These guy and gals have blown me away this week. They have worked incredibly hard on some very difficult tasks. Not only are they working hard but they have the greatest attitudes while they are doing it.

As I said yesterday, Day 2 and 3 were full of cleaning. Today (Thursday) was more of the same. They are opening a preschool in a week and a half and the building has not been used for several years. Additionally some kids broke in last week and shot a fire extinguisher off in one of the rooms and made a huge mess. We scrubbed the entire place down including some bathrooms that were definitely in need of some help. Another major project was the school kitchen. Parents, your sons and daughters know how to work. They attacked this kitchen at full force. They scrubbed, scraped, brushed, and polished this place spotless. The teachers and other administration have been blown away. The former school principal said that in 15 years she has never seen that kitchen look this good. I cannot say enough good about the ways that these students are serving with excellence this community.

With all of the work we are looking a little worse for wear. It turns out that the unfriendly plants from Monday were a little poison oak. A few in the group are a little itchy but it is beginning to slowly clear up. We are in good hands as there is a nurse from one of the other groups that has helped us a ton. Everybody is doing great. We wrapped up our projects a little early today and enjoyed a little rest this afternoon. We went over to a beautiful river the next town over and enjoyed a little swimming. Then we came back for an epic nap. It was much needed rest for our tired crew.

Tomorrow is our final work day before we travel back. We have completed the cleaning so we’ll be repairing a fence and maybe doing some painting on a house. Tomorrow evening there is a special event for the community where we’ll be viewing a movie dealing with the theme of racial reconciliation. Pray that this will be an powerful evening for the community. We are excited to share more of the stories in person. These students have been so faithful and excellent in even little things and they are doing it all for the glory and honor of Jesus.

These students are working hard this week and that is a good thing because there is a lot of work to be done. Mendenhall Ministries started in the late 60′s and has served the community in tremendous ways over the years. They are an arm of Mendenhall Bible Church and seek to meet the many tangible needs of the community and share the love of Jesus.

Our role here is to come alongside ministry here to work in the many ongoing ministries. For the last two days we have been working to help prepare the ministries’ schools to open. We began yesterday with some serious yard work. The unruly vines and weeds were no match for this team. They sweat and worked and made an incredible transformation to the school grounds. It was not without it’s adventures. We were attacked by some hornets and encountered some unfriendly plants, but we have persevered.

The last two days we have been able to clean the schools. Cleaning carpets, mopping, cleaning toilets, and even scrubbing down a very well used school kitchen were some of our activities. These students are serving in an incredible way. They are doing some thankless and hard jobs and doing it without any complaining at all. I am so proud of the way they are working. The team is in great spirits and growing in so many ways.

Another cool part of the week has been the interaction from the other groups and the people from the community. There is another large youth group here from Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. It has been great to be able to interact with them and hear their stories. God is doing some incredible things in this community and it has been an honor to be a part of it this week.

Thanks for your support and prayers.

This week a small team of high school students will be serving in the community of Mendenhall, MS. We are looking forward to posting a few updates throughout the week. We just got into town about an hour ago and are getting settled in. The drive went super smooth. Everybody is feeling good and anxious to start the work projects tomorrow morning.