Mission and Numbers

Sorry, we have not posted anything in couple of weeks, but summers are our busy time with our church and youth group. As you read earlier we took a group of youth down to Memphis for some mission work and then the week after that there was another group that traveled to Washington DC to do mission work. We then celebrated the fact that we met our financial goal to build a school in Dudakata, Ethiopia. We organized a family/youth group outing to Spirit Song, which was held at Kings Island in Cincinnati.

This past week was the BIG “Transformation Zone” mission trip. I believe it is the coolest trip that we offer to the youth. We have been going on mission trips for years and about four years ago some of our youth started talking to Carrie (wife) and telling her we should do this kind of work at home. She agreed and with a small group of planning partners from other churches came up with the stay-home mission trip called “Transformation Zone”.

This year is the third year of running the mission out of our Church and you are not going to believe how many people were involved in it and how much work was completed for Christ. The trip ran from Monday to Friday and Wednesday was a half day work day, the other half was for fun at a water park.

•175 participants / campers (slept on the classroom floors throughout the church)
•50 Adult kitchen help ( made breakfast and dinners as well as clean up after every meal)
•7 different denominational churches participated

Work sites:
1. St. Sophia Orthodox Cathedral-
a. Prepared and served meals to community members
b. Mulched and landscaped
c. Built and delivered 20 beds (frames, mattress, sheets blankets)
d. Made 20 fleece tie blankets for beds

2. MAP
a. Assembled over 45 tables and headboards, which are given to people in the community

3. COSI
a. Worked the farm days exhibit

4. Faith Mission
a. Purchased and prepared food
b. Served meals to about 2000 homeless EACH day

5. Mid-Ohio food bank
a. Sorted a large quantity of food… tons of plums

6. United Methodist Children’s Home
a. Painted 2 cottages for the residents (6500 sq ft each)
b. Built four 8 foot long picnic tables
c. Stained several older picnic tables
d. Weeded (6 foot tall weeds) and mulched around 6 large buildings

7. YWCA
a. Sorted donated items
b. Weeded flower beds
c. Served meals

8. (4) different nursing homes
a. Interacted with residents
b. Interviewed and made story boards, facials, nails, did hair & played bingo
c. Painted, weeded and cleaned

9. Green meadows mobile home park
a. Kids Club
b. Prepared and served meals to children

10. Leads Head Start
a. Painted classrooms

11. Pregnancy Care Center
a. Cleaned, primed and painted 2 storage bays
b. Painted the office space

12. Sewing project
a. Made 84 pillow case dresses for children in Haiti

Every morning started with devotion time and there was a prepared lunch devotion for everyday as well. There was Chapel every evening with worship and guest speakers discussing different parts of the scripture theme for the week. Countless lives were Transformed and the teens were challenged to be changed to be the change (1 Tim 4:12). There were numerous first time commitments and rededications to Christ.

OH, in the midst of all of this fun we got our new numbers for July.
52 – Girls
31 – Boys

We are now relaxing on vacation for a couple of weeks before golf season starts.
Tony