Last Day!

Today we packed up and cleaned up the mission, and then met to talk about what God had taught us throughout the week.  After one last prayer walk, we then departed for the Westside Market.  We expect to be back at the church at around 1pm today!!!

Day Off Part 2...

After a fun afternoon we went back to the mission place and changed into our swimsuits for Edgewater Park. Once there, we ran straight into the water and played around a little bit. Then the lifeguards called a break so we got out and did the Cleveland Shuffle. Then we dug a hole ( Josh's idea) and buried Allayna. Then we dug another hole (well, Josh did) and buried him. We then went back to the mission place and changed back into other clothes. Then we left to go to the Cleveland Indians Game. It was my first professional game ever! I can say I went to one even though I didn't understand it one bit! We left a little early and went to bed at the Mission Place.

Jennifer

Day Off Part 1...

Good morning or night whenever you read this but today is/was Thursday. Today we were exhausted after a late and restless night. We got up at 7am (what in the world is this ungodly hour?) We ate french toast and sausage. After a "nutritious" breakfast we left for the zoo. As soon as we arrived inside the park we split up and saw most of it. There were koalas and fish and bear and things like that. After that we left for the Melt *YAY*. As we stared at the menu and saw the most delicous options, we ordered. I ordered a deep fried mac and cheese sandwich *YUM* Others had normal-ish sandwiches. Thanks for reading I can't wait to sleep in my own bed! So Long, Zoe                    

Wednesday Part 2...

Today was our last day of work. Some groups finished and some groups did not finish. I will mostly be talking about my group's time on the sites. My group had already finished putting in the fence posts and setting up the boards. Although we did have some screws that we still had to put in this was from around 9-9:58. Since we had nothing to do we had to go work on projects with the other groups. We worked with Pastor Brett's group, their group was painting a house. We got to the house around 10 and worked until 12. This is when we had lunch, before we left my hand got accidentally smashed in the car door. Then we went back to the house we finished up and Mrs. Scott the home owner came out to see us off. She was really nice and gave us comics and keychains.

      ;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D

(wink faces)

Jackson

Wednesday...

Heyllo!, its Jamie. Im gonna tell you about today. Well first of all we got dressed, had breakfast, and then went to our devotion. We ended up learning more of the Cleveland Shuffle dance and then had our devotion. After that we headed out to our work site with more people because some of them finished their projects. We got a lot done with more people!  We finished painting the garage, side, front, and back of our homeowners house. Then we came back, cleaned up, washed our tools, and ate dinner.

TUESDAY NIGHT...

Devotions and debrief at Edgewater Park!

TUESDAY PART 3...

Hello!!!! Okay take like 4 seconds and guess who's writing...
I'd like to say "hi" to my Mom and my Dad.
I'd also like to say "Hey" to my amazing big brother. I miss you all.
Okay it's Natalie.

Alright so let's talk about today. Today was quite a day.  So, we showed up to the house (My group is painting a really really tall house) and we got right into painting and all that jazz. Then BOOM, yes it happened. It started raining. We huddled under the edge of the garage and watched as it poured. There wasn't much else we could do and I was really disappointed because of course, I wanted to be able to get the work done. But as always God had a plan. My groups homeowner is a very sweet, old woman (no offense of course). She came out onto her front porch and wanted to see how we were doing out in the rain. (All right now, if you don't know me your first going to need a little background information). I am a very anxious person. I worry a lot about the future (don't worry there's more about me too ha). Okay so, this woman stood up on her porch and talked...and talked...and talked. This speech she gave though, was something I needed to hear. She told us about how God has tomorrow planned out, how we need to worry about today, and just make it through one day at a time. God knows how things will play out, and He has a plan. Our future isn't up to us but to remember to live out the lives we want, only after we put God first. She then talked about how every person in my group had strengths, and how we were all put together for a reason. Probably because we balance each other out since we all have different purposes. And that God had made room for me in heaven, in his house. We don't always feel worthy but God made a place for me. Then yes, God then chose that moment for the sun to come out again. The sky brightened up and I realized how much God was trying to tell me. (There was even more but I can't include it all here)

So yeah the beginning of the day was amazing and I seriously will remember it for a long time, but here comes the last of the day. This sweet old woman turned a little scary? Angry? She seemed to not like the work we were doing, she criticized the work on the house, and I started to become disappointed. Are you seeing a pattern? Here's the next part. She came out of the house and passed out to each of us, pencils and little knick knack teddy bear things. Her gratitude for us showed through these little things. She told us she couldn't ever pay us for the work we did, but that she wanted us to give us something. A smile lit up my face once again and I know that the little Christmas bear that I was given, will be sitting on my dresser when I get back home.

TUESDAY PART 2...

WATCH OUT FOR THE SNAKE, JAMIE!

Tuesday...

   Today we went to the Home Depot to buy fence panels so we could finish our fence project. We got twelve panels, and they were probably 60-70 lbs. a piece. Aaron (a helper from Nehemiah, not big tall huge Aaron) brought a truck for us to load the panels into, but they were too big to fit in the back. Mrs. Hansen decided to load all twelve panels on top of two bars that were sticking up off the back of the truck! Jackson and I tied knots to keep the panels stable, but we both were terrible at it. Our logic was that if we had a ton of horrible knots, it would be the equivalent to one good knot, so that's what we went with. It looked like a spider web in the back of the truck with the way we were tying all of the ropes. As we were tying the nots, this random guy came up to us and said "That's a really bad idea!" In response, we said "We don't care!" and decided to drive with the panels up top anyways.

   In the car on the way to the site things were very intense. Going at the amazingly insane speed of 20 miles per hour, we watched as the panels wobbled around and moved back and forth. Mrs. Hansen was going to have a very messed up van if Aaron decided to hit all of the potholes!

   We finally got to the site after 20 grueling minutes. (TAKE THAT RANDOM GUY WHO SAID WE COULDN'T DO IT) The homeowners of the house are really nice. We got all of the panels up in one day even after randomly starting over for no reason. :D

Well, that's it. BYE

~Micah

Monday Part 4...

This is Julie Brown.  I just have to share about the connection that happened today.  Jennifer, Zoe and I were painting at the Nehemiah Mission today.  So in the middle of the day a gentleman stopped by to drop off some clothing for the free clothing store that they have at the mission.  He saw us painting a room off of the store and stopped to chat and ask where we were from.  When I said Medina he asked which church.  When I told him the name he said, "My parents helped start that church!"  So I asked who his parents were and he said, Rudy and Helen Foster.  He is Bob Foster and just happened to be dropping off things when we were there.  What a small world.  We chatted awhile about Rudy and Helen memories and I assured him that our senior pastor still keeps the candy bowl going in the memory of Rudy.  Bob thought that was great and said again how much he appreciated Harvest for all that Harvest did to support Helen and Rudy.  Praising God for the little connections he makes happen that remind us of the importance our church family.

Monday Part 3..

Hello people. It's Elise. Our work group included me, Jamie, Allayna, Natalie, and Pastor Brett. Weall got to the job before our supplies, so went went on a search for a nice park to eat lunch at. When we got to the park, Allayna noticed it had a water mister.  She then ran right into the spray of water. Turns out it wasn't a mister, but a full on spray of water.  After that we drove back to the job site, and started the job.  Me and Jamie started by painting on primer on the back two walls of the house, while Natalie and Allayna painted the right side of the house, and Pastor Brett was on the roof.  Just as we were about to go to lunch our home owner came out and talked to us for a bit. Then we went to the park for lunch came back and started painting the rest of our walls.

Monday Part 2...

Hello there. This is Austin and Josh blogging because we are super cool.
Today we were assigned to fix some stairs with Mr.Damon and Ryan. We tried to just take off the front part of the stairs to see what was under them, but instead Ryan ended up taking off the entire staircase with one tug!  We ended digging going through (and by that I mean using sledge hammers and crow bars) concrete, rocks and brick (a total of 4 holes).  Throughout the day the neighbors got more and more loud and more funny. They really helped though, they gave us multiple tools, even though we broke two of them.  We watched as one of the neighbors tried to kill a tree using his karate moves.  Basically the neighbors were really nice and funny. Today we were able to pour all of the cement and place all the poles into the cement.  Tomorrow we will be finishing the steps.  We also just bought some milk!  (;

Monday...

Today we started to build a fence from scratch. Our group includes us, Micah, Jackson, Mrs. Hansen, and Mike (a man from Nehemiah).  We began to dig holes for the posts to go into the ground. We put in the concrete to hold the posts up. Tomorrow, we will begin to put up the panels of the fence and screw them on to the posts. We are working at a couples' house who is from Puerto Rico.

Aaron & Chase

SUNDAY NIGHT...

Hi everyone! We did not do much today because we arrived at 7 and didn't have much time, although today was a very important day. We went over the rules and everything, but we were reminded about how God could work in our lives this week. We studied the beginning of the book of Nehemiah and looked at the important characteristics in him. We were reminded how we should be more like him this week. One main characteristic about Nehemiah is that he was willing to do work God set for him. This is a good reminder because we want to not focus on ourselves this week, but on God.  Personally, I am going to try not to complain much and focus on how I am serving God.  (Allayna).  But I know God is testing me this week because as soon as I got out of the car I felt the SWELTERING heat hit me like a wall. This week my personal goal is to be more like Nehemiah meaning being more selfless and compassionate, in other words not complaining since I know I'm better off than a lot of people.  (Zoe)

Allayna & Zoe

WE MADE IT!!!!

Time to get settled and go to orientation!

Nehemiah Mission Info

The Nehemiah Mission of Cleveland rebuilds the lives and homes of the physically and fiscally challenged of Cleveland through volunteer mission teams who improve living environments in order to sow seeds of hope for individuals and neighborhoods.

Harvest Presbyterian Church's SoBe middle school youth group joins Nehemiah July 19-24 to continue that work in the city. Please pray for us as we serve in the name of Christ!

For more information, their website is http://nehemiahmission.org.