Mission Reach pictures!

My best friend Courtney and I! (:  I met her at last years mission reach!!! :)

We started to prime this building and then we painted it a lighter brown than the brown it was before!!  It took all week and only the "experts" could work on this building and I was totally one of them! :)

We all had just gotten back from lunch I think, so we were waiting to get at it again! :)

Those brave up high painters who are brave enough to stand on a ladder.  I only go to the second step. haha.

I call this the store of randomness!  The mayor picked me along with two other girls from the "expert" group to come paint the outside of this building!  We worked on it for a couple of hours and then when it was time to stop for the day, the workers kept painting it, so by the time we got back the next day, all we had to do was the second coat and then we went back to our expert project.

Cute little Justus!!  This kid is hilarious!

We played a game where we had to walk/dance around the sanctuary until the music stopped and then when it did, we had to partner up with the closest person next to us and then Peggy asked a question and then you had to answer that question and tell your partner.  It was fun, but I didn't have answers to most of them! :P

Still playing the game!

Two thumbs up!!  Go Becca!! :D

They were dancing to the music that went along with the countdown that was going for when service was about to start.  It was fun watching them all dance!! :)

Justus was showing us his awesome dance moves!!!

Okay so the Mayor of Staunton IL, the town we were at, came in before one of our evening services and he said a few words and let us know how much our work was appreciated and then he let us pray over him before he left for whatever he had to do the next morning!!  It was totally awesome!!!!

Then we got some pictures after we prayed over him, I think.

This is Jordyn and she was one of my roomies and my new friend!! :)  She's really nice and I feel like we have a lot in common! :)

Dancing to one of the countdowns!

Two very beautiful people that I love a lot!! :) They're awesome!

I like taking pictures of converse!  I also took pictures of three pairs of little boys shoes.  This little boy had some cowboy boots and it had John Deere on it so I wanted a picture and then two other little boys wanted me to take pictures of their shoes so I also have Iron man and fire truck shoe pictures, but I didn't post them!

Hanging out!

We chilled out for a while at the park between lunch and the block party!

Becca just chillin'!!!!

Well Hello Mallory!!!

This was a cool little place to hang out!  We had some great convos in this circle!

Pink is totally Eli's color!!  XD  hahaha.  He is really funny!

Block party about to begin!!  I was in the concession stand so my zoom came in handy!

That baby is sooo cute!!! :)

People at the registration booth!

The water slide!!  After the block party, out group got to go down it!  I didn't go down, but I got plenty of hugs from those who did go down!! XD  After they all went down, we watched a movie on an inflatable screen that the town put together for us!  Speaking of which, the town payed for all the inflatables and I think there was more, but I'm not sure!!  I thought that was so awesome that they offered to do that!  I don't many towns would do that!

Minnie found herself a new friend! :)

We were all sitting while we watched the human video and listened to a little speech.

Here we are again!!

Okay, so this guy is one of the city officials and he got up there and gave a little speech and he even included some scripture!!  This was so amazing that I even cried while he talked!!  There was even one time during the week when we gathered around at the building we was painting and we prayed for the father of one of the girls in our group who had to leave to be with her father because he was in ICU.  This guy just joined in with us and prayed with us!!  It was so awesome to see what God was doing!!  I wish I had a copy of the words that he spoke at the block party!  It was amazing!!

The Mississippi Movement Student Ministries group did a human video to 'Hero' by Skillet!  It was a great performance and they did a wonderful job.

Here they are at the block party!

and again...

and again....

and again....

and again.....and...

AGAIN!!  I would have recorded it, but my batteries in my camera was dying so I had to keep turning it on and trying to get pictures in between it dying so much! haha.

Paige and I in the bathroom after church on sunday!

A great group of awesome people!

From L to R: Mallory, Faith, Jenna, Lauren, Emma, and Courtney

haha, I love Jordan's facial expression!

Two beautiful young ladies!!!

Paige and Justus!! :)

Justus and I! :)

And Courtney and Justus!! :)

I feel bad that I didn't get a lot of pictures of what we painted, but I didn't work at all of the places and I also didn't want my camera around wet paint!!!  I think you could understand that though!! :)

So I'm going to talk  a little about what God did in that town and how the strongholds are now broken!!  Praise God!!

The pastor in Staunton has been at that church about 10 or 11 years and everytime they wanted to do something, the doors just remained shut!  The majority of that town is Catholic and Lutheran and the AG church just haven't been given the opportunity to do much.  This Mission Reach was the first time in those 10 or 11 years that the pastor has been there that anything like this has ever happened!!  We painted Main street and many people were questioning what was going on and they didn't understand why a group of teenagers would volunteer their time and at their own expense to travel to that town and paint it.  We painted all week long and it was great to see how blessed and thankful they were that we were there to do that.  I think the mayor had mentioned that after explaining that we were just youth groups that traveled from different places to be there, he had other groups of people want to volunteer also and finish painting the town!!  How awesome is that???  The more we just poured into the lives of those people of Staunton, the more it just caused a ripple effect and they were blessing us as well!  They provided our lunches, the inflatables, water to keep us hydrated, some brought us ice cream and some got cookies to hold us over for lunch and it was just truly awesome seeing how kind they were to us in return!!  It was extremely awesome!!!!!! :)

 

The mayor had to leave for some event towards the end of the week and so he came into the church before one of the evening services and he said a few words and he allowed us to pray over him!!  Do you know how awesome that was??  It was amazing!!

At the block party, one of the city officials gave his little speech and it seriously brought tears to my eyes!!  He also included scripture, but I don't remember what it was!!  I know, I know, shame on me!!  There was also a time when a girl from our mission reach team (she actually lived near Staunton) had to go to the hospital to be with her father who was in ICU, and when she left, the mission reach people who were painting at our building gathered around and prayed for this girl and her father.  What was really amazing about it was that the city official guy joined in the circle and agreed with us in prayer!!   God was truly working in these people's lives as well and seed were being planted!!  It was amazing to be apart of what God was doing in the town!  The strongholds were broken in Staunton IL!!!!!

Well I've been working on this post for a couple of days now, and there will be another post of what God did in my own life during that week!!   I just ask that you keep Staunton and the mayor and city officials in your prayers!!  Pray that God continues to work in that town and in their lives!!

Be blessed my friends,

~Lizard