We are home, what a great trip and great team!  Exhaustion has struck, but it’s a “fulfilling” exhausted. One of our teammates said she would be back next year–no matter where we went, and that she was not going to spend her spring break lying on the beach. She was going to work and give to the Lord. Wow, what an impact this trip had on her. Shane Claiborne said, “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus & deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.” This student has decided to do something very daring.

It took us all week, but we figured out why Satan wanted to stop this trip. The missionaries said that more important than the work we did was the encouragement we gave. They couldn’t believe we would spend time doing this for them. Satan didn’t want them encouraged; He wants them to quit. He wants them to feel worthless.One thing I know is that Satan works in generalities and God works in specifics. God wanted us to give specific encouragement through our work projects. Satan wanted these missionaries to feel discouragement overall and quit. It isn’t going to happen.

Mahatma Ghandi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”  That is what we did this week. We became lost in service. Our team must understand that we don’t have to be part of a team to serve others. So carry on team, and serve where you are planted.

Rhena

Well our work here is complete.  Not all our work, but the physical work we had to do.  Neighbors have asked questions, we have made friends, and now it will be hard to leave.  In one short week, we became planted.  How did Jesus do it; moving on from place to place all the time?  Little Emily asked if we could start the week all over again. We wanted to say yes, but it is time to go.  It is time to move back into our everyday lives and plant ourselves back into our lives in Indiana.

Today we talked about living out loud. Jesus did it. Can we?  Can we live back in Indiana like we have here? It will be harder because we won’t be together as a group of 27 all the time. We will have to stand on our faith by ourselves sometimes. We will probably even be like Peter and deny Jesus but he will still love us and forgive us over and over. Why do we learn so slowly?

We had a big test in Obedience today.  It was one of our lessons from early in the week and most failed the test.  We thought we were ready but we learned otherwise.  We will have more tests and more failure.  But the big question at the beginning of the week was would we miss the miracle.  We have seen some and we have missed some.  We got busy in the work and we knew we would.  We don’t think we missed the “Man” though.  He was on every street corner and in every yard and assignment we did.  (Refer to Day 2)

Tomorrow is our fun day so you might not hear from us again until we are home.  Our work is not done though.  It has only just begun.  Please carry on with us.

Angie is making it very slowly.  She doesn’t want to bother us but we are so in tuned to her we want to know but we might leave here and not every really know the end of this story.  Please keep praying for Angie.  She has a long road “home”.