beulah missionary church and jasper umc

it's crazy to think week three is already over, and we have one more week until have the summer is over! everything has definitely gone by so fast.
i wish i was able to update this more, but i'm sure you can understand how busy everything gets. and never having internet at the lodge doesn't quite help. haha
anyways, this week's team was incredible. we had definitely a different dynamic, with more adults than youth, and one of our teams being just adults. this definitely allotted for some changes in our programming, but it worked out in the end! and it was kind of refreshing to hang out with older people all week. in college, you're always surrounded by people your own age, and at home you only hang out with people your own age, so every once and a while it's so nice to hang out with those older than you to change the atmosphere a bit.

this week, we worked on ms. allie's house, the one we will be at all summer long. she has the sweetest family, and is such a strong woman, and it was amazing getting to tell her we were starting on her house this week.
i think i wrote about it before, but ms. allie had been looking for help for over seven years, and arm was the first agency to finally help her out. a lot of her damage was from hurricane katrina, and it is just now getting taken care of.
this summer we will be working on her porches, roof, bathroom, and bedroom.
originally, all we had planned for this week was her back porch and starting on her bathroom.
this group seriously went above and beyond, and finished her back porch, demoed and redid her front porch, completely finished her bathroom, fixed the insulation underneath the house, and even painted the exterior. they had so much service to give to her, and it was amazing to see.

also, one thing to know about ms. allie, is that she has been living off of a generator since december. the electric company charged her almost triple for her bill one month, and she called to tell them about the wrong numbers, but they told her there was nothing they can do and that was what she owed them. so, she wasn't able to pay it, and they shut her power off. then, the next month, she got another bill from the electric company for a payment on the month she didn't even have power. so, she called again, but they told her that was still her outstanding payment to them, plus the added month's worth of power she didn't even have.
basically, she had to pay an enormous bill to get her power turned back on, that wasn't even the power she used, on top of another fee to turn it back on, to ever get her power back.
beulah, after already going above and beyond with their work, contacted their church and district and came up with the money to turn on ms. allie's power.
when the church told her that, she just began to cry. i wish there was a way to describe the moment, but it was definitely one of those step back kind of things. i even started crying and it wasn't even my power getting turned back on.
but the look on her face, and how first she looked up to the sky, and thanked God for bringing this group to her.
it was a moment i will never forget, and the moment that will keep me going through this summer and many stresses seem to pile up everyday.
this is what it's all about. this is what we are meant to do on this earth. love and serve others; give to others what we have and what they need. go above and beyond in everything we do. and have moments like this, all the time.
like i said before, this group just went above and beyond. and on the last day, i was talking to ms. allie and she was telling me how she was on the phone with one of her sons telling him all about what our group was doing. she told me that he said 'i hope that one day i will be blessed enough to meet the people that made my mother so happy'
and that was just such an awesome thing to here, and i hope beulah knows what a huge impact they made on ms. allie and her family, and that they should not take their work as something small.
their work was the start of bigger things. the start of love and hope in this family, and love in hope in the community.

also, one thing i forgot to mention was her family. she has three grandkids and one daughter who usually stay with her at her house.
these kids were so much help this week, always willing to do whatever jobs needed to be done, and so much fun to hang out with.
they are such great kids, with good manners, smiles, hugs, everything. and i know they can go far in life, and i will always keep them in my prayers.
john was telling me how he was talking to one of the kids, kevin, as they rode to the hardware store together. kevin is just 11 years old. john was just talking to him about what he likes to do, and what he wants to do when he's older. he was talking about how he likes baseball, but there's not really places to play around their town. and how when he gets older, he wants to do what we do, what arm does. and i was just thinking how amazing it would be for kevin to be the one we served, and then to one day serve others. God's power is limitless, and i know kevin is meant to exceed the limits he may have been born into.

finally, one more thing about ms. allie, is that she makes these incredible handcrafted ships. she uses matchsticks, each one which she lights individually to make a pattern, and creates the bottom of the ship. and then uses cloth to make the sails. her art is absolutely beautiful, and takes so much skill and time, and we are all working on finding a way to advertise for her ships so she can sell them like she hopes to.

overall, this work we was incredible, and will be one i need to remember to remind myself what it is i'm doing here in alabama and the purpose of my time here.

and finally, here are the pictures for the week :)

before bathroom:

before front porch:

before back porch:

after back porch:

starting some front porch demo:

ms. allie's beautiful ships:

front porch after (we're adding on the roof part with another team):

bathroom after:

also, john said girl could paint his nails for $20 in his pie jar. little did he know, they only put in $12... haha

the group:

finally, we said if the group raised a certain amount of money they could pie us all. and of course, they did. haha