Sunday, March 21, 2010
Faith and Mercy Missions, Northeast, MS
F & M Missions came for their annual spring visit with two purposes in mind. One was to plan their annual fall trip in which they minister to the Bayside community. The other was to have a camp "care" mission. And oh did they take care of our camp and the grounds!!
Much was accomplished by these 30 wonderful missionaries in just 2 days. Unbelievable!
One of the goals of the group has been to help us in our upkeep of our camp by making repairs and updates to the facility itself. They gutted one side of our bunkhouse and painted the entire room, added new carpet that they donated and brought with them, then added new vinyl baseboards. This not only updated the room and made it seem so much brighter and bigger, but also added comfort for the many people yet to come on missions or retreats in the future!! Beautiful.
They also donated and brought with them new and much needed foam mattresses for all of our bunk beds. After 4 1/2 years of use by thousands, the new beds will bring great restful sleep after all of the hard work in which our volunteers are involved. Awesome.
Also to update our shower house dressing rooms, 4 fantastic new benches were built by one of the men in the group gifted and handy with wood. Each has a handy shelf underneath and a cushy vinyl seat on top! Our volunteers are going to love this addition!! Fabulous.
We are also very grateful for the electrical system that was run from the shower house into our greenhouse. An all day project headed up by another man gifted in electrical skills. This will afford us many different ways to heat and fan our plants. Terrific.
Another project that was completed that is invaluable to us was the extension of our lean to on the side of the camp. Everything was removed (and there was a lot of junk as well as good stuff) and everything was then organized on shelving newly built by yet others talented in this field!! Wow! It doesn't look like the same place. Looks like one of those reality shows came and had a complete remake. Now everything is neat and tidy and we can actually find things! And there is room for more stuff! Spectacular.
The sidewalks leading to our camp from the parking lot and the one leading from our camp to the shower house got a complete face lift by gardening experts! They weeded, remulched and weed eated the entire walkway. It is beautiful. They also changed our batteries on our solar lights and we once again have lighted pathways at night. It is amazing.
Other hard work was done believe it or not. One thing was the running of a water line from the front end of our garden to our mayhaw trees and also to the muscadines. Pipes were laid and facets were installed. Also, limestone was hauled from a large pile by the camp to the sides and back of the camp for water run off. They cut grass and weed-eated many other areas. Fixed our outdoor security light. And a very talented young man with a tractor leveled ground on the side of the camp! Remarkable.
Added to all of this, the group had a great cook off where one of the men in their group who is mighty talented in cooking, cooked steaks and fixin's and invited others to join us in a great time of food, fun and fellowship even though the weather turned really nasty and rainy. But, he was able to use his pit under the newly remodeled lean to! Yummy.
And to end the trip we had a wonderful Sunday morning service in the camp where the Word was preached by their pastor Scott who had brought his beautiful wife and three lovely children with him. Thank you Lord for this unbelievable time. We look forward to the next trip!!!