Tomorrow, or today if you want to be technical, is the day! His House at GVSU is leaving for the annual Spring Break trip to Fort Myers, Florida at 5pm. :) It's been a long time coming, but it's happening! Hurray! We'll be there sometime Saturday night, after driving 6 vans of approximately 12 people each through the night...bonding when we're awake. The total trip down will take about 28 hours, not counting stops for breakfast and lunch on Saturday. We will be staying at a church, on the floor, for 6 nights (First United Methodist Church of Ft. Myers) and we will engage in worship with them on Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon is our first planned beach day at Sanibel Island (and the start of the high 70/low 80 degree days); I'll also get to see Grandma Sally while we're there on Sunday. She's gonna meet up with me and hopefully we'll be able to do dinner together. Sunday through Thursday will be lots of early mornings and late nights, starting work projects around the community on Monday. We spend vast majority of the day doing those Monday through Thursday, and our evenings are spent back at the church for worship, dinner, small group, mass meeting and free time. On Friday morning, we will head a few hours north (to cut some of our trip home down) to Bradenton/Anna Maria Island. We'll spend the day at the beach fellowshipping and wandering around. Hopefully, that day I'll be able to see Sara, Steph, and Claire, around lunch time, as well as Jeff, Megan and the boys for dinner. I just saw Sara and Claire recently while she was up in MI, but it'll be fun to see them once again...and see Steph. As for Jeff, Megan, and the boys, it's been over 2.5 years since I saw them. :( Tyler, now 3, probably won't even remember me anymore. haha. We'll return to the church that evening for some fun and closure activities, as well as some sleep, and we'll head home on Saturday morning. We'll stop for lunch and dinner Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. We'll likely return to campus between 12 and 1pm on Sunday, with DST in full-effect, sleep deprived and depressed about the lost hour of sleep when it's most needed. ;)
In past years, our service projects in Ft. Myers have been things such as Habitat for Humanity, CCMI (food bank/preschool), local soup kitchen, Special Equestrians, ECHO, projects around the church or for members of the church in need. The projects differ from year to year, but that's just a little insight into the things we are up to while we are down there, striving to share the love of Jesus with the community.
So, if you wouldn't mind helping us out by lifting us up in prayer, it'd be greatly appreciated. Here are some things to pray about:
*Relationships with one another to flourish (especially spending 60 hours together in a van)
*Servant attitudes for Christ, each and every day
*Safe travels to/from Florida with little trouble and delays
*Health and healing for those already sick that they'll get rest and feel well again before too much of the trip has gone by
*Rest and relaxation for all of us; while this is a missions trip, it's also a time for us to rest and focus on God
*Focus on God and connect with Him through service, fellowship, and worship
*Us to leave an impact (in some way) with those we are serving while there
*God to simply move in our community and bring us closer to Him as a group
I'll try to update again when I get home, but we'll see how school work is looking. :) Prayers are welcomed and appreciated. If you're on SB, too, enjoy, otherwise I pray you have a blessed week as well.
Love, joy, and sunshine,
Sarah