La Sonya

day three Originally uploaded by dreams with faith Done. We finished. It took us all three full days to get everything accomplished but we did it! We had to replace 6 windows, tear up rotted floor, put in air vent, new fan, remodel bathroom, new wood paneling, mud ceiling, paint ceiling, paint roof, tear out and reinstall soffet, with a group of untrained students. And praise God we did it! The kids were great! We worked really hard all day today and finished up with the soffet and windows as the sun was slipping away. I think that helped us move faster because it was cold without the sun! Everyone on our sight worked really hard and did their part. I’m very proud of them all. Especially those guys I worked with yesterday because they didn’t even seem tired of me yet even after I made them work so hard to get the paint off yesterday! Speaking of those kids they crack me up. They have come up with some great nicknames for me. A favorite is Chappy, which I must say sounds cool ...

paint where? Originally uploaded by dreams with faith What a day. I was more focused on a job today. I was helping Chet with the outside crew by supervising Robert and Oscar and random others work on the back wall. Oh, man we were working on it most all day long. We had to hammer up the boards for the trim and then we had to paint it. But the guys got a little paint on the wall when I wasn’t looking. (as if I could have stopped it) So we had to work hard to get that off so we wouldn’t have a green spotted wall :o) We used a tooth brush on it and it seemed to work. I figured after a day like today they would be tired of me. . .we’ll see tomorrow. Recently my heart has been burning with different job ideas. Do you understand what I’m saying? When you get an idea in your head and you feel so passionately about doing that for a living, helping people, traveling the world. Doing something you love. Ahh, my heart pounds and burns and yearns for those jobs. I’ve been thinking about ...

Maybe I should explain real quick what Appalachia Mission trip is. It's a trip that Pastor Don has been doing for 20 years this year. It has followed him to each school he has worked at, hence the reason we have 4 schools that come from all over. We have Madison in TN, Columbia Adventist Academy in Washington state, Georgia-Cumberland Academy (GCA) in Georgia and Collegedale Academy in TN (while he never worked there we've been working with CA for a long time). These kids pay a small amout of money for gas to come and help people fix up their homes. It's a great mission trip because this way they can learn how to help people, learn confidence in working with their hands and meet students from other schools. I love the whole idea. I think it's great to teach kids these things.

day 1 Originally uploaded by dreams with faith Appalachia Mission trip, 20th edition. I've finally come :o) I've waited a long time to go on this trip. Way back when Andrea and I were first roommates our sophmore years in college. While I might not be building anythying here I'm learning and growing. Today I took a lot of pictures of the progress. My feet hurt, the boots I just bought so I'm wearing them in - the hard/fast way. Maybe tomorrow they won't hurst as much! It's funny because hile I am on a mission trip I'm still in my native country - but at lunch today we went to a gas station to eat our lunches so we could go potty, we're redoing the one at the house, and the sign in the womans restroom staited that I must put all toilet paper in the trash not in the toilet! I thought I was in America. . . We also took up the floor and there were 9 layers of lynolium and 1 layer of carpet (on top)! The second to top layer had newspaper from 1980, but the b...

i sat in on a spanish class today. i had heard they were doing spanish skits and i wanted to watch. i remember doing mine in spanish class with ms hamels, back before i knew how to speak spanish. in the class after watching the dynamics of the students and then the skits i felt like reciting part of the movie never been kissed when at the end she is making the conection that no matter what year it is kids are the same and there are the same kinds of kids in each generation. the ones who are super smart, don't care about grades, can get away with anything, jocks, pretty girls, and the average slide by without being noticed kind. as i was watching the students i found myself looking to see who was the modern verson of my best friends from the year 2001. and i found them. they were there right along with the rest of my classmates. in the movie the character was 25 years old going back to highschool undercover to do reserch, while i'm not going undercover i am 25 and i'm workin...

so this is me with one of the sweetest little girls i have ever met. she was a little muslim girl who was there with her family taking care of a family member. it's always hard to tell who belongs to who. she just loved us SM's. she'd see us at one end of the hall and unlike any, ANY other chadian child she would run, not walk or skip but RUN to us and jump on us just like a child from north america. normaly small children would be afraid of us at first, second, third and even forth meeting. not her. i loved those few days she was there with us. if you get a chance please pray for her health and family. pray that she stays healthy and doesn't get malaria. her odds aren't high. 1 in 5 children will die from it. please pray.

so saturday night something happend here at GCA that has never truly happend. i was late getting to football mania because the chaplains office had been at a youth workers meeting at camp cohutta for fri night at Sabbath. so i was a few min late to the girls game that i was supposed to be 'coaching'. really i was the head cheerleader for the night ;o) you know me. any way as the evening wore on it slowly dawned on me. i fit in . . . i am happy here . . . i like working here, this is fun! So for the first time since i got here I think i finally really felt good. and I was glad. and it was a good weekend.