First Reformed

We arrived in Grundy, VA tonight! We were able to get oriented and are excited to serve in this community! 

Today we had Sunday service at Grundy UMC. You can see pastor Donnie's evident heart for the Lord. He shakes everyone's hand who walks in those doors and you can see his love for them shine. Having our team there alongside his church I believe really inspired him, with a crew ready and willing to serve in the morning tomorrow. We got to meet church members here and got to know our team a lot more throughout the day as we traveled to Breaks Park. Our team is very sarcastic and fun but also eager to serve this community. I can't wait to share what God does tomorrow.

What an awesome time part of our team had serving at a local food bank, Feeding My Sheep. We enjoyed helping with lots of little tasks such as pressure washing, cleaning, and weed eating, but mostly, we enjoyed fellowshipping with our new friends. What an amazing day hearing and getting to experience what the Lord is doing through this ministry. 

This Job of building the porch was a process, it seemed we just kept running into new problems one after another and couldn't figure out how we were going to go about it. Thankfully we made progress and hope to help pastor on Wednesday. Tonight we had many laughs about this project but it was beautiful working alongside one another and talking with Sandy, her son Dennis and his wife. I believe although we didn't finish this project today, we helped tremendously and showed Sandy and her family about the love of Christ, which makes this all a success.

With our team and their hard work of cleaning after bears, transforming a yard of trees and carrying air conditioner units, it was easy to see the relief and joy from Pastor Anthony. We can all see Pastor Anthony and his genuine heart for Christ and being able to be there for him and help with projects that would have taken days for one man, done in some hours. Seeing the joy of this man and his ministry has inspired me and seeing our team serve in a selfless manner made me just step back and think "This is the body of Christ" and it truly is.

What an amazing day helping to clean and hanging out with our new friends at Mountain Mission School. We had so much fun!

We got the porch all ready for what Pastor Donnie wants to do next with it. We made so much progress today and things went smoother with just as much laughs. Sandy was so happy and Pastor Donnie was thankful for what we accomplished, alongside him and his friend Paul.

These guys can get work done and it seems like even through dripping sweat, they always had a smile on their face. I had a joy serving with them.