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