did not finish at UCA. God has opened more doors for ministry as He closes others. Semper Gumby!

We're Really Rolling Now

Our morning work was again divided into various teams. Much work continues on Mr. Price's house. All of the siding was removed and the walls were prepped for new siding. In the kitchen, sub-flooring was installed and framing was added for the new windows. The foundation jacks were able to be moved to the opposite corner of the house so that we can repeat the process there. Meanwhile, the team was able to add permanent bracing for the rafters to pave the way for the eventual ceiling. Some of our team even learned how to use a framing nail gun in the process.

Pastor Carlos removing old siding

Bonnie with the framing nail gun adding bracing for the rafters

Buck, Mike, and Carlos testing the new sub-floor

Meanwhile, since Mr. Holloway ran out of screws, we were able to come back and actually help him finish his fence this morning. Isn't it incredibly straight?

Adding the last few pickets

Straight as an arrow

Mrs. Holloway, Lisa, Nate, Andy, Daniel, and Mr. Holloway

We enjoyed more time with the students at United Christian Academy this afternoon. The kids are learning to interview and introduce people. We also taught them a new song: I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N.

Singing with the students

Interviewing each other

After school we spent a couple of hours doing a few odd jobs like painting furniture and walls, and reorganizing the library.

We were invited to a cookout at Molly and Bobby Blass's home for supper. Bobby is the chairman of Hope for Hattiesburg, and Molly heads the education part of it. We enjoyed burgers and chicken, and then gathered to hear from Curt Moore, the Short Term Missions Specialist from Mission to North America.

Curt and Nate