Third Day at the Work Sites - Day 8

Today we woke up to some breakfast prepared by Andy's family group. We had pancakes, fruit, bacon, sausage, and cereal. Since we did not have all of the normal tools to make the pancakes, we ended up with some pretty interesting designs including this one.

Laura Douglass presented the morning devotion and we sang "Rejoice in the Lord" and "Standing on the Promises."

Then we were off to the work site with the District Superintendents. We accomplished a lot today since we started working immediately. Some of us applied the second coat of primer and started painting. Others continued working on the floors and even finished one room. We were all filled with cheer when we finally finished one room with full wooden panels because of the determination and effort it took to get there. The group working there made sure to sign the last board underneath with blessings for the family.


Then, that group started working on the other home by setting up the floor for the wooden floor panels. This required trimming the bottom of the front door a little in order for it not to scratch the new flooring when it's installed.

The weather was pretty hot today so we made sure to all apply a lot of sun screen and drink loads of water in order to prevent dehydration and sunburn. At lunch time, we enjoyed fellowship with each other and our new friends. We even had a short dance party in front of one of the houses to keep our energy high.

In the past few days, we have been blessed with a special friend named Rajuan. He was a bit shy at first but yesterday he asked to help and we put him right to work. Today, he came over and was able to help hammer in more flooring and assist with the painting. Due to his commitment to serving alongside our group, we presented him with a Voices of Youth 2009 t-shirt and several of the youth and adults signed and left their imprint on the shirt to remind him of the relationships and love he experienced this week.

At the other home we started working with concrete and cement which was loads of fun. We also attempted to attach the kitchen cabinets but they are proving to be a bit more challenging than we first anticipated. Hopefully we will find a solution that works tomorrow and will get them put up before we leave.

After a long day filled with lots of work, we left the work site and invited the families and homeowners to our evening concert. We returned to Heritage UMC, took quick showers and then were off to the Seashore Assembly Center where we ate dinner and gave our first mini concert. It was a little different than the conventional concert since we were using a keyboard for accompaniment and had limited space to fit the group. One of the homeowners was able to attend the concert and we were very honored that he came to hear us sing.

After supper, the District Superintendents led a devotion for the whole group. It was a great way to continue building our relationships with them. We shared communion together and joined our voices in song.

The weather was amazing and so we decided to stay awhile and enjoy some down time. We started to build relationships with another group of United Methodist youth from Tennessee who are also here in Mississippi doing mission work. We decided to play Ultimate Frisbee with them, and it was very competitive. We lost with a score of 4-3. It was very close and even though we lost, we became closer with each other and were able to set a good example of team work and good sportsmanship with the team from Tennessee.

We returned home and had a rehearsal where we targeted the songs in which we needed to tweak a bit and continued to work on our efforts to memorize all our music. We ended the day with some family group time where we discussed the progressive dinner and group devotions. Then we had a little bit of free time where we played cards, prepared for tomorrow's work, and sang songs with Nick W. on the guitar.

Keeping you posted,

-David and Jordan, Voices of Youth Blogmasters-

P.S. I have added the FFP of the day award on the left side of the blog. The FFP stands for the "Fun and Flexible Person" which is awarded daily to an individual who proves to be both fun and flexible at all times so make sure you keep an eye out for who is being fun and flexible!