Your Kingdom Come (youth group missions trip part 2)

As you may know from my previous post, I was on a missions trip in New Jersey. We were doing some Hurricane Sandy clean up. Even tho the hurricane happened last year, there is still a lot of construction and repairs to be done. Last Wednesday we met our home owner Mrs. Ellen and really got to spend some time with her...but I’ll get to that part later...

The past week, some of the Junior High girls and I were put on the task of scrubbing the deck to get the dirt off for it to be stained. Let me list the progression of our days. If you want to skip over it, you can. It’s not important!
Monday
Arrive at house around 9:30ish.
Wait for soap and scrub brushes to clean garage because we forgot them. We start pulling weeds and vines out of the ground while we wait.
11ish- Soap arrives and we start scrubbing the garage.
1230- Lunch
Afternoon- I don’t even remember.

Tuesday
9:30ish- Arrive at house. Empty cabinets in kitchen.
Late morning- Girls leave me alone in the house to wash the deck without a power washer.
Early Afternoon- It’s hot, but there is talk about maybe having a power washer after lunch, so they slack off a bit, feeling like they were only doing busy work.
After Lunch- No power washer. Disappointment sets in for all of us. The sun is out, and we’re all a little over heated.
Afternoon- Katelyn leaves to go to a One Direction concert. (I’m thankful I got to stay scrub the deck.)
Late afternoon- Still no power washer. Some of us are still scrubbing. Others...not so much.
Wednesday
9:30- Power washer!!!!!
9:32- We find out there is no source for water.
10- We wait...and wait. Then we find a source of water!
10:30- It won’t start. But AJ saved us.
11-We run out of gas
11:30-Gas arrives (we needed AJ to help us start the dang thing again)
12- start cleaning up for lunch
After lunch- Walk to the beach
2:15- Get back and start power washing.
2:30- Runs out of gas. AJ fills it but...it won’t start back up.
2:45- Finally starts up.
3- clean up to go home.

As you can see, our week started out very frustrating!
I wanted to get stuff done!!!

However, I want to focus on today (while I’m writing this, it’s Wednesday.), and the work we did for His kingdom, not ours.

Let me tell you how I saw God this week...
On Wednesday we got to meet the homeowner, Mrs Ellen. In the morning, she kind of wandered in and out of the house to see what we were doing, or to just hang out a bit. She is super nice and encouraging, and thankful for us. While Mrs. Ellen was in the house, us girls were kind of standing around not doing much while waiting for the neighbor across the street to return so we could ask permission to use their hose for the power washer. While we were wasting time, the next door neighbor asks what we’re doing, and we tell him we’re waiting. And then he offered his hose to us, so we hooked everything up and got started. 

While one of the girls was power washing, I started to talk to Mrs. Ellen. She was so surprised that that specific neighbor offered his water. When I asked why, she said they haven’t spoken for years and have had arguments in the past. She described  him as mean (which could have been a little biased, I don’t know the guy!) and said they don’t even say hello to one another. That’s when I realized God was working in even the neighbors around us. I know it probably doesn’t seem that awesome and it’s probably a “you had to be there moment,” but even Sarah, our team leader from Team Effort Staff, was in complete shock he let us use his water. 

God was stirring up some hearts that day!!!

Then after lunch Katie and I were pretty determined to finish power washing the whole deck so tomorrow we could start staining it. BUT,  Mrs. Ellen wanted to take a walk to the beach with the group. At first, I told Sarah that Katie and I would stay behind to finish washing the deck, but Sarah strongly encouraged both of us to spend time with the homeowner. I was extremely hesitant, because I wanted to finish the deck and at that point I had felt like I was getting nothing done that I had come on the trip to do. I guess I was being pretty selfish at that point, because I wanted to feel like I actually did something. But God had other plans.

Better plans.

Katie and I gave in and went on the walk. I’m so glad I went.

Here’s why...
While walking, Mrs. Ellen started to tell us about the destruction that occurred during the storm. About all the sand in the streets, and the wind and rising waters during the hurricane. As we were walking we started to see some houses that were abandoned because insurance wouldn’t cover their repairs, or the repairs were too much to handle.  There was even one completely empty plot of land. It looked like the house was just torn down. We got to hear about how sand filled the streets and yards, and about how bulldozers came and pushed the sand back to the beach with whatever else was in the sand that was on the streets. Mrs. Ellen was very talkative, answering all of our questions about the storm and flooding. At one point Sarah asked Mrs. Ellen if she was alright walking, or if she wanted to turn back. I could tell Mrs. Ellen didn’t want to go home by the way she ignored Sarah’s question. It made me chuckle!

When we got closer to the beach, we could see the destruction for ourselves. The wall of one house looked like it had been ripped off. We could see right inside the house. Right at the start of the beach was a huge hill of sand from when the bulldozers pushed the sand out of the street.

Mrs. Ellen stopped to talk with us a bit, and then she said she’d love to be able to get up the hill to see the beach again. She used to love walking and seeing the beach, but now in her old age it’s hard for her. Jason (another youth leader) offered to help her climb the hill. She took him up on the offer pretty quickly.
With one arm in Jason’s and the other in Sarah’s, Mrs. Ellen climbed the hill very slowly.
When she made it to the top, the kids were already down by the water jumping in it with their shoes on...I’m still trying to figure out why they didn’t take them off, because later I had to yell at two of the girls for walking in the street without their shoes on. And they’re reply was “Ugh, but they’re wet.” I don’t understand the logic of junior highers, but I love them so much!

Anyway...
While the kids were playing in the water, and AJ was searching for scrap metal and creatures, Mrs. Ellen started talking to Jason, Sarah, Katie and I about how she knows that God sent us to her. She told us how she was living with no furnace during the winter. About how she had a stroke in January after the storm. About how she tried to get people to work on her house, but it was way too much money. She told us about how right when she was going to just give up, she received the phone call from Gateway church (the church Team Effort (the missions organization we went with) partners with) and they offered to help her with her house. Then she started talking about how she knows God is real. She told us a story about how she used to take care of cats (which she still does) and how one that was dying ran away. She said she prayed to God that He would bring the cat back, not so she could have him, but so that it wouldn’t die alone. She said when she got back the very same day, the cat was on her doorstep. You could see how much this cat returning meant to her. She said she felt God’s presence that day. 

Once we were getting ready to leave, Jason asked her if we could pray for her. She said of course. Little did I know that I was ready to burst into tears. Once Jason started thanking God for the day, and the accomplishments that Mrs. Ellen and the rest of the group made that day, I began trying to force back tears. My eyes were watering because I was so thankful. So thankful that Sarah made me go to the beach! Soooooo thankful to see God work in that way!

Then chapel later that night started off with “site sharing stories” like we did every night. After one person went, Jason got up to share. I was like great...I knew exactly what he was going to talk about because it impacted all of us so much. Jason didn’t even make it to the stage before I started fighting the tears again. Once he started talking I was done. Ashley Jirik was sitting next to me (a junior higher going into seventh grade) and she saw me crying and started wiping tears off my face as she was fighting back tears herself. It was awesome. Only because I can see God working in her life as well. At that moment, I knew she understood the impact that we had on Mrs. Ellen because of Jesus.

The rest of the night was awesome except for the fact that every time I tried to open my mouth, tears would come out of my eyes instead! Then Jeremy (our new youth director) made fun of me during small group because I was laughing and crying at the same time as I was trying to tell the story...Then I quit the story because it just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t that important anyway. It really wasn’t even sad! I couldn’t control myself!!! He proceeded to later tell me it was the weirdest thing ever. Thanks Jeremy. 

That night Jason came up with the idea to buy Mrs. Ellen a record player. We decided to do this because she said she had a record of the book Job from the bible. However, her record player broke during the storm. She told us how she loved listening to that record and how the story of Job helped her through the storm. The next day we gave it to her. Two of the junior high girls helped her set it up. They said her face lit up and she had a HUGE smile on her face when the record started playing. I wish I could have experienced that with them! 

The rest of the week went awesome. And our Junior High girls were amazing. They prayed together, did devotions together, shared their struggles with each other...all on their own!!! No one asked them to do those things, but they did! God is working in those girls so much. It excites the crap out of me! I cannot wait to see where God takes the kids in sharptown youth group. They are all wonderful and make my life 1,000 times more fun! I think I see God the most through them, and I am so thankful for every single one of them. I can’t tell you how much I love those kids. I’m pretty sure all 20 of us youth leaders feel the same exact way as well!

The biggest thing I learned from the weekend is that I have to focus more on God's kingdom, and not the kingdom of this world. I was so focused on trying to get work done on the house, that I almost missed out on sharing, praying, and glorifying God thru conversation with Mrs. Ellen. 

God had a different plan for the week than I had.

And His was so much better!

I am so thankful.

-Erika