Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Southwinds Descend on San Luis!

They arrived on Saturday before dark, to set up camp for 31 people in our back yard. Most of them are youth, and the rest are young at heart. They came from Tracy, CA, for a week long missions trips to help Hope House get finished and ready to open their doors to single moms and teen girls who need a place of refuge and training.After a wonderful day of celebrating our Lord's resurrection, they got down to work and got dirty, sweaty and very tired! They are doing a myriad of projects including building 4 additional bedrooms inside the main room of the house, demolishing damaged sheetrock in the bathrooms and redoing, as well as adding shower inserts and shelving. They will be working on the kitchen to get it up and running, and they will be painting a second coat on the outside and the new walls and bathrooms on the inside. There may be even more projects I can't remember at the moment, but everything is going very well!
They brought a huge cargo trailer full of donated items for Hope House including beds, dressers, sofa, table and chairs, sewing machines, and more things than I can think of to mention! The whole church has gotten behind their mission here and blessed us abundantly!Many of the young people of spending time playing and "conversing" with the kids in the neighborhood. They are learning many words and phrases in Spanish and we have several bilingual folks available to help out here and there including my kids, Cody and Alissa. They are having a blast hosting this great group!The ladies in charge of food are doing a fantastic job! And I have not been as stressed as I thought I might be with 36 of us sharing one shower and two bathrooms in my small house! The kids have not complained at all about having to take cold showers outdoors. They have all chipped in on keeping the place clean and mostly neat, and doing their chores without complaint.God has been touching some of their hearts with compassion for the poor and lost through the poverty that surrounds us and the children who have congregated around them. My husband has challenged them this week to look for Jesus in unexpected places, and to spend time doing what Jesus would do - loving the little ones, helping those in need, preferring one another in love, being a friend to the poor and downtrodden, caring for the orphans and widows.We are hoping to introduce them to a few of the single moms who will be working with us at Hope House, as well as a few of the potential residents.It is shaping up to be a tremendous week with a really great bunch of people! I am totally blessed by them and hope that this week will be life-changing for many of them! I will post more photos as the week progresses, so check back for updates and photos.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Thanks for sharing this with us back at home. We are praying for all of you!