It’s cotton season!

It’s been quite an eventful week! Gap M headed out of Gainesville on Monday. We loaded up the vans and drove straight through Alabama and into Macon, Mississippi. Carter and I were enjoying the cotton fields on the drive. We had never seen one before! It’s cotton season, so they were full, and some of them even had bales of cotton sitting in the fields! It’s quite a contrast to the corn fields of PA, but I love the open farm fields. We also stopped at Buc-ee’s on the way down. It was my first time at a Buc-ee’s! The Texans on my squad were appalled that it was my first time. 😂 All in all, it was a good drive, despite the not-so-effective air conditioning in the vans.

Blessings from the Lord

1.   A real bed!

We’re staying in a real building with real rooms and real beds! I’m sharing a room with my new friend Gabi, and it’s been lovely to have such a beautiful space to sleep and stay in. The building we’re calling home for the week is called the Mashulaville Dormatory. It was built in 1907 and has been used for a variety of purposes, but now it is a Mennonite Service Center. We found a cat, and I believe we’ve been calling it Cheezit. I’m not sure if that’s its real name or not, but I doubt the cat cares. The building itself feels really homey with the blankets and the curtains and the furniture. It’s a lovely place to be. We especially appreciate our host, Keith. He was so welcoming and friendly, and we love to see his heart for the community. We were very sad to see him go when he headed home around lunch yesterday.

2.   Service Opportunities

We ran out of ladders, so we had to get creative : )

We’ve finally moved on from training, and now we get to actually move on and use what we’ve learned to serve others! On Wednesday, our squad split off into two teams. One team (my team 😁) went to Emmanuel Baptist Church in Macon. The primary tasks were re-painting a couple of rooms in the church and remodeling a double wide trailer owned by the church and used for youth ministry. We didn’t get as far as we wanted to on the trailer because we ran into some mold issues, but we did the best we could with the resources we had. It was definitely a learning curve with moving on to having to really work together as a team. There were some disagreements on how things should be done, but it was encouraging to see some of the ways we were able to call each other higher to communicate in a more godly way. We do still need prayer for unity. The other team went to Pearl River Church. I believe they were doing similar work. The hope was for the teams to switch locations on Friday, but they got enough done at Pearl River on Wednesday and Thursday that our team didn’t need to go on Friday. I signed up to fill the extra seat on the bus going to Emmanuel Baptist Church so that I could finish organizing the books we pulled out of Pastor Carl’s office during our painting project. He has a lot of books! It was definitely a good task for me. Organization is kind of my thing.

3.   Praise God for Protecting K Squad!

Gap K’s housing situation…

This morning we heard from Gap K that the place they were staying for domestic missions was destroyed by a mudslide. They were inside playing card games when one of them looked up and saw a huge mudslide coming straight at them. He yelled for everyone to run, and they all just started running. The building was actively starting to collapse while they were fleeing! Fortunately, no one was seriously harmed, but they did lose pretty much all of their belongings, including their passports. Please pray for them and consider supporting them as they work on replacing their gear and preparing to launch. Read more and/or support here.

4.   Building Connections

On Wednesday we got to visit a Choctaw youth group, where we played ultimate frisbee. I am not very good at ultimate frisbee, but I tried my best! We also threw in a giant game of duck duck goose. I got stuck in the stinky pot… 😭 Oh well. 😂 Today we got to spend some more time with some of the same kids playing basketball, football, softball, and tag on the reservation. Tomorrow we’re going back to the same Choctaw church, and they’re going to sing some songs in English, but some in the Choctaw language, too! I’m excited for that. If you’re not already aware, I love music. 😊

Prayer Requests

1. Pray for Gap K as they’re processing from the mudslide and trying to replace all their stuff. Praise God that AIM has already raised their goal of $30,000 to replace passports and gear and all the things.
2. Pray for squad unity. We’ve been having some interpersonal issues, but they have now been addressed by the leaders, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to start moving forward better now.
3. I’ve honestly been struggling a lot the past couple days with being around people. Pray for me to have grace for those around me and for a recharged social battery, because there aren’t really opportunities to spend time alone and prepare to be around people again.

Okay, that’s all for today. 9 days until we fly out! You should hear from me in 7 while I’m at debrief. Thanks again for all the support!