Mission Trip 2011 -- New Orleans, LA.
by Wes Stiefer

Jazzing About Mission

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40. NIV)

As a result of fourteen very successful adventures sponsored by the Grace Presbytery Youth Ministries Committee, two churches (First-Mexia and Trinity-The Colony), that will forever be linked by their hard work and dedication to God’s command to go out and serve, chose to sponsor the first annual multi-church, youth mission trip for high school age youth of the congregations of Grace Presbytery and beyond.

This trip is especially meaningful because it is in many ways a “second generation” trip – an off-shoot of the hard work and dedication of over 250 individuals representing 48 different churches from 1999 to 2010. This year adds participants from 2 new churches and 10 participants choosing to go on a mission trip for the first time. God is good!

Youth in Mission 2011, a team of 23 people from 5 churches, takes us to New Orleans, Louisiana to work with Project Homecoming, a joint effort between the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) and the Presbytery of South Louisiana. One belief shared by all that have participated in previous year’s trips, is that each one of us is part of a larger Cloud of Witnesses, all fulfilling God command to serve, little by little, day by day, and linked together forever through our love for God and our dedication and hard work. In the summer of 2006, one of our mission teams traveled to Gulfport, Mississippi to serve those that were affected by Hurricane Katrina the previous year.

The devastation that we witnessed there and during a tour of New Orleans was massive. Areas of the city and complete neighborhoods were abandoned. Efforts in New Orleans at that time were focused on gutting houses and cleaning up after the storm. People had been driven from their homes for an undetermined amount of time. Wes Stiefer and Pam Hampson felt the call and returned to New Orleans just two weeks later to gut houses. Many of us since that time have felt the call to return to New Orleans yet again. This year, by working with Project Homecoming, we will be able to witness the progress of the last 5 years and assist in bringing people home. We feel this is a wonderful way to continue the work started by many others years ago. You can read more about Project Homecoming here. (This will open up in a new Web Browser Window, when you finish reading about Project Homecoming you can simply close that browser window and continue here).

We have arrived in New Orleans!

We arrived in New Orleans, LA this afternoon at 4 p.m. in one piece and with all our folks and property ;-)

Let me introduce you to the team, starting from the front:
Row 1: Wes Stiefer, II and Pam Hampson
Row 2: Marianne Brummett, Ashley Landess, Tracy Singleterry, Patty Landess, Averie Hinchey, Joanna Whimple and Lee Garber
Row 3: Todd Singleterry, Ken Lane, Craig Krueger, Rachel Maduro, Wes Stiefer, Thomas Landess, Christian Durbin, Kelly Singleterry, and Madison Davis
Row 4: Tyler Landess, Lucas Spratt, Jonathan Barksdale, Tim Landess, Spencer RedCorn

Our adventure started Friday as 12 folks from Guymon, OK traveled to The Colony, TX. After staying overnight at TPC - The Colony with other team members, 19 of us headed south 2 hours to Mexia, TX on the next leg of our journey. Once in Mexia, we were a complete team of 23 people for the first time. Our first day was spent on the road in two full-size vans getting to know one another. Food, fun, fellowship were enjoyed by all once in Beaumont, TX for the night. A special thanks to our hosts from St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Beaumont for a wonderful restaurant choice, opening up their building to us, and joining us for our evening activities! We closed the evening with worship as we will every night on the trip.

Sunday morning we stayed for worship with the St. Andrews folks before loading back up in the vans for our last day of driving. Along much of the trip across I-10, these odd, wet, drops of water fell from the sky off and on causing most of us from North Texas to think WAY back in our memories to identify the phenomena!

We haven't even begun work yet, but most of us are already exhausted (well maybe just the over 35 crowd...)! As soon as we pulled up at the Olive Tree Volunteer Village, there's been something to do, meetings to attend to introduce us to the program, dinner, and a wonderful opening worship led by Lauren (one of Grace Presbytery's own products I might add!!), Amber and Joe. I can't wait until tomorrow when we can focus all the extra energy our youth have on some hard work!

Day One

Today, our team will break into 3 work groups for the week. Each group will be at a different homeowner site working on projects 4 of the 5 days this week. On the fifth day, each group will work on a "community" project - soup kitchen, homeless shelter, working at schools or churches, etc.

Work group names for the week are Eastview, Tureaud, and Overton - all named after the street name where their project is located. The Eastview crew will be working on exterior siding, the Tureaud crew will be blowing insulation, caulking, and doing paint touch-up, and the Overton crew will be construction a sub-floor (beams, joists, etc). After today we will be able to share more details of the work with you.

Today, please pray specifically for: 1) our safety, 2) and pray that all we do demonstrates the love of God as we serve our brothers and sisters in need.

God is Good! All the Time!!

Traditionally, if a trip sponsor wants to get the team's attention he/she will yell "God is Good!", to which the team will respond "All the Time!". Well today, we found a car wash that uses this exact saying and thought it was the perfect picture moment. We truly do believe God is good all the time!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Overton - Day 2, by Rachel Maduro

It’s day two of our project, building a foundation for a house, and with the rain gone we actually got some work done. Some of us are setting up the joists while Pam and I are hammering away at anti-termite metal in an attempt to make them fit. It’s coming together great. Even with a storm rain just barely skimming by us, we didn’t actually get hit although it turns out people work a lot faster when you tell them a storm is about to hit. It looks like we might finish our goal for this entire week by tomorrow. But, because this was our first day actually working for the full time, it was also our first time getting used to the usual New Orleans heat we’ll be working in. We had to learn the hard way that you’re no use to anyone if you don’t stay hydrated and how to use tools we’ve never picked up or even seen before.

Tureaud - Day 2, by Christian Durbin

I’m part of the AP Tureaud group and our assignment is insulation and paint touch-up. After spending the first day in a hot attic in the hot and humid New Orleans weather and getting some carpentry done, today we spent doing our community projects. We spent half the day at a school painting a nursery. We got a surprising amount of painting done considering how long it took us to get to the school. The second part of our day was spent at a summer camp where kids had been pulled out of several churches to attend some schooling along with some teaching of the Word. We sang a few songs with the kids and it really was amazing to see how much song can make you feel the Spirit. It was a great break to have from the heat, but I believe we are all ready to get back to work on our house tomorrow and truly make a difference in someone’s life.

Eastview - Day 2, by Madison Davis (aka "Wisconsin")
Welp... it’s day 2 of our project!!! We are painting and putting siding on a house!!!! Yesterday wasn’t too productive, but today went by a lot faster!!! Some of us hold up jigs, nail the siding in, drill holes in the siding, painted the siding, while others saw the correct measurements. We have a pretty smooth system and we have almost finished our goal... the last side of the house!!
Tomorrow we get to paint rooms in a school, to help them prepare for the fall and then help teachers at a summer bible camp!!! I can’t wait to work with all the little kids tomorrow. Yes, the heat has been horrible, but we can put up with it as long as we are making a difference in someone else’s life.
The group I work with is so funny and fun to work with, our team leader, Tim, gave everyone nicknames... mine is Wisconsin, Madison being the capital of it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring…Oh yea!! I can’t wait to see how things turn out!!
 

Thursday, July 28, 2011
Overton project - Pam Hampson

Today was bittersweet in that it was our last day to work at our construction site. The foundation is strong and will weather the storms of time. Blessings will abound there. But for us, we will leave Chris to continue on with other volunteers over the next several months to complete the new house. Before we left the site, we wrote messages on the middle beam so that as others follow us they will read our messages of encouragement. And, if at any time in the future someone was to work under the house, then they would also see the messages.

Tomorrow we will be going to a new school to have our “community service” day. We look forward to a new day and a continued journey on this mission trip.


This picture was taken as we were leaving the construction site and the rain was beginning to fall. Those in the picture include (left to right): Ken, Rachel, Spencer, Tyler, Kelly, Chris (Site Manager) and Wes.

Tureaud - Wes Stiefer, II

I have a new nick name I am called the 'Attic Gremlin' because I can do a good impression of a Gremlin and I went to the attic a lot.

(From Dad): Wes, II has learned many new skills this week, one of which was how to remove and re-install new blow-in insulation in an attic. From what I'm told, when he came down from the attic today, he was soaking wet. Good job Wes!

Eastview - Jonathan Barksdale

Yesterday, Group 3 went to a church, Berean Presbyterian, there were these kids, Broc and Lester, who both had talents that I didn’t think they would have. Broc was a great artist and Lester was a drummer and he showed me that you can be any age to drum. At lunch when the kids ate lunch and we left they thought we wouldn’t come back, but after we ate some delicious po-boys. When we got back the kids were so glad that they can end the day with volunteers. At first, they were playing musical chairs then splitting into groups of ages. When I was with the middle group I learned new dance moves and that kids love magic tricks.

Eastview - Lucas Spratt

Today my group and I tried to finish putting up the trimming on our house. We went for a couple of hours and got A LOT done. Then right before lunch our trash trailer stopped by and it started to pour down rain, we got about 4”. After it calmed down me Tim Landess and Todd Singleterry went out and started to cut more siding when the rain decided to fall yet again, but we didn’t give up we just pushed through it and got as much done as possible.

Then tonight after dinner our site manager, Christina Drake, came and gave us a little concert with her pianist/guitarist, Evan. She is auditioning for “The Voice”. Can’t to finish God’s work tomorrow!!

P.S. Marianne (Brummett) is the best sponsor ever!! (Hey, what about Wes? signed the "Blog Master" ;-))

Tureaud - Joanna Whipple and Averie Hinchey

Today our group finished insulating an attic. It was extremely hot and stuffy. But we got it done. Averie, Lee, Christian, and Wes, II have been working on this project all week while I (Joanna) have been painting the crown molding and filling in nail holes, but today even Patty and I actually helped blow in the insulation. After we were done, we went and got another Snow-Ball. Yum! We arrived back to Olive Tree and ate dinner and afterwards our group had dinner clean-up. Not so fun. Christina Drake sang several songs for us after dinner while they taped it for an audition for “The Voice.” She was great. Worship tonight was amazing. Lauren gave a very touching message that even made me cry. She talked about having a “spiritual checklist,” where most of the time we go to church on Sunday mornings and “check,” we go to youth group and “check,” we pray every night and “check,” and so forth. This is great but your heart isn’t in it. You have to do it because you love God. Not just because you should. Let go, let God.

This week has been a life changing experience for all of us. We’ve met new friends, we’ve grown spiritually in our relationship with God, we’ve helped God’s children who are in desperate need of it, and we’ve definitely helped ourselves. We can’t wait until next year.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Tureaud - Marianne Brummett (aka Gilligan!!!!)

Can I just say WOW, WOW, WOW!!! I totally love doing Mission work and going on Mission trips!! God has an Awesome way of blessing ME, when I am suppose to be here blessing others!!

My family has grown by leaps and bounds!! New daughters and sons!! Brothers and sisters!!! It is great being a part of the family of GOD!!!

Now, as far as work goes... HOT, Hard, dirty, sweaty, grungy, grimy and TOTALLY exhausting!!! I actually learned how to cut tile! And then I laid tile in a small tiny little bathroom with NO air movement!!!! ( I didn’t know I could sweat so much!!!) Let’s see, I also did caulking on ceiling mold!! Filling in gaps and holes!! And of course I did a WHOLE lot of talking!!! Imagine that!!
I especially wanna thank LAUREN RAMPY for hooking us up and being our “GO TO” girl!! She is the BOMB!!! I am very proud of her and All she is doing with her life!!! Awesome young GRACE Presbytery YOUTH—Now Young Adult Volunteer!!!

Hugs and prayers to you all!!! See you again soon, one day!!!