So on Easter Sunday after church Mom and Dad drove us down to meet up with everyone. The house we were staying at was pretty sweet. It was an old ranch that was used to house “missionaries”, such as ourselves, that came to work with a local Habitat for Humanity-ish organization called I Hope. After we got settled in we drove into town to pass out flyers for the three day VBS we were holding at a local church. We did this for about an hour and then headed to our youth pastor’s, Passa Dave, parents’ house for dinner. It was a great night to relax, catch up and, um, doing each other’s hair.
We got up bright and early the next morning, although not as early as one would like with 13 teenagers. We then headed to the I HOPE headquarters to get our orders for the day. We were tasked to fix up a home that got pretty beat up during Tropical Storm Fay in 2008. It turned out to be pretty fun. The guys of the group got to rip up most of the floor in the house. Our display of sheer power and muscle was a sight to behold. We ended up cleaning the house the whole week. We got to paint, clean the bathroom, power wash the house, scrape glue and destroy hornets nests! The house looked great by the time we left.
That night we headed to the church to prepare for our VBS. After getting ready and setting up equipment and eating dinner we waited for the kids to show up. And we waited some more….and waited. Eventually we realized no one was coming. We then took some time to sing and pray and we realized how we needed to just fall back on who God is and His will instead of our own plans. It was great to have some quiet time after all of the activity of the day.
Tuesday we had another “early” start and went to work on the house. We spent the morning continuing our renovations and headed back to the ranch after lunch. That evening we changed our plans and got to go pass out Bible tracks at an apartment complex. We were introduced to a local guy who had been witnessing on the streets of Immokalee for years. So he gave us the low down on what we would be doing and we split up to go talk to people. Now out of the thousands of people that live in Immokalee, about 12 of them are white. So just about everyone spoke either Spanish or Creole. Fortunately, for those of us who spoke Spanish, talking to people wasn’t too difficult. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those people. But both Toley and I did our best and were able to have conversations with a few people. Well at least I did. Toley is shyer than shy so she doesn’t talk all that much. It was great fun.
Wednesday was our last day, so we finished up on the house, took some photos to prove we actually worked and headed to the beach in Naples! The beach was pretty sweet, albeit crowded. Saw tons of fish, diving pelicans, took a walk down the beach, and talked about our reactions to seeing Jesus. It was great! That night, the church we were working with was having their weekly dinner and Bible study for the kids in Immokalee. We got to take over the K-5 group and have the little VBS we had been hoping for. I got to be in charge of the games! So we ran around and played some Pac man, which the kids loved! Then we had music time, a little skit, and a small message. It was pretty sweet!
We met our parents back up in Orlando the next day. It was such an awesome experience. God did some amazing things and Toley and I really learned a lot! I’m so thankful we had the opportunity and would do it again in a heartbeat!
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