SideKick Mission 2010: Hopkinsville, KY

The Broad Street roofing project

2010-07-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

The week started out fairly warm, but with a cool breeze. We arrived at the home of Ms Prisilla Lewis on Monday to shingle half of her roof and do a variety of other tasks. The roof should have been fairly easy, as it was a single story ranch with only one obstacle. We got the whole roof stripped on Monday, mainly due to the fact that I couldn't hold 16 youth back enough with all of their energy and enthusiasm. But we also discovered a number of areas of the roof decking that was broken through or very weak. We had to replace all of that and get the tarpaper down before we could leave for the night. It was a long day. I spent a lot of time on the roof as two different crews rotated up and down. We spent the next couple of days finishing the job, making & correcting a couple mistakes, but leaving a substantial watertight roof for Ms Lewis. She was an awesome lady, who brought us cookies and ate lunch with us every day. We listened as she witnessed to us and became our friend. We gave her a renewed sense of hope and joy for the week as well as the assurance that her roof wouldn't leak on that side any more! It has been a great week of work during the day and worship at night. We are looking forward to a fun day tomorrow! More tomorrow! Blessings to you all back in Wisconsin!

Stew

God's Plan

2010-07-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Remember the A Team? At the end of the show the leader always said "I love it when a plan comes together." This week I saw God's plan come together through the work of 70 young men and women. My project was across the street from another one so our crews blended together. When we weren't working on our houses, the kids were helping the other neighbors. The first day we arrived, we needed electricity. We knocked on the neighbors door to see if we could use her outside outlet. She was reluctant to help because she was a single woman with a sister, daughter and grandchild living with her. The kids thanked her for her time and we went about our business. About an hour later she came out with her grandson. Our kids started talking with the woman and explaining to her what we were doing. They also played with her grandson. Pretty soon she told us we could use her water. The kids wanted to do something for her. On a slow day, they asked if they could mow her lawn. She didn't have gas. So the kids took her gas can, bought gas and oil and got the mower running. She started crying saying that no one ever offered to help her like that. By the end of the day, the kids had mowed 6 yards in the neighborhood. We didn't come here to mow the neighborhood lawns or work on Tanya's house, but God had other plans. These kids loved God by loving their neighbors.
Barbara

Stephanie Shares

2010-07-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today is our third day on the work sites and it was been a great week for everyone. My crew is working at the boys and girls club helping to paint four rooms. There is another crew there also, so we are each painting two rooms. So far our crew has a whole room done and half of the other one. At the beginning of the week we asked a lady there if we could hang out with the boys and girls that were there and she said no because none of us had back round checks. So the past two days we just saw them wave as they walked by but couldn’t do anything else. Today, since we got the other room done, they were allowed to go back in there with all of their games and play. So we heard them next to us and decided to stand outside the door and watch them danced with the Wii and color and such. Then they saw us and asked if we wanted to play and the teacher that was in there said it was alright. We were dancing and having a great time with them and they were full of so much energy. The boss of the place showed up a few minutes later and we thought we’d have to leave but he said it was alright so we were able to stay with the kids for a while longer and it was a fun experience. As we were about to leave, we were asking people there if there was any more work we could do because tomorrow we knew we’d be done early and we had nothing to do. He told us if we’d like, we could paint a mural on the wall of the room we painted and do whatever we’d like as long as it’s an artsy room with music and such, because it’s the art room. So now for tomorrow we have to come up with something to paint and then it’ll be all finished! It’s also our last day of work and after that we’ll be going to the water park again so I know everyone will have a good time!

Stephanie

Joe's first trip

2010-07-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

This is my first mission trip experience and it has been amazing. My work crew is working on building a handicap accessible wheelchair ramp for a handicapped Vietnam War veteran. He has never been able to go outside of his home in over 30 years by himself, so we are granting him the freedom of being able to be more independent and to go outside without the help of his sister. So this whole trip has been totally sweet so far and I only hope it gets better.

Joe

Cedrick In Hoptown

2010-07-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

So it is our 2nd day in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It has been a good experience getting to know everybody from the different churches as weel as people from the great city of Hopkinsville. There have been a variety of events already. It went from seeing snakes to tipping over porta potties* to just about anything you can think of. Even though there has been many events with it only being our second day we all remember why we are here, to serve and represent our lord Jesus Christ. My name is Cedrik King and I'm on crew number 2. Our job was to build a porch and stairs for an elderly woman. When we first got there the porch was all rotted and we thought it looked really bad. Little did we know that the boards were infested with termites and these bugs that look like spiders but we couldn't tell if they were or not. The first day is always the fund part fo rme because I really enjoy destroying the old stuff, but the only bad thing is that when you get all the bad material off, then the real work starts. We have to cut and cut and cut. That takes about half the day. Then we have to screw everything in and a bunch of other stuff. It takes a lot of time. But as our day went on we got farther and farther every minute. So today when we got to the worksite, we just kept positive and kept going. Then came lunch. That's my favorite part. We have these things called devotions where we read a scripture from the bible and then we have questions based on the scripture. Well when we did that, it led into more and more questions. So by the time the questions were done we realized we were talking for at least an hour and fifteen minutes. Than within an hour of us working, we were finally done with our project and went back to church at 12:15. It was so nice getting a warm shower for the 1st time. Then when everybody got back, we went to a water park. The lifeguards were REALLY strict though. It's like they didn't want us to have fund but it was so worth it. Well that's all I got for now so Cargill UMC will see you Saturday.

Cedrick
* Adult leaders note -- our kids did not tip over the porta potties.

2010-07-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

Enjoy the pictures! We've started writing but haven't had a change to post the info. We are busy being God's hands and feet. Check out http://www.kentuckynewera.com for an article and photos. Look for Stew Hebel's backside.

Last night I really missed Brandon. At the end of worship the band played "Undignified". He always lead the Conga Line for Christ. We are missing those who are not here.

Barbara

Here are a few pictures... Come back and look for more later!

Getting Ready to Take Off!

2010-07-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

we are going to try to keep you all up to date on what we are doing on our trip to Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

We leave on Saturday, July 17th at 2:00pm from Cargill. We will be taking 2 Coach buses and at least 2 vans.

You are all invited to attend dinner on Saturday, July 24th at 6:00pm at Cargill to welcome the Senior High Youth home!
AMber Schimke

P.S. You can also check out SideKick Missions' website, I think they are planning to blog also.
http://www.sidekickmissions.org/