Praying for Volunteers

   We have spent a lot of time this week on our knees and reaching up.  After several hours of laying tile, filling grout, sanding and painting ceilings I know I was praying that GOD would send us the volunteers we need to do his work in New Jersey. Then HE shows me Paul, Chris and Charlie along with homeowners who we are able to spend more one on one time with.

Sue is a home owner who Charlie has been helping rebuild and now NCBM has been able to help them hang insulation, hang and finish sheet rock and this week started painting. We are still doing some of the final work at Rick’s house.  We got all the tile installed this week.  Nick and Mary’s house is also close to finish.

The Beachplum Quilters of the Jersey Shore presented us a quilt.  It was to thank us for our help rebuilding the Shore.  They also have presented them to many of the home owners that lost so much in the storm.  Ann is also a quilter so this is dear to her heart.

As of today we now have three new sets of building permits and praying for Barbara’s to be ready next week.  At present that puts us in 12 different homes with the opportunity to share the gospel as GOD leads us.  However, we are very short on volunteers.  Please join us in prayer for volunteers to come to Jersey to help rebuild as GOD has planned.

Ann like to walk on the boardwalk after supper and saw this juggling act one night.

Praising God Through the Trials

I have been putting off updating the blog because of the disappointments of the week and I didn’t know how to express them without sounding whiney. There are so many worse things going on in the world these days and I have so much to be thankful for.  Pastor Todd keeps reminding us to praise God even in the storms so I just want to praise Him for the life we have and for the opportunity to serve Him daily. With that being said I will just give the facts from this week with no whining.   We had no volunteer teams this week, and yes we had plenty of work to do.  Billy and Tim were finishing up Rick’s bathroom tile and Vicki and Ann were cleaning and doing painting touch up.  We thought we would have the house complete by the end of the week but that was not to be.  We had a huge rain storm Tuesday night that caused flood damage in Seaside Heights.  It rained so hard that even our camper leaked.  We were up at 1 AM mopping floors and putting out pans to catch the water.  When we went inside the church before breakfast we found that the bathrooms were flooded from water coming up out of the sewer lines.  We spent all morning cleaning that up.  After lunch Billy and Tim went to check on Rick and Nick’s houses.  Nick’s was ok but Rick’s brand new laminate flooring was ruined. It has now all been removed and we are replacing it with tile.  Progress was made at Nick’s on Saturday by installing his kitchen cabinets.

We have lots of openings for volunteers this fall so let us know when you would like to come.

Small Group Full of Energy

   Our team this week was from Rankin Lake Baptist Church, Dallas, NC. The team, good friends of Tim and Vicki, was led by Pastor Jim.  His wife Delaine and DIL Emily prepared our meals.  His daughter Ashley and son Jason plus a friend Nathan helped on the rebuild. On Monday morning we unloaded another load of supplies sent by Citimpac and World Vision to help NCBM with rebuilding homes in New Jersey.  Then Tim went with the team to help Charlie hang sheetrock in Sue’s home. Later in the week They joined Billy and Paul as they continued putting the final touches on Rick and his mom’s home.  Ashley and her dad Jim started hanging doors at Nick and Mary’s.  With it being such a small group Vickie also joined in on the painting fun. 

With the days still being long it is a joy to watch the beautiful sunsets GOD provides over the bay each day.  And with the warm weather evening walks on the board walk have been popular.

We are now without any volunteers except Paul for 3 weeks. NCBM currently has 8 homes which we are working on and have 4 others that have asked for our help but I will not commit to them due to the lack of volunteers at this time.  If you have some time and would like to serve God by helping us please give us a call.

Nick and Rick Get New Flooring

   This week we had two teams from eastern North Carolina.   The largest team (top left) was First Baptist, Dunn.  The other team (top right) was from different churches in the Eastern Baptist Associations. Tim got three of the young ladies to help him give the tool trailer a much needed cleaning and reorganization. Tim and Billy started installing cabinets in Rick’s home. The feeding team was from Region 4 and they were assisted by two of the ladies from EBA.   The Eastern Baptist group almost finished up John & Claire’s home in Long Branch. They also helped pack up a house so it could be torn down.  The Dunn group split up three ways. One group did painting and then laid flooring at Nick and Mary’s.  Another group laid flooring, installed doors and molding at Rick and Jerri’s (Rick’s mom). The third group did a lot of clean up – church area, five yards and under the boardwalk (which they just loved-NOT).

As of now this is the last of the big groups on the calendar to come to New Jersey to help share the gospel and rebuild homes.  We do have a few small teams signed up but the amount of work needing to be done is way bigger than the amount of volunteers that have signed up to serve in New Jersey in the coming months.  Plans are for us to be here until summer 2015 so PLEASE pray and make plans for several trips to help.  This is your chance to help rebuild homes and lives.