This is my telling of my experience on the Boone First United Methodist Church Youth Group’s Mission Trip to Houston (Vidor). There were 18 people on the mission trip and all of them experienced the mission trip in a completely different way than I did.
Therefore, you should pull your tired bones out of bed on Sunday, July 8 and drag yourself to the basement of the Boone First United Methodist Church (703 Arden Street) between worship services (approximately 10 AM) and listen to the other 17 people give their testimony about the mission trip. I’ll probably run my yap as well. There will also be a video. Also, there will be refreshments.
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The Heat Waves had breakfast prep on Tuesday morning. I believe they served burnt waffles. #wafflelife
Here is my day in pictures:
The Heat Waves thinking, “Waffles, so much better burnt.”
Emily doing lunch prep.
Emily learning how to slam lettuce.
All Heat Waves on deck!
Jentry making sure everything is in the right place.
Andy and Kyle organizing the lunch meat.
Don’t tell the Baptists, but we were dancing in their building.
Some of these kids have moves!
Hands in!
Mosher Painting Service!
Also sent this picture of Kolbe rocking NASA swag to Flat Earth Joe. He did not respond.
Clean up.
Megan!
Anna!
Maci cleaning up the floor.
Tiffany!
Kolbe painting the living room ceiling.
I believe this is called mean mugging. I don’t know. I’m old.
Paint central.
Vidor started to flood, so they called us back to the church for safety. We were actually working in a town called Rose Acres. So we had a long drive back in the flooded streets.
But luckily, when we got back to the church they found us a new job! Filling sandbags!
We emptied the church’s sandpile.
A kid from another church estimated we filled “like 20 sandbags!” The actual number was closer to 1,000.
When we were done sandbagging, we loaded 3 trailers full of sandbags.
When they were loaded, the Baptist Minister wanted us to load our kids up into the trucks and put the sandbags into place. We told him that we were not putting our kids in flood water. He was not a happy camper.
The next day we talked to a guy that went with them to put the sandbags in place. He told us that there were water moccasins in the water with them.
A bonus of the sandbagging was the ground was filled with angry ants that came out of the ground and lit quite a few of us up!
You were in store for a world of hurt if you got on top of that dirt mound.
But at least after the sandbagging, we got to hit the showers!
The Cowboys had dinner cleanup. I wouldn’t be talking out of turn if I told you that they rocked it!
MacKenzie – Master dish stacker!
That night, the Ukeladies helped lead the worship service.
This is what happens when you destroy your only pair of shoes sandbagging!
Hailey!
Some version of volleyball!
The cultural activity on Tuesday night was supposed to be a free night. Do whatever you want. We were going to try to go down to the Gulf, even though it was about an hour away. However, since Vidor started to flood, we weren’t able to go more than a couple of blocks away. So our cultural event was going to Baskin Robbins and Whataburger.
If you want to see what I mean by how The Cowboys rocked the dish situation, watch the videos below:
These videos suffer from Vertical Video Syndrome because they were originally posted to Instagram Stories. That is also why they are regrettably short in length.
However, that rocking would not come without a cost. That cost I will cover in tomorrow’s post on Day 5.
Not Pictured: I got to meet up with Joe Duff on Tuesday for about 5 minutes. He came to the place where we were staying, but then had to get home because of the flooding. I was hoping he would make it back for the Community Dinner on Thursday, but he has a little baby to look after, so there is that.
I enjoyed all of your adventures from my phone. Thanks for sharing. Bless all if you. Adults and youth from FUMC.
It was great to see you all and sorry it was so short. Nathan says thanks for having his dad home to take care of him.
I’m proud to know such great people who are willing to work and share with others.
Glad you survived the rains and didn’t have any run-ins with water moccasins!
I got bit by something one day. It was insect of some kind, but it hurt bad enough that it felt like it could have been a water moccasin. I never saw what it was, but it did hurt.
I wish we would have gotten a picture!
Hopefully I’ll make it down to Houston again or you’ll make it back up to the Cyclone State at some point soon!