Day three was provided by, Deacon Aaron and Christine Tizon. We made it ya’ll.
Hello New Life.
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support for our Harvey Relief Team!
We are experiencing God’s great blessings and miracles already after just our first day of working here.
Today we built a multi-purpose shed for a family that was a victim of Hurricane Harvey through a ministry called Sheds of Hope. It is a ministry headed by Pastor John Browne that partners with local churches to raise funds to build multi-purpose sheds for disaster victims that provide a place to store their belongings safe and secure from the elements while they go through the rebuilding process. Not only do they build sturdy sheds using materials that cost approximately$1,000, they follow-up with the families for up to two years after their ordeal to see how they are doing and to encourage them on their journeys to recovery.
We were so blessed by the Dolores, Alice, and John Torres that were so grateful for the shed we helped build for them. After we were done, we wanted to pray for them, but all three of them ended up praying for us, thanking God for sending us to help them in their time of need.
They were constantly looking out for us by offering coffee, snacks, and a spicy Mexican hot cocoa that was so delicious and warmed us up after working all day out in the unusually cold Houston weather.
Even though we felt cold and tired from sleeping only a few short hours the night, we were happy to serve faithfully through our relief mission.
During out debriefing at the end of the day, we were able to hear the many ways that God used this mission trip to bless us most of all.
We are all very excited to see what further blessings God has in store for us tomorrow!
Thank you for all your prayers thus far and please continue to pray for the remainder of our Harvey mission trip until we return to Denver tomorrow.
God bless you!
D. Aaron
I shared prior to our team leaving that none of us are truly equipped, and boy did that come into fruition today.
Before I get into that story I want to provide you with the context. The team was split in half and four of us found our way ready to serve a single mother of three, who was so trusting in our work despite our lack of skills. What’s quite surprising about being in Houston is that you would expect to see devastation, luckily for us we are in the later phases of relief; however, while everything may appear normal on the outside, true devastation exists on the inside. For the house, all of the lower drywall had been replaced making it look like the interior walls were walls of a garage. The rooms were hard to differentiate with the tools collected and scattered, walls gutted of anything that used to hang there before, and furniture pushed into the center as containers were placed in spaces to keep personal belongings off the ground still reminding the family of where the water once collected. Our job was to take the new dry wall and prime them for the fresh coat of paint that would re-color the house into a home.
As the task given seemed like a simple one, the team served diligently and we were basically able to prime the whole house for paint. Everything went well, until the storm that would re-devastate the family would go by the name Christine. Upon hearing the punchline to a joke while priming what once used to be a kitchen, my knee knocked a pvc pipe sticking out of the wall. The pipe broke, and water gushed out of the wall drenching the kitchen floor. While everyone buzzed in a panic thoughts of regret and remorse instantly filled my head, I even founding myself thinking: “I shouldn’t have come”. In reality God made this trip possible and I stand by my words when I say it is only by God’s hands that each member was hand picked, while I may not have been equipped – even to the point of nearly re-flooding a house that suffered hurricane devastation, God was working in hindsight. Clyde who’s been leading repair efforts on the house turned my crappy situation into a happy one. Without my oopsies we would’ve never found that the wall with the pipe lacked proper insulation. While I was thinking I was a mistake, God utilized me to bring awareness to what could’ve been an even bigger problem. That is the gospel message we are never fully equipped but Christ stepped in to enable us.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers literally this trip wouldn’t have been possible without your support.
Me with the broken pipe all patched ☺️ all thanks to Clyde and his knowledge and grace.