On Wednesday, August 20 we will have a Youth Back to School Party beginning at 6:30.  There will be FOOD and games!  Tell all of your friends, come hungry and bring somebody with you!  For more details, contact Brother Stan or any Youth Committee Member. Have a great week!

On Wednesday, August 6, the youth will be going to Extreme Week Services at First Baptist Church of Castor.  The speaker will be Ryan Fontenot.  Anyone who plans on going will need to be at the church at 5:30.  Pass the word!  Call Brother Stan for more details. 

Also, Extreme Week will be going on all week, but we will only be going as a group on Wednesday.

This shot is from the Founder’s Day Festival last year.  Our Youth group sponsored the Wrestling Matches.  This is our Youth posing with Dr. Death, Steve Williams.  They had a great time!

Yummy!  Watermelon!  This is a shot of one of the challenges on Teen Night.  The teams consisted on 2 boys and 2 girls.  The first challenge was a watermelon eating contest.  Each team had one representative. 

Next, each team had to carry a watermelon everywhere they went on a tablecloth and each member of the team had to grab a corner.  It was funny! 

Then, they moved on to the obstacle course water slide.  Each team member had to go through the obstacle course, up and down the slide while holding a watermelon.  Each team was timed.  

 Upon finishing the obstacle course, they received a clue and everyone took off, even though they didn’t know where they were going. :)

They looked FOREVER to find their next clue!  It was inside of the Magnolia parsonage. 

They had to complete a watermelon fact test as a team.  It was pretty difficult!

Next, they moved on to the jumping house with a basketball goal.  While everyone was jumping, each team member had to make a basket.  This was also timed. 

All of their scores were tallied and the winning team was Shamarcus, Molly, Emma and Colton!  Their prize was a Watermelon Festival t-shirt.  The second place team was Spencer, Brianna, Brooke and Josh J.  There were 10 teams.   So, we had 40 participants and a lot of people watching.  We finished the night with hot dog meal and a water slide at the church.  Thanks to everyone who helped to make the Watermelon Festival Teen night a success.  A great time was had by all!

This is just a reminder that tonight is Youth Night at the Watermelon Festival.  It starts at 6:30.  There will be a scavenger hunt and lots of fun!  So, make plans to come and remind everyone!  See you there!

If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If you serve, you should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.   1 Peter 4:11 (NIV)  

On our mission trip, we talked several times about everyone having different talents.  It is a fact that God gave each of us different abilities.  On our trip, some were able to do things better than others. Some people could lay tile, some could dig, some could clean stuff up, some could paint and some were really good helpers in anything they did.  Some people have the talent of saying what is on their heart and mind, but some don’t.  We had a time in our devotion on Thursday night to say what the trip meant to us.  Some shared.  Some didn’t.  Everyone got something out of the trip and it is important. This mission trip may have touched someone who didn’t go with us.  Your service or words may inspire and encourage.   It may be someone you know well, someone that you just met or maybe even someone you will never even know about.  The little things do count!  Whatever you did, it was in order to serve and it was very important.   

I would like for this post to give EVERYONE the opportunity to speak out on what the mission trip to Lakeshore, Mississippi meant to them.  There is no word limit! There are no right or wrong answers.  If you did speak during devotion, please put it on here for all to see.  Say what is on your heart and don’t forget, God has a sense of humor too!

For those of you who don’t know how to leave a response, just click the title of post in red or the word COMMENT at the bottom of the post you are responding to.  A new page will come up.  Go to the bottom of the page.  Fill in your name and email address.  Type your response in the box and push send comment.

We left on Friday morning on the way to Blue Bayou in Baton Rouge, LA.  We got together on the office steps to take a group shot with Brother Don, the pastor of Lakeshore Baptist Church.  This picture is also on rebuildlakeshore.com . 

On the last morning, I walked around and took a few pictures of the facilities at Lakeshore Baptist Church. 

This is the current Lakeshore Baptist Church.  In this spot, there was about 40 ft of water during the hurricane.  Their church was torn apart and the Sunday school building was swept away and never seen again. 

 This is the steeple to the original church.  It was found down the road.

This is the interior of the church.  The pulpit was recovered after the storm in a field.  The cross on the wall was built from lumber from the original church building.

 This is the hut where our guys bunked. 

This is the trailer that housed all of the girls.  It is called the ARK.  It had 24 bunk beds and two army cots. 

This is a cottage that you see a lot of in Lakeshore.  There are easily recognizable because of the pastel colors.

This was my favorite place to sit.  This is the porch of the office that coordinates all of the wonderful work that is going on in Lakeshore.  Plus, it had a good internet connection!  In this picture, Noelle and Shamarcus are relaxing before we pull out!

All of the crews except the flooring crew finished up early as it started to rain.  So, what do a bunch of girls do when they have nothing to do???  That’s right…Makeup, hair and nails!  Mckenna was our makeup woman and Taylor did quite a few nails.  Claire, our recent beauty school graduate, fixed almost everyone’s hair.  She did a great job, SO if you need a new DO…she is the girl to call.  Below:  Claire fixing Anne’ Marie’s hair.  Behind them is Mckenna doing her makeup thing.

We went to a great Chinese restaraunt for supper that night.  It was called Yung Lon.  Everything was delicious!  Ken, Michael and Greg REALLY loved it!  Ken was our fortune cookie reader and had a great time doing it! 

 When we got back to the church campground, we had our devotion in the MASH hall.  MASH stands for Meals And Service for Him.  It was a great heart felt devotion.  Everyone that wanted to go to tell what this mission trip meant to them.  It was a very special time for all! 

Those of you who know us, know that a trip would not be complete without GAMES!  We had a few games going on such as UNO, Catch Phrase and various other card games.  Below are a few game shots…

This is Shamarcus putting the finishing touches on our T-shirt to hang in the mess hall.  Ours had the photo from the top of this page.   Everyone signed their name and Shamarcus wrote our verse on the back of the shirt.  The verse was James 1:2-4  ”Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

On Friday, onto Baton Rouge to the Water Park! 

Okay, at last…Day 4!

Today, we finished up our jobs!  The flooring and tile job took the longest time of all of the jobs.  It is really impressive to see how it looked when it was finished.  That crew got a few benefits that the others didn’t with a wonderful lady feeding them lunch!  Here are a few pictures of that job!  Looks great, huh?

This picture is from the first day on this job in the red room.  They spent their time scraping the floor to prepare for the flooring.  I had missed posting this room.

This bathroom was Shane’s baby.  Well, actually Shane was the boss and he had three helpers.  They were Amanda, Brooke and Brianna.  Good job, gang!

 The flooring job was completed by Marsha, BJ, Greg, Kayla, Spencer, and Daniel.  Check out this funny shot of our youth sleeping on the beautiful floor! Thanks Marsha for getting this shot!

This was our lunch crew for Thursday.  I neglected to get pictures of the different girls on lunch crew and clean up crews all week, because I was usually out of pocket.  These girls did everything!  They went to get supplies for lunch, fixed ice chests, washed and dryed clothes, swept and mopped the rooms, cleaned bathrooms, picked up trash, etc.  When they finished their duties they helped any crews that were working close.  You name it, they did it!    Pictured are:  Alayna, Jessica, McKenna and Sarah.  Others working on the crew during the week were:  Emily, Kellyann, Anne’ Marie, Noelle, Mallory, etc.  Led by Rebekah, Dottie, Anissa, Patti, Claire and Nickey.  There were two adults in charge each day.  It was a big job!  Thanks for all that you did girls! 

The shed building crew worked to complete their project also.  They finished roofing it and putting on the door.  The crew finishing that job was Michael, Stan, Tommy, Dusty, Dakota, Shamarcus, Kody and Gus.  Below:  Getting the door in place, while the youth are getting the roofing done.  Stan was not stressed!!! LOL 

 Looks good to me!  Michael was holding the door from the inside.  I think they will be using this shed to house tools.  Super job guys!  Oh, yes and girls for painting it.  Kellyann, Emily, Noelle, Anne’ Marie, and etc.  If I forgot you, let me know.

On to the clearing crew!  The clearing crew finished up their job and what a great job they did.  I was really impressed with how hard this crew worked on this 1/2 acre lot.  Here are a few shots from Ken and Rebekah’s clearing crew.

These girls worked hard.  You would be surprised what girls with machetti’s can do!  Don’t get me wrong those guys were gettting with it too!  I just haven’t seen girls working so hard on a clearing project before.  The impressive thing was they were given the choice to be on lunch crew or clearing crew and they stayed because it was fun! 

Our clearing crew finishing the job consisted of Dylan, Molly, Melaina, Jody, Ken, Matthew, Tucker, Taylor, Mallory, Nickey, Rebekah, Emily, Amber and Hailey.  They are one rough looking bunch!  I am so proud of how hard you worked on it!  (Even you Ken)  Ps.  They were no shovels for Ken to lean on!  LOL

The finished product! 

Day 3 brought change for some of us.  The crews changed a lot with jobs getting finished and others beginning. 

The painting crew that finished that job were Kayla, Patti, Claire, Molly, Amber and Chelsie. We did the finishing work on the painting job.  Our painting girls in the master bathroom were Chelsie, Amber and Molly.   

 Today, we had a clearing crew.  Their job was to clear a lot for a cottage to be moved in.  It was quite a job!  Their only tools were 2 weedeaters, 1 power saw, 4 machettis, 5 rakes, 3 hand saws, and a pair of shears.  Rebekah, Melaina, Taylor, Nickey, Tucker, Jody, Dusty, Matthew, and Ken were on this huge job both days!  We had a bigger crew on Thursday to finish the job!  If anyone was left out, sorry!  There will be a group picture on Day 4.   

Next, the flooring crew!  This crew was Marsha, Shane, BJ, Greg, Spencer, Daniel, Brooke, Amanda,  and Brianna on Wednesday.  They did the bathroom tile and floor, and the wood flooring throughout the house.  They did a great job!  Spencer and Daniel putting down the glue.

Shane, Amanda, Brianna and Brooke working on the bathroom.  Looks great, huh?

Marsha woking hard on the flooring!  She can lay some flooring!  Want to come over to my house?

The shed building crew made a lot of progress in a one day!  They are almost through!  Below, you see Michael, Tommy, Kody,  and Gus.  Dakota was not shown.

We also had a cleaning crew and a lunch crew.  I didn’t get a picture of these crews but I assure you everyone had a job and worked hard! 

We attended services at Lakeshore Baptist Church on Wednesday night.  Brother Don gave us a little history on how their mission began after the storm.  Other than our group, their were churches from Kentucky, Houston and Pennsylvania.  There were approximately 180 people there during our stay. 

Day 4 coming up!