Grand Rapids Sunday night

We’re here! We’re staying at Zion Reformed Church in Grandville with about 108 other missionaries. It’s a little warm right now, but we’re hoping it will cool down as we try to sleep.

After we arrived and settled in, the adults met to hear about how the week was going to go. We also have a student leader, Allie, who will be helping Dan and Nancy keep everyone together and focused. After dinner and some free time, we met for “program” time. The youth helped to lead us singing some awesome praise songs. Hannah helped lead with her guitar. We met our work crews and found out our work assignments for the week.

We’ve all been placed into work crews. Dan and Beth are together with another adult and 3 other kids doing home repair, cleaning and landscaping this week. Nancy and Marilyn are in a crew with 4 other kids and will be working at a nursing home doing some clean-up, painting, gardening and spending time with the residents. Beki and Steven are in separate crews but will be working at a place dismantling computers and maybe landscaping and gardening. Hannah’s crew will be working at some people’s home painting and doing yard work and then ending her week visiting a nursing home. Breana’s crew will be working at a thrift store and painting the basement. Madelyn’s crew will be working at a food pantry all week. Allie’s crew will be visiting various homes for painting and yardwork. Amanda’s crew will be working in a thrift shop this week.

Within each crew, each person also has a role to play. We picked our roles tonight, more about that later.

So far they have already made new friends with people from other churches. Some girls even ate dinner at another church table. I’m always amazed at how friendly and warm and welcoming our youth are at these mission trips. They are usually the first ones to approach different church groups and include them in their activities. They certainly are showing Christian hospitality with everyone they’ve encountered today.

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us this week. We’ll have some challenges and be out of our comfort zones in some situations. I’m sure the Holy Spirit will be with us the whole way, helping to guide us and working through us to serve Him. We ask you to pray for us that we may grow together in Christ this week, and also that we are able to sleep…..

Blessings, and thanks again for your support.

Nancy and Dan

PS. Internet connection is very sketchy. Not sure if we'll be able to post pictures. Dan can probably send them to Cindy to put on the Geneva Web Page.