As a team we are learning to see God’s work all around us.  Learning to spot Him and hear His voice is easier, not simply because we are on mission here, but because our spiritual senses are more aware because of the minimal distractions.  I’ve been so encouraged to watch this team come together in unity, but even beyond the working, they are serving and ministering to one another.  It’s a great picture of the body of Christ.  As Ephesians 4:5 reminds us, we all share “one Lord and one faith.”  

Our mornings start early (although some students start earlier than others) with time alone with God, breakfast and then a brief team devotional time.  Our students volunteer to lead this morning devotional and I’ve been impressed with their leadership and willingness to share what God is teaching them through His Word.  

We once again headed out to the Ranch today with some big projects on our plate.  But as things sometimes go down here, we hit a few snags along the way.  The stair building project hit a engineering question that left many of our team standing around and waiting for work.  But God was good to bring the kids to the Ranch so we could use the time playing.  Others jumped on an organization project of the tools which was a huge help.  Then another part of our team started work on the chicken coop.  We rewrapped the coop with a stronger galvanized wire and then starting building the nesting boxes.  All in all, we didn’t get as much as we hoped accomplished, but we still had fun and worked hard in the process.

I had the privilege to have a meeting with the local pastor in the community.  Last year’s team added a last minute project to paint his church, but we never got to meet him.  This year we did and we are really looking forward to an upcoming outreach and then a further partnership where we can bless him and support his efforts.

We had a few from our team stay behind today to try to rest and fight off this bug that has been going around.  We’ve had a few bounce back already and are hopeful the others will.  It’s no fun being left behind and we don’t like serving without our complete team.  So please be praying that these will recover quickly and it won’t keep spreading.  Thanks for standing with us in prayer!