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2019 Kids’ Church 3/24

Before Easter, our team was able to share at Kids Church, a small separate service for some of the younger kids of our church

Zohreh led the teaching, introducing all the team members and explaining we were going to Houston. She gave the team members tools, and we each describe how the tool would work.

Zohreh also asked for the kids to pray for :
1. For God to help prepare our hearts to serve
2. For God to help prepare our bodies to serve
3. For God to help us use the right tools, whether they be for construction or communicating

We then sat amongst the kids and they, with the assistance of their teachers, prayed for each one of the team members. That experience is always a humbling blessing

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2019 Kids’ Church 3/24

Before Easter, our team was able to share at Kids Church, a small separate service for some of the younger kids of our church

Zohreh led the teaching, introducing all the team members and explaining we were going to Houston. She gave the team members tools, and we each describe how the tool would work.

Zohreh also asked for the kids to pray for :
1. For God to help prepare our hearts to serve
2. For God to help prepare our bodies to serve
3. For God to help us use the right tools, whether they be for construction or communicating

We then sat amongst the kids and they, with the assistance of their teachers, prayed for each one of the team members. That experience is always a humbling blessing

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Some how-to videos

Over the years, we’ve worked on new builds (building a brand new house from the ground up), to rehab work (usually from damage due to age or natural disaster). We’ve done framing, roofing, flooring as well as installing and relocating doors, paint and drywall and more.

So we like our volunteers to be familiar with some basic skills on use and safety of tools. Here’s a sample playlist we share with our team.

And along the way, we found another playlist where This Old House went and did some work in Houston following Hurricane Harvey

Or you can watch the whole episode, including some footage of the flood

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/watch/ask-toh-houston-after-harvey

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2019 Serve Houston!

2019, New Location, repeat organization….

We’re excited to be going to Houston, TX for 2019.

We’ll refrain from the many times “Houston, we have a problem” will be said… We’re sure the locals love hearing that.

In response to the floods that Houston has experienced, we’ll be sending a 22-person team to the region: 15 returning Evergreensgv.org team members, 4 newbies, and 3 always-appreciated, underrated out-of-state team members from our time in  Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Why Houston?

Much like our trip to Louisiana last year, our core leaders prayerfully considered and visited Texas last October, meeting up with Reach Global, and surveying potential areas we could serve.

Initially, we were called to the area in response to Hurricane Harvey, but there have been damaging tornadoes touching down in the region even this week

 

Our core team of Chris C, Craig, Jeff and Mathias felt this was the right time and the right place. Our experience with Reach Global last year led us to partner with them again this year. Much of the work with ReachGlobal is rehab work (as opposed to building new housing) and emphasizes making personal connections with the people we’re working with.

ReachGlobal organizes volunteers like ourselves, with homeowners who need assistance. After planning the repairs with ReachGlobal, the homeowners are responsible for supplying all the building supplies. ReachGlobal oversees the project, and groups like ours provide the labor.

Our schedule, and 4 newbies

We will be in Houston May 19-25 of this year, and we’ll be staying will be taking with us 4 newbies, Dewey, Hugh, Mona and Zohreh.

As usual, we won’t know what type of work we’ll have in store for us when we get to Houston, but it’ll likely be rehab work. Last year with ReachGlobal, we repaired a roof, repaired damaged flooring and tile, and painted. So flexibility is always helpful when we hit the road.

If you want to learn more, please take a look at our informational support letter

 
 

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2018 Team Presentation Speakers

2018 Presentation Speakers

It was a good year, a good trip, and a good presentation. 


Our leaders and some of our team shared of some of the logistics of our trip, but in the end, it was more about what we learned, experienced, and how we grew. 


Thanks to all the team members, including Chris H from OKC, and Paul and Denise coming in from Mississippi, and of course, our home church at evergreensgv.org 


Please keep our homeowners in your prayers, as we continue to pray for:


The Shipleys
Josh and Sarah and 
Miss Susan


And thanks for your continued prayer support and interest in our efforts to try and bless others because God has been so good to us, not only in providing these growing friendships and opportunities to serve, but to let us see firsthand God trying to care for people, even when using imperfect but willing people like us (and hopefully you too!).


Here’s a playlist of all the videos

Or you can view them individually below:

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2018 Team Presentation Video

Thanks so much for those of you who have supported us over our trip to Louisiana, On 6/17/18, we presented to members of our church, our friends, family and supporters, a brief glimpse of our trip.

A key part of encapsulating that trip is a presentation video. We take for granted the work that Jimmy puts into it, but it’s so much appreciated.

Okay, here’s the video we showed at the presentation, and soon we’ll have a blog post with what the speakers said…

enjoy!





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2018-Reflections-Roz


Reflection from Roz







This is the second year that Roz served on our team.


Of the three houses, she worked on “house #3”, Miss Susan’s, where the majority of the work was doing some light electrical, but cleaning water damage from brick and caulking and painting. As a dental hygienist, she went from cleaning teeth to brick. But most of our time was spent getting to know Miss Susan, and share life with her, and pray with her. Roz led the way with prayer.


Roz Photographing a pretty insect




“I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You.”


‭‭Psalms‬ ‭38:8-9‬ ‭NASB‬‬





Best food moment: Tommy’s biscuits- homemade by teammates with love, not costly and awesome tasting!  





Best work day: Monday when I found complete joy and satisfaction in God’s presence through prayer even before I got to Miss Susan’s.  Also being used to serve her and love her as He does from the first moment our team sought Him in prayer together with
Miss Susan. Seeing how various faith activities and circumstances in my life this past year had been God’s hand in growing me and preparing me for this trip. I found as the week went on ‘self will’ showed up and caused me to be perfectionistic and prideful
and unsatisfied but I saw how other teammates worked for and ministered to Miss Susan and that renewed me and blessed me also. God made real to me His delight in our team and that satisfaction in doing His will and in Him alone leads to life just as we were
created for. God is so good! 






Best Ministry Moment: God moved me to expect something wonderful to happen on Monday at Miss Susan’s and that the best way to serve her was to bring some tissue and just pray and listen. Thank you Lord for picking the teams and having a plan for each one
of us and allowing me to be a part of many awesome moments!!

Peace Be With You,

Roz

Roz with her team from House #3, with Miss Susan


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2018 Return-We’re back, but there’s still a little more to come…

Saturday was a whirlwind. And we’re glad it was. It was nice to have a nice day where the team was all together, but all we could do was talk about the families we met.

We cleaned up and packed up and prayed for Ryan, our host and very competent supervisor this week.

Art, Ryan and Pam
and headed into NOLA, to drop in to Café du Monde and possibly see an old friend (again)



We got together with Brad, our old friend and site supervisor from Mississippi, now working for Habitat in NOLA
http://www.habitat-nola.org/

Craig, Brad and Roy

A quick bite to eat with Brad, a quick tour of his home, and a quick ride to the airport. We were back off home

Upon landing, we prayed for the trip, and how it affected both the homeowners, ourselves, and all that we came in contact with. Then a warm welcome from faithful friends and supporters!

It was a really fruitful trip, as we expand our little family. Recently, someone asked if we stay in touch with families we’ve ministered to. Truth is, throughout this whole trip, we were praying for a family from a previous trip as they go through a difficult time. Whether they’re people we’ve worked alongside or a family we were trying to serve, we consider them part of the reason why we serve.

There will be a more posts in the weeks to come, as we get some of the videos together and people are able to collect their thoughts and feelings. We’ve got a presentation that we do for the church, and we’re able to share a bit more from a heart level about what went on.

But we know you guys like them photos… 🙂

Click below.. and we’re still adding some more

Photos – Travel Day
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mtTJxoMb7lOuoGD23

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2018 Day 5 – Last Day of work One Word Jeff H and Pam

Last Work Day

Half Day

We had a good day of work, but only were able to work half a day.



We finished up and said goodbye as we could to our homeowners, and then returned to church to pack up and have dinner.

We said a tearful goodbye to Chris H, who drove back to OKC by himself, a 9.5 hour drive. Thanks to Chris for all the leadership and fun we had with you over the last week. We also got reports from Paul and Denise that they were already home safely




Some of the guys got together to pray for Pastor Tim and his church.

Ryan, our site supervisor joined us for our final team dinner at Café Phonecia



and then we went to Holy Cow and got some of Frozen Custard. It’s customary on these trips to get frozen custard, one of (Uncle) Roy’s favorite treats. His birthday usually falls around the times of our trips, and he likes to treat us for his birthday. However, he lost the “treating” war to Lorin.


Here’s the Photo Album for today, and two videos from Jeff H and Pam, veterans from our trips
Photo Album
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yPSqneALMvdxbVjK2

Jeff H




Pam



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2018 Day 4-Work and Community night

Wow.. we’re really in the home stretch.

Today’s a significant day, but it went long, so we’ll post info on this, especially after we get back

Today’s schedule was

  1. Work on our respective sites
  2. Return to church and shower
  3. Join Community Dinner at Grace Community Bible Church, where we dined with some of the home owners, and church members
  4. Do our field team debrief
  5. Say goodbye to Paul and Denise

Work on our respective sites

We had a team change… due to manpower needs, we moved two members from Team 2 (Nate and Patrick) over to team 1.
  • Team 1 got more supplies and was able to make significant headway on the metal roof
  • Team 2 was able to prepare the home completed the wood floors, installed bathroom kid (heater and light), cleaning up the house and making it homey and ready for them to use. Both Chris’ said they appreciated having the women on board, caring for the way it would be presented
  • Team 3 continued with paint, and removed all tile from the laundry room. But spent a lot of time getting to know Miss Susan, enjoying her poetry and a mini concert, and praying with her.

Community Dinner

Delicious Jambalaya (pronounced Johm-buh-lie-yah or Jam-buh-lie-yah depending on where you grew up) was served on behalf of the church, complete with desserts and Lorin’s famous Butter Mochi.  Ryan had us share where we saw God moving over this last week of work, or even the previous week in preparation. Homeowners, guests and team members were encouraged to share. Pastor Tim even shared from his perspective. It was very moving as people talked about a sense of community, belonging, purpose and trust.

Debrief and goodbye

Normally we do a team debrief on the last day of our trip, but since Paul and Denise were leaving tonight (they stayed a little extra just to participate in the community dinner) and Chris H leaves tomorrow afternoon, we moved the meeting to tonight.
Each team member reflected on ways they had been blessed or grew closer to God this week. The responses were varied as much as there were members, but some people said that they feel this is akin to a retreat, where you grow closer in community, but the activity is working on a home. We all tried to show appreciation to Paul, Denise and Chris H for their skills, leadership and poise during the last few days as they had the rough job of helping manage the teams on each of the three sites.
Another member said that the site leaders were akin to worship leaders (musical singing group at our church)  and each team were worship team members. So like a conductor and a band.
There is also time set aside for team members to deal with any conflicts or tensions, bringing them before the group, and hopefully resolving them, if not addressing them tonight.
We also said a goodbye to Paul and Denise and sent them home for their 2.5 hour drive home. They’re returning home for family commitments.

Community dinner and goodbye photos