WE COME HOME TOMORROW!!!! Im really excited to see you all tomorrow, and take a shower in my own shower, sleep in my own bed, and have my own space. Love ya all,
Elise Terpstra

Thursday was an epic day for me and my crew. A real turning point in our relationship as a group and with our resident. Cleary God was hanging out with us (and delivering rain by the bucket full) as we progressed our home renovation project.

Today as finish coats of paint went on trim and light switch and outlet plates were returned to cover previously unattractive holes our work which has been intensely dispiriting at times started to take on the semblance of something meaningful.

You have to go low before you can soar high and I feel like we will be on top of the world when our resident attends the Friday night ceremony and then returns to a house which looks so much better than the one we drove up to on Monday.

I just hope that she does not slam the front door when she gets there because in all likelihood, the freshly painted ceiling will fall down.

Paul K


Well today it rained all day. And I mean it rained. But my crew and the crew we got doubled with did such an amazing job getting right to work. The guys worked outside and started the porch while the girls worked inside finishing up the painting. But today was just a great day for and my crew. Because yesterday we got done with our residents house. And that was good. So today we got doubled up with another crew and helped them with their resident’s home. But I really feel like god was calling up to help them. Because our first resident seemed like he really didn’t want us there. And we did all we could do to help him but we all jus felt like god called us to the other crew. I also feel like god called me on this trip to help the disabled. And because he knew that this trip would most likely show me that he is still there even when times get hard.

Also my crew has been the most amazing crew ever.. At first we were all a little quite but by the 3rd day we all just opened up and started to talk. We all started making fun of each other. But I’m really happy that god called me on this trip. Because for awhile I was not so sure about my relationship with god but as the week went my relationship grew and grew. And now I feel closer to him. And that’s what the point of this trip is all about.

And I just hope that the crew we got put with today can finish up and be able to say that we actually did some work done. Well I really hope to finish out this week and come back home and still have the relationship that I have built with god.

Kristen K


Hey everyone!! It’s Thursday night and we haven’t gone to the evening program thing yet, but Thursday night is always really emotional sooo yikeessss!! I hope everyone at home is doing well. Ummm my crew has been really, really, really really really awesome this whole week. Actually, our devotion leader and my crew friend member person, Sam, didn’t feel well at all on Monday, and then she didn’t even come to our worksite on Tuesday because she had really bad pink eye!!! We were all sad for her and we prayed for her, but we were all somewhat relieved that none of us contracted pink eye because that would be terrribleeeee.
We finished priming and painting the garage and we’re virtually done priming the house, but we have a lot to paint tomorrow. Our resident is amazingggg. She has incredible faith and she contributes a lot to our devotions after lunch. She’s gone through a lot of hard times in her life, which has helped me and the rest of my crew to realize some important things about our lives and the way we live them. Ummmm what elseeeee…….. we’ve all been relatively safe this entire week except for during the lightning storm, but that is okay. We all just get really wet from the rain during the day and really painted because painting on the ceiling is super hard and I get paint all over myself and in my eye (but that was only once and I was fine after being blinded for a minute or two).
See everyone in a few days!! Or actually the day after tomorrowwwwww! Ooh and I almost forgottt.. James and Poonam, I got your emails on Tuesdayyy and I was really excited and I loved them!! Actually I think our youth group got the most emails combined than any other youth group, haaaaha.

Loveeee, Jasmineeeeee.





Hey Guys!
As you probably know its Thursday here and it rained ALL DAY LONG! So my site is in a trailer park. My residents are an elderly couple and they are really very nice. There names are Mary and Richard. They are in need of a wheel chair ramp because they both are considered cripples. They also are in need of new skirting along the trailer, and the house to be washed with bleach. We also gave them a new door and will be doing some landscaping and adding lots of flowers to the house. Most of all of this is done. We will finish up tomarow. I don’t feel my best right now because I was out all day in the rain washing the house and having mud fights so I am all showerd and wrapped up in my sweat pants and tee shirt.. As for my crew…..they are amazing! I have two adults this year who are both so much fun! Then there is a girl named Sadie who just graduated, and two boys my age going into their junior year, Mike and Justin. Out of my whole crew I get along with Mike “Mikey” the best. This experience is different from last year but no less amazing! I absolutely LOVE being here and spending time with all of my church friends. Also I have gotten to be better friends with my daddy. He can be really cool. Over all I am having a spectacular time and am having a hard time beliving that tomarrow is our last day! These next two nights are going to be really hard. Tonight is something called “cry” Thursday. I don’t know what is going to go down but it is suppose to be a very touching night. I am pretty exited. So far I haven’t broken anything…..so far. I rally don’t know what else there is to say but that we are all on such an incredible god high and it is so spectacular! I miss you Mom, Nikki ,and Carson! See you in a few days!


LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
~*~*~Brooke~*~*~

Hey, a little update from Workcamp -- it is Thursday evening and God is doing some great things -- biggest issues we have had our a couple people being a little sick, but nothing serious. It rained all day today and it promises that tomorrow will be clear. There is a TON of work to do tomorrow so please pray for us. Every night our group gets together and gives a report of how the week is going -- the last three nights there has been no one with a "bad" day, about 10% with a so-so day and 90% having a good day.

We have amazing God moment stories to share with you so we will continue to post pictures tonight and tomorrow and let you begin to here some of the stories.

Pray for good weather, health and the God continues to finish what He has started within us :)

Thanks

Brad

It’s Thursday today and it rained really hard all day. We are painting outside so we were worried that we couldn’t paint at all but one wall was dry on the back of the house and that was the last wall we needed to prime. It was only dry for long enough to paint and finish drying but that was all the time we needed. GOD was watching out for us. We also got the underside of a porch painted, so we had plenty of work for the whole day. It’s been a really fun week.
Sarah Thompson

Hey everyone this is Cody o. It is Thursday and it is still raining. My crew moved around a lot. We had to go to our original resident and give her a blanket and she got all teary but she was great full that we did what we did. Then we went to help a crew and I painted ceilings and then we got a call and we had to go and help Gracie’s crew and we had to clean off the ceiling and we got it all done. Well my week has been going really good for my first year and I hope the rest of them are as good as the rest of them. Peace out.
(Fabio) Cody Osterhouse

Hi. I haven’t been able to type since Tuesday when I wanted to, but I’m here now! As most of you have probably heard, the announcer said a 40% chance of rain on Tuesday, and it poured! A big t-storm went through the area and held back our painting work, which is all I need to do for my resident. We were hoping to finish by Wednesday, but this didn’t happen. So on Wednesday we were told more rain was to come, but in the evening. And my crew, which gets along so well with each other, couldn’t finish because of the half-day but got most of the work done. So today, Thursday, since it started raining before we left and rained through the entire day, it seemed we didn’t get as much work done as oppose to yesterday (which is interesting, as today was a full day) and the paint had a hard time drying with all the moisture. But we were luckily able to do work as we painted under a roof of the open garage (which I mean by there is no garage door). So we painted today, but since it wouldn’t dry fast enough we were able to finish about an hour early. But our resident, Vesta, is so appreciative of all we’ve done for her: painting her house and we also bought flowers, gave her a quilt which all crews did, and put up new address numbers. Tomorrow, which is supposed to be nice, should take us only about 2 hours to finish up (according to my adult crew leader), and then we will most likely go and help another crew finish up. But God has been making the weather nice and cool for us, as I learned from Vesta’s son that usually here it is dry and HOT this time of season. So we’ll see what happens tomorrow, and hopefully the rest of the week will be great .
Jonathan Witham

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Hey here is the first of many posts from Workcamp 2007

Hi parents and people and friends and everyone else! My trip has been going greatttt so farrrr. We had some space issues in the girls’ room but it’s fine now so don’t worry about it. OHhh except Emily’s air mattress died and now Caitlin, Emily, and Julie are sleeping horizontally on two air mattresses except one side kind of deflated last night so the four of us might rotate but it’s okay because we’re roughing it. (AJ would like to say that is a run-on sentence but I would like to say that it’s summer and no one caaaares.) Today was our first day at the worksites, and it was very very very hot except for in the air conditioning. I am on Crew Number Twenty-One, and today we repaired a door and tomorrow we are repairing its frame. We also primed the majority of our resident’s garage, and we are also planning on painting her porch and front wall of the house. Ummmmmmmmm okay AJ is going to be in this now. My first day with my resident was awesome (this is AJ). We’re painting the entire inside of her house and we’re making greatttt progressss!! She is very grateful for what we are doing and I hope we are showing God’s love through our actions. That is about it. Oh the food is not that bad except I ate way too much ice cream today (this is Jasmine). And the cherry cobbler was good (Jasmine and AJ). Good news!!!! There are barely any mosquitoes!!!! We’ve all been doing a lot of card playing and people-meeting… there are people here from Michigan (us), Wisconsin, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, and probably other places we don’t remember. The school is very cool because it is air conditioned which is nice. We hope the rest of you at home have a greaaaatttt weekkkk and you miss us all but never fear, we’ll be back in 5 days. We miss you too. Byyyeeee!

-Jasmineeeeeeee andddddd Andrew John Beckner (AJ)


hey peeps back home. This is Zig dog Ziggy fresh reporting from you live from work camp. This my friends so far is the best camp I’ve been to so far. Which means its 1 in the top 2000 list my friends :D friends. So far me and everyone else has had a blast. Well I’ll zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom back to my room now. Pz

zig out



HI EVERYONE!!!!!
This is gracie, im having the best time EVER here in chatham! (I think thats how u spell it, oh well..) the ride here was insane, me gary and scott switched vans due to the number of people in the first one. It was a good choise to switch, there was SOOOOO much more room! We had our own seat and everyone laughed at out insane mad-libs! Hahahahahaha good times, um, the church we stayed at was so good to us! We got a hot breakfast which lanny just went nuts over! The egg omlet from a secret family recipe, “WOW” was the word of the day for everyone in our group! We ever got STARBUCKS!!!!!! (well the adults did…grrrrr) ok, um, we finally met our crews on Sunday, brooke almost went insane on saterday night, “when are we gonna meet our crews?!?!?! It was really funny,
I have an awesome amazing crew, we bonded right away, we had a paint fight on Monday, my adult has a great accent, its really funny messing with her, (she’s from hick-town, North Carolina,) hahaha, I have to go! But have a great time in nice cool Michigan! I love you all!!!!! Bye!!!! I love you g-ma! Bye

~gracie~

I'm Back
After a month of not posting anything, I am back. Many things have happened over the past month, some of them funny, some of them sad, and some of them have been down right frustrating. Last night we said thanks to our seniors who are graduating from high school. A good group of students all heading in different directions. Definitely not a group of cookie cutter type students. It gave me a reminder of what the Kingdom of God is like -- very diverse, different personalities, but all have the common goal of Jesus that they strive for. It humbles me to see God work through me and I am embarrassed when I think of all the times I label people by the way they look, what they do, or even how they treat me. God has used these seniors to do amazing things and has them on an unblievable journey. For us this group has been with us from meeting in a wet, damp, must smelling basement in an old house to meeting at KVCC, to meeting in the big sanctuary to meeting in the new OASIS rooom. What an amazing difference. But no matter where we met they were there -- as hard as it is to admit sometimes, it is not about the place that attracts people as much as the relationships that happen there.

I will miss these seniors, but they promise they will come back -- hope they do.