God is good – all the time! Shortly before noon today the delivery service brought our luggage from the Pensacola airport. I am assuming it is all here as they delivered forty-nine pieces of luggage.
Here is the recap of our trip: God graciously allowed us to build and dedicate twenty houses, distribute food & clothes to one hundred families (381 folks came through the line), spend one day working at Love The Child children’s home with Steve & Shyrel Osborn, preach in the local seminary’s chapel service, preach/minister in Palabra Viva Church, preach in Rios de Agua Viva Church and do some needed stuff i.e. repairs, cleaning, et cetera around the mission house. Glory to God!
However, the greatest thing to happen on this trip was that we saw at least twenty-five folks pray to receive Jesus as their personal Savior! Hallelujah! Thanks for Freckles (Sarah Longserre) for leading in the evangelism effort! Folks, seeing people come to Jesus is the very reason we do what we do.
I want to thank each person who was a participant on this trip. You were awesome!Special thanks to Pastor Eddie Burdette, Pastor Terry Rainey, and Pastor David Smith for leading their churches to join us in doing ministry. All three of these churches gave money toward the building of the houses. These folks were a great asset to the trip!
Special thanks to Caroline Ford and all who helped prepare the meals. We ate very well! I came home fat and happy!
Special thanks to Bret Hart for helping us replenish our tool supply and putting us onto a new screw for the roofs on the houses we build. What a friend he has been to GRACE Ministries. I had the opportunity to work alongside Bret one day and really learned to appreciate his heart for God. He is not the worker Pastor David Smith is but he will do!
Special thanks to Liz (aka KK) Sisk and Pastor Rainey for leading our musical praise each morning. Liz did a great job the first three mornings and Pastor Rainey did great the final four mornings.
Special thanks to Luisa Mason and Eugene Dighero for doing a superb job in keeping the mission house clean. They make a great team and do very well!
Special thanks to Paul & Cristy Leytham for their behind the scenes help to me.
Special thanks to Michelle Rolls and Ben Vickers for taking/posting the pictures on the website. Michelle does a great job of getting many team members in the photos and Ben is superb at uploading those pictures to the website. Folks like to know what is happening and a picture is worth a thousand words!
Special thanks to our missions committee members who were on this trip – Rick Bradley, Cecil Guidry, Claude Landry, Carl Ray Moulds, and Raymond Wilkinson. What a blessing these folks were to me during these past eight days. (Clara Broadus was on the June trip and Morris Bryant is obviously just backslidden!)
Special thanks to Bro. Jerry and all who helped him to man the fort while we were gone. It is great to know that things are being handled at home in an efficient manner.
A very special thanks to the Friendship family for allowing me to pastor the greatest folks on earth and for being so involved in doing missions! Thank you for having a heart for the things of God. Thank you for praying and for giving to GRACE Ministries.
This trip had it bumps i.e. delayed flights, missed flights, lost luggage, food confusion, et cetera but this team handled every glitch without missing a beat. We learned early on in the week that you choose your attitude and this team chose a positive, God honoring attitude each day. That made my job real easy!
I had the opportunity to teach Joe Cooley some things about pouring cement this past week and I hope those lessons serve him well in the days ahead!
Of course, we give the ultimate thanks and glory to God! It is all about Him and all because of Him that we were able to make this trip. Thank you Jesus!
This trip was my last one with our daughter, Deidra, being a Turrentine. On August 11 she will become the bride of Michael Taylor. So, it was special and a blessing to me to be able to spend eight days with Deidra Turrentine. She may marry Michael and become his bride but she will always be my daughter! I am grateful she took the time out of her wedding planning to spend with her dad! I love Deidra and the other four daughters God has blessed us with.
We are going to use the month of August to sign up for next July’s trip. I anticipate an overflow crowd so make plans to sign up and pay your deposit as soon as possible. As always, members of the Friendship family will have first option. After August, we will fill any openings with folks outside the Friendship family.
Pray for GRACE Ministries. Our next trip will take place the dates of August 2 – 9 as a group of college/young professionals will go do ministry. Pray as we seek God’s direction in replacing Derrick & Jodie. God has a plan in place already and we simply want to be obedient in following that plan.
Thank you for keeping up with us through this blog and the website. Beginning tomorrow, I will revert to using the Pastor’s blog to keep folks updated on the happenings within the Friendship family.