Thursday: Last Day on the Job (and an afternoon at Rockport Beach)

Thursday: Texas Day 5. For our afternoon free time today, we went to the beach. We enjoyed our time swimming in the ocean, tanning, and jumping off the pier. The guys spent most of the time jumping off the pier and climbing back up to jump off again. After we got physically tired of pulling ourselves up, we decided to go to deeper waters to swim. When we got about chest deep, one of the guys got stung by a jellyfish behind both knees and on one of his feet. We all raced back in and found a secluded spot to test the theory of peeing on a jellyfish sting to take away the pain. After having seven of us guys pee on him, the pain went away after a few minutes proving the theory right. After that we jumped off the pier a few more times but weren’t up to exploring any more of the ocean. It will be a time none of us will forget.

~ Tanner Hendrikse

So far this week it's been a lot of fun. Getting closer with all the people in our group and getting to know some different parts of people that I haven't known before. The Gulf water is so much different from Lake Michigan the beach is sand instead of rock.

~ Keagan Wolf

This week in Rockport has been a wonderful experience. Today we finished up all our drywalling, insulating and mudding for Mrs. Julene. It was so great to look around the house that went from being nothing but studs, to now having walls and looking like a home. We all feel so accomplished in our work, but more importantly, we give the glory to God for giving us the strength to see our jobs through to the end. 

 
Ms. Julene was very emotional telling us how appreciative she and her family are for us and all our hard work. She is such a kind, sweet lady and the joy of the Lord just radiates from her and it’s contagious! I’m so thankful we could meet her and hear her story. She has helped so many through their struggles with the hurricane, while having her own terrible struggles. She is an example of Christ’s love and helped me realize what it means to look outside myself be a servant. I thought a lot today about how I can serve others, even just in little ways.

When we finished our work, Mrs. Julene took us all out for pizza. After pizza we hit the beach for the afternoon! We are enjoying swimming in the ocean, especially since it’s so much warmer than Lake Michigan! 

 
Thank you for your continued prayers for us! We are having an amazing time here. Every day we are seeing what an awesome God we have and are growing closer as a group as well.

~ Larissa Kanz

Mis Julene offers a thank you to our group after our last work day.  She was very appreciative of our work and brought us out for pizza after we finished working.

After our last time of worship together (focus on "casting our nets"), we were all able to take a piece of netting as a reminder of what we talked about and what we learned

Wednesday: Getting closer...

We are back at the same house today. Each day we are getting more done and it's really starting to come together!

Today was our third day at the worksite. However instead of getting up at 7 o’clock to be there on time we didn’t start work till after lunch due to flash flood warnings. We were told that people in one of the rooms in the church were vacuuming water up around their sleeping area. A local soccer complex was a temporary swimming pool. When the time came, we hung, screwed, and fitted several pieces of drywall. We also installed more insulation. The sad part is that the more we insulate the house, the more heat we trap inside. Either way we are having a great time despite rainy weather.

~ Matt Alsum


Today was our 3rd day on the work site. We didn't get to be there as long as we were planning because of flash flood warnings. But we still managed to get quite a bit done. We spent the early afternoon installing insulation and putting up as much dry wall as we could before we had to leave around 5pm. We managed to get one room completely done today, maybe two actually, but for sure one. And a few others are getting close. It was nice to see some stuff actually be completed. Today was in my opinion the most productive, and I would credit it to the fact that we didn't start working until around 12:30 because of rain, we were a bit more rested. After work we went to eat dinner, we had chilly dogs and they were good. Then some of us went to Walmart because some people needed some stuff. After that was chapel. Chapel today was about trust, along with a message about how important it is to follow the path God has laid out for us, and how that will always bring us the most
joy. Once chapel was done we met with our group to discuss the lesson, then we went to bed.

~ Will Balint


Today was a very fun and crazy day. Throughout the early morning we kept on getting flash flood warnings on our phones and after breakfast we were called into the sanctuary and told we couldn’t go to the house because of the rain. When they told us we wouldn’t be going until after lunch we couldn’t find Mr. Hendrikse anywhere and realized he was already waiting for us in the van. Since we had nothing to do in the morning we hooked up someone’s phone to the tv and watched Mater’s Tall Tales (spinoff from the movie Cars") and High School Musical. It was pretty fabulous. Then in the afternoon we worked extra hours to make up for the morning off. Us girls also got to enjoy some very cold showers afterward...well Becca’s was warm (inside job:).

~ Natalie Grasse