Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all are having a wonderful day! We sure are! We are in the midst of delivering to all of the schools and we are having the best time. Right now we are at Blanchard and we have already been to 2 other schools. The internet has been down at the Guest House (which is why we are posting at Blanchard).

We had a great day yesterday. We have finished 3 roofs and painted A LOT. Everyone is doing well, no sickness.

Going around to all of the schools has been amazing. The children are so excited about everything they are recieving (one little girl that was sitting in my lap was so excited that her excitement got ALL over me). They squeal and bury their heads in their hands as we are passing out the items...it is priceless.

We hope everyone at home has a blessed day. Everyone here keeps saying this is probably one of the best Thanksgivings they have ever had. Eat some turkey for us- we are going to a Haitian buffet for lunch!

*Happy Birthday to Amy from Haiti!
**Big Bob- people keep asking about you!
***While you guys were eating ribs on Tuesday, we were enjoying peanut butter sandwiches.

First Work Day

Today was our first day going into Cite Soleil to work. The men tore off and roofed 2 houses all in one day. They worked really hard! The ladies painted areas of the church that Pastor Leon designated. Jackie gave us a tour of the school and we had a wonderful time meeting the students and spending time with them.

We had a team meeting tonight where we shared about our day and fellowshipped together. The overwhelming feeling from all of the team members is that we are incredibly blessed and fortunate. Tonight it is pouring the rain (thankfully there are 2 families that now have a secure, waterproof roof over their heads). We are hoping that the rain will subside during the night so that we can get a lot of work done tomorrow. The goal for the week is 5 houses to have new roofs and improvements around the Cite Soleil church.

We miss being at the Thanksgiving dinner tonight. We sat around talking about how everyone was eating bar-b-que back home. Thanks for your prayers and comments. We are thankful for the opportunity you all have provided for us to be here. We are really excited to deliver ALL of the bags on Thursday.

We are Here!

We arrived to Haiti around 12:00 with no problems! The flights were on time and all the transitions were smooth. All 36 bags got here and got through customs with no problems! The customs officials certainly enjoyed shooting the finger blasters across the airport while they were searching the bags. We gave them one as a souvenir. We are about to head to the grocery store to pick up some food for the week. It has already been great to be back in Haiti and see old friends. The weather is beautiful but hot (around 90 degrees). We are excited about a great week and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store.

Haiti... November 24- 29

We leave in the morning for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Our flight leaves around 6:00am. Please pray that God will be glorified in all that we do. We are taking down around 1,200 packages for the schools. Praise God! Thanks to all that contributed!

The Team: Bobby Long, Donna Long, Christy Ferrell, Chad Ferrell, Marshall Harper, Rachel Harper, Curtis Watson, Jordan Wilson, Tyler Boone, Rodney Hicks, Nicolle Lemire, Kenny Lemire.

Heading Home

We are on our way home! We are in the Vienna airport right now. The flight just took off with the team (Chad and I have a later flight). Everyone got checked in and are on their way! It was sad to leave our good friends, The Holloways, but we will see them next year when they are in the States- can't wait! We are so thankful for ALL they have done for us (even being our tour guides in Prague and Budapest)! It has been a great couple of weeks and we are excited to come home and share with everyone!

Please come to Ridgecrest tomorrow to hear the report from the team. There will be a video and testimonies from the trip in the 8:30, 9:45 and 11:00 service. We look forward to seeing you!

Here are a few pictures from the trip to Budapest.





See you tonight!

Budapest

The group from Budapest is getting on the train back to Bratislava in about an hour. We will get back to Bratislava around 11:00 pm- take a bus back to our hotel and then head out to Vienna in the morning.

We have had a fun couple of days in Budapest. We toured the city, shopped in the market and even enjoyed a Turkish Bath!

We will see you all soon!

Our last day in Bratislava

We have had a wonderful day. Unfortunately this is our last day in Bratislava. We leave early in the morning for The Prague and Budapest trips. We will return back to Bratislava late on Friday and then head to Vienna early on Saturday to fly home. We have had a wonderful time here and have seen the Lord work in amazing ways. We can't wait to get home and share how we have seen Him working in lives.

This is the team that painted the desks and did the yard work at the school.

Thanks to the Melo's for making our lunch the past two days!

We all really enjoy getting icecream and just hanging out around the city.

We will see you soon!

Service Projects

Today we began our service project days in Bratislava. About 7 of our team members went to a park and played sports with some of the students from last week. About 20 students from last week showed up. Praise God! The rest of us went to another school and sanded down desks, painted them, did some mowing and also some trimming of bushes. The headmaster of the school was impressed that people would volunteer their time to help out. We are hoping that his life will be impacted for eternity as well as the students in the park as they see Christ in us.










Our work ended around 1:00 and we have been able to have some free time around the city. Many people are resting. Some went to see the Holloway's home. Others are just enjoying the shopping and beauty in the city. Here are a few shots of the Old Town where many of us enjoy spending time.







The weather has been beautiful and warm. We have a similar schedule tomorrow...sports camps and work at the school. Hope everything is going great at home! We miss you!

The Newly Engaged Couple...

Jason and Charity!

We had a wonderful and relaxing get-a-way to the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. We enjoyed different hikes, shopping, and food. While on one of the hikes, Jason asked Charity to be his wife! We were walking around a beautiful mountain lake... on a beautiful day! They are planning to get married December 27, 2008 and we are all thrilled.


This is the group of people that were on the hike when Jason proposed.

We are passing through a cute little town right now- on a stop for lunch- on our way back to Bratislava.

There are several people on the team who aren't feeling well. Please pray that their health and pains will heal.

Party time!

Today is our last day with the students at the English camps. The students have really opened up over the week and it is sad to say goodbye. We are throwing a party tonight to hang out one last time. We will have pizza, games and a video from the week that Packy has put together. It will be a great time of fellowship and another opportunity to talk with the students.

After the camps were over yesterday (Thursday) we had the opportunity to go eat dinner on a docked boat on the Danube River. It was a fun change of pace and nice to enjoy the river view. We are so thankful for all that has been set up for us while we are over there by the Missionaries. They dedicate so much time and energy to making sure everything is running smooth and we are taken care of.

We are thankful for the Holloways and for letting us partner with them for these couple of weeks. (We miss you Kara!)














10 of our teammates head back to the states tommorrow and we are sad they are leaving. The rest of us will be heading off to the Tatras tomorrow to see some other parts of Slovakia. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will come back to Bratislava to do some service projects. Hopefully we will find an internet connection in the mountains. If not, we will update you Tuesday when we are back in Bratislava. Thanks for following along on our journey. We are thankful for your prayers. May God receive all glory, honor and praise.

It's a Great Day to be Alive!

Well, It has been a great week so far, the high school group made a huge impact on the custodians at the school yesterday by simply being available to help move some furniture. There has also been opportunities to go out into the city to talk with people about spiritual things.

The kids are loving the games that we play in the mornings and they also seem to be really attentive during the testimonies of our team members and all of the Bible stories.

Continue to pray over the next two days that many lives are touched by our team and that the Holy Spirit would rain down in Bratislava.

High School Team


Middle School Team

Wednesday

We are halfway through the week and everyone was a little bit sleepy this morning! We are really busy for most of the day! It is neat to see relationships being built with the Slovak students as the week passes. It is very rainy today which makes running around the city not so fun... but definitely an adventure! Everyone sends their love!

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Tuesday

Everything is still going great. The high school had about 8 students attend yesterday. Tim Batten and Rae Francis taught these students while the rest of the high school team went out into the community and did spiritual interest surveys that gave them an opportunity to share their testimonies and the Gospel.












The adult English camp went really well last night. There were about 25 adults that came. Beverly Blalock, Rose Ann Palmer, and Tom and Joyce Buck each taught a class. We are all learning to be flexible with the English lessons we planned!





While the adult English camp was going on inside, everyone else ran a kids camp outside. This camp has an olympic theme and the students competed in races and relays. It was neat to watch everyone play together and have a great time. Our team was able to spend some group time talking with the Slovak students.











We hope everyone is doing well at home. We miss you all. Please continue to pray for the team as well as all of the people we come in contact with.

Monday

Thanks for the comments and being a part of our adventure. It is encouraging to know we have support coming from home.

Last night (Sunday night) was a fairly early night. We ate dinner around 6:00 and then had our meeting. Each night Packy leads us in worship, we spend some time studying 2 Timothy, and play a game. We are broken up into 4 teams. After the meeting a group of us decided to go downtown for some icecream and got caught in a HUGE storm. As we ran through the city, trying to get to the bus stop, we got drenched! Katy's hamburger even flew out of her bag we were running so fast. Fun memories and stories to tell!

Team Ben


Team Sonya


Team Tom


Team Allison


We had our first morning of English camps and everything went great! We had almost 50 students at the middle school. (I will let you know about the high school tomorrow.) The students are pretty quiet on the first day so hopefully as they become more comfortable, conversations can develop! The teaching teams were very prepared and had fun activities to teach the students.

After the camps this morning we took the bus back to the hotel to eat lunch. We have a few hours to prepare and rest before the adult English and sports camp tonight. We are hoping for a good turnout so that there will be many opportunities to spend time with people to share the Gospel.

Here are pictures from the Middle School team. Hopefully tomorrow we will have some from the high school.




















Shay preached out of 2 Peter 3:18 on Sunday Morning. Be praying that each team member would take this verse to heart and be growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so that we would bring all glory to our God!