Last Day of Work and Fun

Today was awesome! Some people went to work to worksites and the others tie-dyed shirts from this mission trip. The people who went to the worksites worked until 11:00 and finished four sites. When they came back to the church they had lunch and we all headed for canoeing. The canoeing trip was a blast with many splashes and upside down canoes. Two renegade sponsors blasted many lucky and hot youths with super-duper water guns - those lucky youths! Aresha and Sarah ganged up on one of the renegades and tried to steal the arsenal - but to no avail!

The whole team in the water havin fun canoeing.

At the stops we made we threw a frisbee and a tennis ball.

While we were doin this we were blasted by John Grady and Janice Smith-Bagheri and thier super powerful water guns.

We found a rope swing along the way and spent about an hour swinging into the cool refreshing water. There were many laughs and belly flops to be had!


We will be returning tomorrow at 11:00am. Pick up is at WPC.

Team One - Emily F, Marshall, Jennifer, Henry, Janice and Carlos

Finishing up our Working Week

Hey!!!

Today was the last full day of work for some of our group. Tomorrow, half our group will be working around the church while the other half finishes up our jobsites. It was a long, hard day with many tired youth after last night's festivities. 

Team Carlos/Caressa/James had a really long workday, but once everyone was divided up between the tasks, we were able to get a lot of work done.  Some of the boys and Caressa taped off, prepped, sanded, and textured the walls while the rest of us base painted and put up molding. After a 9 hour workday, we had a bunch of very tired kids and most of our work finished, leaving just a little bit to do tomorrow.

Team Watson went to 3 houses today. In one house, they finished doors that for some reason took all week to do..... In the next house, they painting trim and finished up some other odds and ends. In the last house they put up some sheet rock.  

Team John painted, finished putting up trim, and started putting up doors.  They got to work with Ronnie and Michael which was a blast!  On the way home they stopped by a veteran's memorial and took some pretty awesome pictures.

Team Janice/Lynn painted, painted, painted and did a little bit of sanding.  They painted the entire interior of a house, minus the bathroom.  All the painting took a lot of prep before their 5 hours straight of painting.

At the end of the night, we had an awesome dinner of lasagna and key lime pies made by David! During devotionals, we had an extra special time of lighting candles and reflecting on the ways we have seen God this week.

Good Night!!!

~Team 5

(Elizabeth, Kyle, Matt, and Amy) 

 

Carpentry and Crawfish

Day 3 of Work

Today was our third day of hard work and carpentry!

Team John and Janice painted a whole outside of a house. Awesome!! However, John did not participate in the painting outdoors, while Janice and the youth suffered in the heat. They also hung five doors inside the house in Bridge City. Bridge City is where only 14 homes out of 3,800 homes that did not receive water from Hurricane Ike. They were fixing 1 of the 3,786 homes that needed to be remodeled.

Team Caressa and Watson headed back to the pink house in Port Arthur where work had been done on Monday. Today their team put in ceiling tiles, which involved using a hand staple gun above you. Tough work that they did beautifully. Along with the ceiling titles they fixed doors and put trim around a bedroom door and closet doors. Although the batteries on the skill saw died so the last door could not be completed, so a group will stop by in the morning to finish that quickly.

Team Lynn worked at the resale shop, the Attic. Sorting through cloths and miscellaneous objects, they found some really cool 80's jumpsuits and a crazy suit. Together they sorted through a mountain of clothes and hung them on racks.

Team James and Carlos went to Beaumont to install sheet rock in the ceiling of a home. They then spackled the walls to prep them for texture. Also, they stripped some molding from the walls. Because the room was a little on the small side, while some people where in the room those leftover went and relaxed outside in the shade of clouds.

After a long, exhausting day we gathered back at the church to prepare for our feast! Some very generous friends of Caressa invited us into their amazing backyard for dinner. There was a nice pool and a lake with a dock and paddle boat to swim in. They cooked some very yummy crawfish and shrimp for us that was delicious! We had an amazing time hanging out together and cooling down in the lake and pool. There was a ton of crazy jumping off the dock and fun!

When arriving back at the church, James discovered that, yet again, his belongings were missing. Mysteriously every year his bedding, bags, and belongings go missing. This year in it's place there was a wheelchair. The culprit was eventually apprehended and returned his belongings after a ransom of Hershey hugs.

After a great day of work and fun everyone is ready for a good nights rest. And are prepared for another day of work! Thanks for checking in on us and for all your prayers and support!

Love, Group 4

-Michelle, Graham, Rebekah, Emily, and Aresha

(O and John, but he really didn't help. We are starting to see a trend.)

2nd day of work

Another day of hard work and sweat (lots of sweat):

Team Janice and Watson had the job of replacing temporary windows to permanent ones in Beaumont. The task was long and tedious. There were many trips back and forth to the hardware store to get the materials needed to complete the job.

Team Lynn and John had the job of power washing and painting the outside of a house in direct sunlight in Bridge City.  In temperatures above 90 degrees, the team had to stay extra hydrated. 

Team Carlos finished up the job they started yesterday: replacing base boards and touch 

up painting. After that was completed they drove to Beaumont to do demolition on a kitchen

 ceiling and hallway ceiling. The job was dirty and definitely not great for their allergies.

Team James worked in Port Arthur and had the job of painting and hanging doors. After many trials and tribulations, the job was almost completed. 

Team Caressa worked at the Union Board of Mission's resale shop called "The Attic".  They sorted and rearranged displays and emptied out truck loads of more donations.

Team James and Caressa switched workers midway through the day.

With Love,

Group 3: Colleen, Rudy, Melissa, Brandon, and Watson

First Day of Work!

Hey, Webster Presby!

Today was our first day of mission work in the Port Arthur and Beaumont area. This morning we traveled to the SETIO (South East Texas Interfaith Organization) warehouse and met with our coordinator, Scott, and met the guys on his team (Mario, Blake, Barney, and Carl) who had lots of advice and instructions for us. We were briefed on safety and the work we were going to do, and everyone was then split up into five groups and headed out to their different work sites. Between all of us, we replaced doors, put in baseboards, painted, textured walls, worked in a resale shop (much like ICM food pantry and store near us), and met with the homeowners. We all had lots of water, stayed safe, and soldiered through the heat with the help of our Cool-Rags made by Mrs. Jill Massie! Work wrapped up around 4 o'clock, with each of the groups arriving after they completed their day's task. Everyone in our group has expressed how gracious the homeowners at their work site were, and we all just had a really great time. We got back to Central Baptist, rested up, showered, relaxed, and had a wonderful dinner of spaghetti and meatballs made for us by one of our small groups. We topped it off with Blue-Bell fudge pops, and now we're settling in for another night of games, fellowship, and devotional worship. 

We love and miss you all,

-Group 2: Sarah Faxel, Bethany Cowan, Melanie Moore, Trevor Grunden, David Snowden, & James Kinzler

Expedition Bridge City

Well, we headed out from Webster with a great send off from family and friends. This year 22 youth and 7 adults have decided to take a week out of there summer to help with Hurricane Ike recovery. We left Webster Presbyterian Church around 3:30 and got in some really good bonding time with each other in jam packed vans. We arrived in Bridge City around 5:00 and started to settle in right away at our home for the week, the Central Baptist Church in Port Arthur.  The church has provided us with cots and mattresses, along with a whole floor in their sunday school area. There are showers in the church, with hot water! (Unlike last year's little fiasco with the ice cold water.) We are thankful to be staying at such an accommodating church. For dinner we headed out to the local Casa Olé for a tasty meal. At the dinner we sat with our small groups and got to know one another better. These small groups are groups of about 4 or 5 youth with 1 adult. Each group is in charge of a different task each day such as, breakfast crew, lunch crew, dinner crew, or devotional crew. In just a little bit the group plans to play some fun games together, followed by our nightly devotional. Tonight Caressa has planned a special opening night devotional to show us why we felt called to serve God in this place. After all that is planned for this evening, we plan to get a good nights rest for our first day of work tomorrow. 

Thank you for your prayers, support, and love. Stay tuned for more updates on our adventures.

-Sarah Faxel and Michelle Dupont

Introduction to 2009 Sr. High Mission Trip

Hello all!

After being commissioned at the 11:00 service on Sunday June 28, the Sr. High Group and Sponsors will leave on the Sr. High Mission Trip at 3:00 pm to head to Bridge City, TX. Bridge City is at the border between Texas and Louisiana, close to the Gulf. (In the middle of the map, north of the Sabine Lake.) It is by Port Arthur and Beaumont. The drive will take a little more than 2 hours. Even though this mission trip is closer than the past two mission trips, we felt we needed to go where the need was greatest-Ike recovery. Many of us experienced the effects of Ike first hand and really wanted to help the people who still needed lots of help to rebuild their homes. 80% of the people in Bridge City had their homes flooded.

We will return to WPC on Saturday July 4 at about 11:00 am.Thank you very much for your prayers and support.

Thanks for reading!

-Sarah Faxel