Yep – it’s true! The team arrived all in one peace and mostly sane after a relatively smooth 6 hour trek on a beautiful day through fantastic landscapes. Honestly, the mountains of western Maryland, dotted with farms and streams in the bright summer sun are absolutely breathtaking.
We stopped for lunch in Morgantown with perfect timing… by which I mean that an enormous high school group arrived right after us. Turns out, it’s a church high school youth group with 55 students and leaders from Long Island, NY. Guess where they were going…yep – Clendenin, WV! What are odds?!
The set up is pretty awesome and since we were the first crew to make it onsite we had the pick of the spaces (near the outlets – DUH!). We were set up and settled in by 4 and had loads of time to hang out with each other and the leadership team here.
We have been given a fantastic team of NextStep Ministries staff and we can’t wait to get to know our team leaders a bit better. There are 9 work crews this week and we’ve been assigned two pretty awesome gigs.
Part of our team will head over to the Clendenin Little League field to install a sidewalk. Right now the fields are still in process, but once they are up and running the community will need them to be open to people of differing abilities. The rest of our group will be heading over to the home of a community member. We’ll have a number of jobs there and we’ll update details as they come! One small spoiler – we have one crew leader originally born in Kenya named Irene! Sound familiar to anyone? We’ll definitely be posting pics with her soon!
We wrapped the evening with a great worship and teaching session. The place is packed and the energy is incredible! Even in our extremely tired state, we can tell how God is already working in and through this incredible environment.
The theme this week is Reckless Love and tonight we focused on the four primary principles at the heart how NextStep Ministries desires to impact the communities in which they serve: Humble Servant, Fervent Listener, Discontent Ambassador and Zealous Developer.
We are just a few moments away from lights-out and thankfully several students have picked up on the pro-tip of “you don’t have to stay up until lights out”… #goingtobedearlyrocks
Thanks for praying for our team and checking in and be sure to stay tuned for more details as they come!
We're HERE! Check out the new digs! Yep - it's true! The team arrived all in one peace and mostly sane after a relatively smooth 6 hour trek on a beautiful day through fantastic landscapes.