Why Go So Far ??????

Why Go So Far . . . . . . . .

We go so far to be part of a travel van and to be part of the Witches Trials in Williamsburg, Va., while we are guided by the worship team at morning devotions and later ride the Lockness Monster at Busch-Gardens.

We go so far to swim in the Atlantic, which many have never seen, then the youth and adults plan their strategies for their work site, at Plymouth , NC. Where we learn the Holy Spirit was holding up a church’s roof until Jesus sent us, “the right team” to fix it, and because a woman was evicted from her home by her brother-in-law and she was left to live in a store front, which we helped to wire, plumb, drywall, paint, frame windows and lay flooring for her, a sister in Christ, to turn her key in the lock. 

We go so far to watch our youth make positive life changing decisions, use power tools, wire electric switches and repair sagging roofs, while deciding NOT to go to the beach but stay on task. To help a dying church use it’s resources to rebuild their community, where the Mayor takes no pay and many have turned a blind eye to Plymouth’s need.

We go so far to build relationship with, the forgotten of Plymouth, NC where many have no running water due to lack of income.  Learning about the CROSSES so many bare, has given us an education that money can not buy. We have come to witness our faith and to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.  

You ask why do we go so far? And Jesus replied:

            “:I tell you the truth what ever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Matthew 25:40

Just about wrapping it up

Aside from a HEAVY THUNDERSTORM this afternoon

We've just about nailed it....

Roanoke Swimming Hole Beach

The cooks prepared a bbq & side trip to the Outer Banks for swimming at the Roanoke Swimming Hole Beach. A much needed break on a 95 degree day!

Micheal Angelo's storage shelvin

The team doing work for CROSS
Shelving and storage is always needed

Roofing .. with a little special help

Carrying bundle by bundle times 32.
Thank you to Jimmie and Jon at Asplund Tree Service

Thank thee O Lord for food we are about to eat

Tripple Team site .. Wednesday

Today on YSP we were able to make a lot of progress on the inside of the house along with the outside. The past two days we had three work teams on our site to help paint and renovate a house, but today we gained another team to help us finish the job. Their help is what allowed us to almost finish paintinging inside and outside.  When we got back to the church we are staying at some of the families we are helping joined is for dinner. It was so fulfilling to see the thanks in their eyes and the pastor of a church that another team is working on closed us in prayer and he expressed his thanks and blessed us all.

Michael-Angelos Day Four

Today was a very busy day for the Focus 5 crew, now renamed (a much more fitting title) "The Michael-Angelos." The name came about as a result of our abundance of painting projects throughout the week, our team leader Michael, and our crew of ANGELos. Today we contributed our painting talents to not only one but two different work sites, starting at Miss Alva Rose Brown's home in the morning. Her recent broken bones and heart problems prevented her from keeping up with her house, especially the back porch and garage area. The Michael-Angelos stepped in to help by painting the interior of her back porch, repairing the screens and door of the porch, painting the garage door, and (very bravely) climbing up on to the garage roof to paint it. Once completed we presented to her the keepsake cross that team member Betsey made, and headed off to a tasty fried chicken lunch at Bojangos. After eating we got back to work at the work site that is fixing up the house. We again utilized our master painting skills to paint the whole home's exterior a nice "butter" yellow.

Team Awesome .... Wednesday

Hello from Team Awesome!
We have been working on Mrs. Bollinger's house repairing the outside. Today we finished up caulking our newly placed shingles and support beams. We then proceeded to prime and paint a majority of the outside of the house. With help from other teams, we were able to completely finish 3 out of 4 sides of the house, including the front porch. In addition to the house, we successfully covered ourselves in paint. The area under the soon-to-be screened in porch continues to be shingled and repaired. The house has seen many improvements to the outside since we arrived, and we hope to continue to improve for the rest of the week. For lunch, we went to Bojangles, the restaurant of "Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits", and everyone enjoyed their meals. As if that wasn't enough, after we stopped at Wendy's for Frostys. Overall, we had a great and productive day and are looking forward to finishing up the side of the house!
-Allee and Morgan

Our host church at sunset

A view of Plymouth UMC at evening.

A chance to reflect,  relax and focus on being good stewards of His word.

Picnic at Plymouth Screwpile Lighthouse

Jim Post & Adesina Jerkins had a BBQ chicken picnic for the crews at the lighthouse park on the Roanoke River Tuesday evening. What an awesome day!

Focus 5 ... Tuesday

The Church Avengers . . . Tuesday

Hi Everyone! Well, our awesome work team "The Church Avengers" really made some major progress on our house today!

Matt and Lance took on the challenge of cleaning and repairing all of the windows. Looking at the windows now, you would never have guessed how many bugs had made their homes there, or how much crud had crowded the panes. Matt and Brianna had primed and primed and primed and primed and primed! They covered every single room (sans the bathroom) with primer. They covered the bare spots in the ceiling and along the edged of every wall and ceiling joint.

Emily did some staining and really worked hard repairing the bathroom. Now, thanks to the team's hard work the homeowner can see thru the windows, and is well on her way to having a great bathroom & paint job. We are so excited to keep improving this house and doing God's work.

~~~~~~ Brianna

First Team ... Tuesday

First Team worked extremely hard to get several tasks complete. Several of the team members were working on these tasks which include putting in the majority of the receptacles for the outlets and light switches, priming each room in order to get it ready for tomorrow's paint job, closing off two holes in the ceiling of the kitchen, and closing off a hole in the bathroom ceiling.

We also had a great time getting rid of wasps as well. But most of all we worked together as a unit in order to complete the tasks. Especially, finishing the floor with leveling compound to get it ready for laying roll flooring tomorrow.

The Magic 8 and Team 1............

The Magic 8 and Team #1 (shhhh... we let them think that) worked together on a roofing project that turned out to be more than we ever imagined. Some major work needed to be done to "raise" the roof. There was a serious sag due to lack of proper support for the roof trusses (who needs a bearing wall).

We had to send two thru a SMALL access in the ceiling of the bathroom to be able to evaluate what was wrong with the roof. Once it was determined that the trusses were in good shape, a  2 x 10 header was built and jacked into place to "raise the roof". Thank God for tall youth and strong arms !!

While this was going on parts of the blended team began to paint the front ramp. As the sun began to beat down on them, the 10 x 10 popup tent came in handy to provide shade for working in (or under). The youth are determined and were able to get 2 coats of paint on the railing and the first coat on the ramp floor. On the top side of it all, a crew began shingling the side of the roof that was well  shaded. It is hard to explain what this project really became, but Rod Ring said it best when he stopped by "The Holy Spirit held up the roof until Jesus could send the right team".

Tueaday morning....

Sunrise on the Roanoke River.
Forecast is for 90 degrees an AWESOME attitude!

Focus 5 ... day 1

Focus 5: Day 1

Betsey, Katey, Gabby, Rebekah, Dontez, John, & Mike

  

    Today focus 5 (the best work group) traveled to Miss Iris something's home. Living with both her elderly

 mother and sister Iris works two jobs to support them, but barely has any time at home with her over barring

 schedule. With food, clothing, electricity, etc. home repairs aren't in the family's budget. We arrived around 9:00 this morning and started working on staining/touching up the front porch and back deck. Shortly after the 8 year

 old neighbor boy, Dontrel came down on his bike and was overly willing to help. We gave him a brush and he

 picked up quickly. Dontrel told us how his parents live apart and are both broke, he told us, "I wish I could come back to Ohio with y'all, this is so fun" Dontrel ate lunch with us, showed us up in football, and told us how much he came to love painting. 

Before we left our group took a picture with the finished deck and Dontrel exclaimed, "Jesus loves me!" 

It's so crazy how one morning and one paintbrush can open the eyes of someone so less fortunate than us, showing them God will always be right there. 

Plymouth North Carolina Mission: The First Team on the First Day

Greetings from team number three, "The First Team". It was a beautiful day here at the church, we woke up to sunshine and music from our beautiful worship team. Jim Post created bacon and eggs for breakfast to nourish our bodies for a long day of work. We are blessed to have Jim joining us on this trip. We heard from Jay, the program organizer for CROSS: Christians Reaching Out in Sacred Service at Plymouth UMC.
This church is somewhere near 170 years old!!

After we packed up and arrived at our work site, which happened to be a three team job, we scoped out the expectations for the week. Our home owner has gone through some trials in her life, including losing her husband and then her house because the payments were too much to handle. She was gifted a very old house and we are blessed to be able to put many finishing touches on it for her so that she can move in beginning Friday. Our team was assigned many tasks inside the home. Steven and Andrew were working in the bathroom. They cleaned the tub, which was repulsive so say the least. I am proud to report it is now showerable, minus the running water =). They also filled some holes in the walls and sanded the putty down so that it was smooth. Aniya, Brandon and myself were given a lengthy, very informative lesson on wiring "receptacle" into the walls.I am very proud to say that not only did I wire my first receptacle, Aniya and I also learned how to piggy back from one to the next to send the electricity to another source. The kitchen is almost finished as far as wiring is concerned. Seeing how proud Aniya was and the smile on her face when she wired her own receptacle was PRICELESS.

At lunch, a simple salamander with a healing wound reminded us of God's ability to heal the broken and save the hurting. We are reminded that amphibians are very resilient and with their extreme perseverance can make it through the worst of storms, much like the obstacles our homeowner has encountered and like those we will encounter this week.

Brandon and I worked on chipping access paint off of the ceiling and then sanded it down so that it was in a condition suitable for painting in the next several days. It was a very difficult task since the electric sanders were heavy and chipping the paint was being done at a weird angle, but God brought us through.... with jello arms!

At the end of the day, our mission this week was brought together in the group prayer that we shared. Gathering our work team together and praising God that we are able to be here and work as a team to serve one of his beloved, well that's what makes this trip. We are all looking forward to getting to know our new "family members" as we work through our tasks this week.

God Bless,
Ashlee (The First Team)

Team Awesome .... day 1

Today Team Awesome spent the day fixing the siding on our house, and cleaning the outside skirting of it. We found all sorts of things ... wild strawberries, old work supplies, an couple of unidentifiable objects and a VERY WIDE assortment of BUGS!!!!!!!!.

We started with a stack of cement siding shingles and had to cut them all to size, and nail them over areas that previous groups had fixed the walls /electrical / windows / whatever other work that was done before we arrived here in North Carolina.

The house still needs a lot of work  although I can tell a lot of work was done by the crews before we had even gotten here! But we hope to have it at least inhabitable by the end of the week.

Today was very productive and everyone came back sweaty, but feeling accomplished. We're hoping the rains hold off for the rest of the week (today was absolutely beautiful)! So we can finish what we'd started. Here's to hoping for a good week and for as much success tomorrow as we had today. STAY AWESOME.
(Rod, Lauren, Kevin, Kristen, Kyle, Morgan and Allee).

Saturday

Well, it's raining with 70% chance of liquid sunshine today
Busch Gardens is planned..........

maybe the youth will get some culture today!

Staying at Williamsburg UMC, mine is the white van (OH, they're all white vans)

Yeah ..... Part Way There...... in Williamsburg, VA

We made it, a little bit delayed, into Williamsburg, VA

Friday night was at Colonial Williamsburg, participating in the "Cry Witch" Trial. Bill Mueller was one of the Jurors (don't ask why Lance & Dontez were in the stocks).

awaiting the outcome of the Cry Witch trial at Colonial Williamsburg

Judge Richard Swain

you will be missed. . . . . . . 

bending nails, breaking bread, touching lives

one family, one youth at a time

as they are, where they are.

What Would Judge Do?

Mentor United Methodist Church

Youth Service Project

June 20 thru June 28

to

 CROSS 

Plymouth, NC

www

.facebook.com/crossplymouth