Two More Trips to Servant's Heart Camp

Trip One ~ November 16-18....

Terry would make this trip with Josiah, Jordan & his brother Jared.
The goal was to frame the new cabin.....

And by the end of the three days....the walls were standing!

Trip 2 ~ December 15 & 16 ~

The goal of this quick trip was to put the cabin under roof....

Thank the Lord for a mild December! It allowed them to work without freezing!
 
I  must say they have become quite a team! We sure appreciate the hard work
these guys have put into helping at Servant's Heart....hopefully they'll be
willing to help on more projects!

Terry still needs to go back up and finish a few things on the roof yet.  AND
Praise the Lord....the money came in for the second cabin they wanted to build
before summer!  He will be returning back up there to lay the foundation, but
probably not until the weather is warmer. The Lord has brought along other
projects to keep him busy this winter, but those are for future posts!

Servant's Heart Camp ~ Week 2

We headed back up to Servant's Heart for week #2 arriving around 3PM.
 My hope was that the 4 of us could spend this week together, but Erin
 had to stay home because her job at Chick-Fil-A was to start....
 Instead we brought Jordan, a friend from church, to help with the work!

 Terry began work right away... laying block....

 He finished the corners that evening! On Tuesday, a couple showed up with
 paper towel holders for the cabins they wanted to donate. It turned out to be
 the parents of a man in our church! We all had lunch together, then Mr. Work
 helped Terry lay block in the afternoon! What a blessing!
 Josiah & Jordan had fun working...running equipment! They were busy back
 filling the drainage ditch & around the foundation...

Josiah

Jordan

 We happened to be there the week the Fry's church was having revival. We
 headed to church that evening after supper to hear Alton Beal from Ambassador
 Baptist College preach.

 Wednesday was another long work day.....did I say we had beautiful weather?
 It couldn't have been nicer!

 Terry continued to lay the block, but what I was amazed at was what Josiah &
 Jordan were doing....

Team work!

 Jordan was taking that shale and dumping it into Josiah's bucket, then he was
 dumping it and spreading it inside the foundation! Pretty neat idea! We headed
 back to revival services that night while the guys did facetime with their class
 back home!

 Thursday was another long but productive day...block laying finished, spreading
 stone inside the foundation, cleaning up the area around the new foundation, even
 getting started on the decking!....

 All that was left for Friday was tarring the walls, finishing the decking and back
 filling the foundation... if the tar was dry...

Almost finished....

 This last picture was taken in the late morning...unfortunately, the great weather
 turned and by lunch it had started raining.... They did manage to get all the decking
 on and covered with plastic as the rain started falling.They were so close to being
 finished! Only two walls to tar and back filling to do! Terry ended up going back up
 for the day about two weeks later to finish this part of the process.

 I want to end with two other pictures... one is the drainage ditch covered (Josiah
 had started on that last week) & the other just one of the MANY beautiful pictures
 of the fall colors.....

                                              God is good....all the time!

Servant's Heart Camp ~ Week 1

Sorry for the long delay... this post actually happened over a period of 2 1/2 weeks, not all back to back.

The end of September and first week of October we went to Ramey, PA to
begin the foundation for a cabin at Servant's Heart Camp. Terry, Josiah & I
left early Monday morning and had a beautiful afternoon and evening for 
them to work....

Before breaking ground

 Unfortunately, that would be the only nice day that week....the weather turned 
 colder with off and on rain showers, then turning to heavy rain midweek making 
 it hard to dig footers! (The original plan was to dig and put in two foundations, 
 but the rain and finances quickly turned that decision to one!) 

Still working while it's dry...

Cutting in the water & sewer lines...can you see how wet the ground is?

 

Footers poured early Friday morning

  A few other projects were able to be done this week too... in spite of the rain...
 A few trees had to be cut down and taken to a pile on the property....

That's Josiah on the tractor!

 Josiah also helped finish a drainage ditch for the new sand volleyball court to be
 added this coming year...

The volleyball court is just behind the machine Josiah is on...

He got a lot of experience with running equipment this week!

 We were able to go home for the weekend to attend a family reunion and our
 home church's Sunday services before heading up for week two...

Early September Happenings

  Most of the beginning of September was spent working on a room being
  added onto one of our current buildings at church. It will be used to hold
  chairs and tables and whatever else will fit!

 The only pictures I took was the day he poured concrete.....

 He also spent a very rainy weekend at a Men's Retreat at Servant's Heart Camp
with several men from our church and some from other churches. He said it was
 a good weekend even though it did rain!

Standing in Awe.....

      
      Psalm 86:10 - "For Thou art great, and doest
               wondrous things: Thou art God alone."
        
         Truly we serve a great God! As we think about how quickly things 
         are moving with this ministry, we are truly amazed & awed by how
         great God is to us! No, we do not have a fifth-wheel trailer yet. And
         no, we haven't had as many meetings as I thought we would. BUT,
         in 9 short months, we have 20% of the support we need a month!
         THAT is amazing to me! God is good & does good things, not 
         because we are special but because He is God and He loves to show
         His goodness to His children. Thank you, God for your goodness to
         us! Praise the Lord!
 

Going a Little Farther From Home...And Receiving A Big Blessing!

 We were invited to our friend's daughter's wedding August 21st in Northwest
 Missouri and while we were there we also were  able to present our ministry
 in their church!

 Since their daughter is the piano player and she was gone on her honeymoon,
 Josiah played his cello while their son played his guitar...

 We had an afternoon service where we sang a special and Terry gave testimony about
 our ministry & preached.The neat thing is, the very first missions trip Terry took was to
 Romania with this friend, Matt. He is now the pastor of that church in Missouri and that
 trip planted the seed in Terry's heart & mind for the ministry we are now in! That was
 back in 2000! Praise the Lord for His goodness & His timing!

 The big blessing came in the form of a phone call... Mt. Zion Baptist Church called to
 let us know they have taken us on for support! Praise the Lord! He is so good to us!

Reunited Again!

 As August began with Terry working hard to get Hope Baptist ready
 for their first service, our children arrived home on the 10th! It was
 great to hear about their time serving! I hinted to some of their time
 in  this post.
 If you have never been on a missions trip, we highly recommend one
 of  these trips ~ either the Juarez Project that I posted about in June &
 July (take a minute to read over those) or a regular week trip to El Paso
 where you will put together John & Romans Monday & Tuesday mornings
 and use those scriptures to hand out in Mexico in the afternoon & evenings.
 You can find out more about both of those trips on Bearing Precious Seed's
 website BPS El Paso.
 You can also e-mail us for more information ~ finmin2014@gmail.com We'd
 love to hear from you! It will definitely change your life!

 Also at the beginning of August I was able to attend ASL Institute at Valley
 Forge to continue work on sign language learning! It was a very interesting
 time for me! I would appreciate your prayers for me in this, do we ever get
 too old to learn something new?

 So that's what we've been up too at the beginning of August!