J1:27

We were privileged to be able to serve two very special ladies today as part of our adoption fundraiser. Many of our friends spent their entire Saturday with us on the "west side" in an effort to make a difference in the lives of Ms. Cora and Ms. Maddie. We feel so blessed to have had so much help and thankful that God led us to these two ladies.

Ms. Cora's house was completely painted. We were very grateful to have had all of the paint donated for free!

Ms. Cora's House

Before

After

Ms. Maddie's house was another story. This precious lady in her 60's is bound to her wheelchair due a degenerative muscle disease. She is living in a house that noone should be living in. The floor is falling in. There were vines growing on the walls inside her house. She has no means of doing laundry. She has no running water in her kitchen. No hot water at all. She cannot access her bathroom because her wheelchair will not fit through the door. Needless to say, her home is beyond "repair". We spent the day cleaning up her lot, building her a new handicap ramp, and doing what we could to clean up inside and make it more "liveable". My sweet friend Amy took 6 bags full of laundry to the laundromat and washed and folded them all. Ms. Maddie has applied to be considered for a home through Habitat for Humanity. We are going to be following up on that and exploring other options for her.

We filled this dumpster with the "debris" collected from around the house.

Timmy D doing some dumpster diving.

The ramp crew

David, Shon, Adam, Shane, and Tim

Shon (a.k.a. preacher man) feeling the power!

Me and Christie. Only a friend who really loves you and the Lord will bring her 4 kids to the sketchy side of town on a 95 degree Saturday to clean a strangers bathroom :).

Ms. Maddie going for a spin on her new ramp.

Greg came out to help us raise money for our adoptions despite the fact that he and his wife are in the process of adopting as well. They are adopting a little boy with special needs from Russia www.oureyesopened.blogspot.com . AND his wife Tesney kept both of my little ones at her house all day! We are so thankful for the family that we are becoming a part of here!

Hannah

Brittany

Anna

Cole.......

Ashley brought an awesome lunch and then stayed around to help. Careful on that chair girl :)!

Anna Leigh was a big help and sacrificed a day at the lake with the youth group to be there!

Andrea and I were wooed by the Cherry Dr. Pepper while at the Piggly Wiggly picking up some batteries for the fire detector. That's right. Piggly Wiggly. And have you tried Cherry Dr. Pepper? Wow!

Noah pitching in

Timmy D

3 Amigos

My sweet friend Christie conquering the bathroom!

Ms. Maddie's granddaughter

I'll be honest, it was a hard day of work. We touched things we didn't want to touch. We saw things we didn't want to see. We smelled things we didn't want to smell and stepped on things we didn't want to step on. There was sweat. There were thorns. There were roaches, spiders, and wasps. On top of all that I was once again slapped in the face with the ugly reality of this broken world in which we live.

Only in Christ could a day like today be considered a huge success and a blessing to all who were involved. Only in Christ could you walk away feeling like there's nowhere else you would've rather been. Only in Christ could today be considered a beautiful day.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day!