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Wow! What a day! You wouldn’t believe how much work the team triumphantly accomplished today. We served at four different widow/widowers homes today with an abundance of yard work. One gentleman, Les, had an entirely overgrown backyard with piles of junk and debris everywhere.

Before

After
And this is only the front half of the yard! The back half was all cleared out of blackberries and overgrown bushes as well. Praise the Lord!

The team took on this significant challenge and came through successfully, but it was definitely the hardest day of work yet – cutting back blackberry bushes, serious pruning, and hauling, here we come! Thank you for your prayers of perseverance and extra strength! It has been greatly needed. You can actually walk through Less’ back yard now. Hallelujah!

Serveral ladies from the team had prepared gift baskets in advance including fresh fruit, cookies, treats, a gospel tract, gospel booklet and notes. These were distributed to each widow that we served.

The Lord opened the doors for some neat conversations with these folks as well, as Les even joined us for lunch and was definitely warming up as the day progressed.

We will continue to serve at a few other widows’ homes tomorrow, so please pray for the Lord to bless the labors of our hands!

Would you also join us in praying specifically for Les’ salvation?

As you may have noticed I didn’t post anything in regards to day 3…well, Aaron was down and out for the day with a bad cold so we stayed home and I made some marionberry jam with my SIL Autumn. But the team did have a wonderful time of outreach in downtown Portland distributing care bags and flip flops to the homeless. It was a huge success, so I have heard.

Today, day 4, we served at four different Pregnancy Resource Centers around Portland.

We completed various projects from cleaning carpets, floors, dusting, mopping, to sorting and organizing baby clothes and cleaning baby furniture donations. We had a blast! I have been so blessed at how well Karis has been doing this week. What a joy it has been to serve others together as a family, even with little ones…it is possible!

My family served at the headquarters location and packaged baby bottles for their baby bottle drives. These bottles get distributed and people are encouraged to collect loose change around the house to store in the bottle and donate. They informed me that it was quite fun and the staff there was greatly blessed by their service.

Just so you know…PRC are always in need of diapers! So if you happen upon a sale, consider donating them to your local PRC for the needy mothers that come through. They also accept good condition clothing and baby furniture. A great way to pass on your baby’s used goods and serve someone in need. Pregnancy Resource Centers are doing a great work that is worth getting behind. Another powerful way to serve this ministry is through prayer!

Thank you for your prayers! We are having a wonderful time! It is a true joy getting behind ministries that are living out the gospel in practical ways. This will not be the end of the needs…volunteering as a family is a wonderful opportunity to learn how to serve together and further the gospel in a simple and yet powerful way.

Anna, age 3, has been faithfully serving alongside her mother all week! It can be done…even with toddlers! This has been such a blessing to see.

God has been blessing and multiplying the labors of our hands and we are exceeding the expectations of those we are serving. Praise the Lord! Today we were serving at a local park in Wood Village on the outskirts of Portland. This was an extensive project of pulling up grass and weeds that were growing alongside and overcoming a bark trail around the park.

It wasn’t an easy task, but the Lord supplied the grace and gave the team the extra strength and energy for the work.  We had another part of our group laying down new bark chips in the playground area to protect the children while they play. The man (Chuck) who was directing the project was extremely impressed by the hard work the team put it. He kept saying again and again what a huge help it was and that we were serving in a much needed way in our city.

I guess volunteers are becoming harder and harder to come by. This is unfortunate…what better way to be a light than being willing to get dirty and serve our community in this simple way? Chuck was passionate about taking care of the earth, and although our worldview may be different, there is a lesson to be learned that God has called us as believers to lead the way in being good stewards of the earth He has entrusted to our care.We were able to give this man a basket of goodies, a gospel tract, and to explain the reason why we were here was because we were Christians. Please pray for Chuck’s salvation. Along the way others walking the path also asked what we were doing and we were able to share why we were serving.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) the team is off to serve the homeless in downtown Portland! Pray the Lord would really direct them to the right people and open the hearts of the lost to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Please also pray for my husband Aaron who has come down with a sinus infection today and it is taking him down. Thanks so much!

What a full and yet productive day we had on Monday at Shepherd’s Door, a ministry dedicated to serving homeless women and children by providing basic needs, housing, food, training in life skills and schooling to help get them off the streets.

This is a Christian organization and they have a wonderful vision of imparting the gospel through meeting these practical needs but also in meeting the ultimate need of the gospel of Jesus Christ. IT was a great delight to tour their facility and see the good work that is going on. They house forty women at a time and provide children’s programs at the same time to enable the mother’s to attend school, get their GED, etc. while their children are also learning and such.

As a team, we were able to do some serious weeding throughout the grounds of their facility (and trust me, there was alot!). We cleaned gutters and sprayed moss on the roof, in addition to sanitizing and wiping down all their playground equipment. We had a great team for the first day!

My mother & mother-in-law with Karis – everyone is helping!

Please continue to pray for perseverance among the team…especially for all the younger folks. May we all continue to give our very best and not grow weary in well doing! We are off today to serve in cleaning up a local park!

June has come to an end already but what beautiful weather we have been experiencing here in the Northwest over the last few weeks! I have so many things to be thankful for looking back over this month. The wonderful weather has sure been kicking in the allergies! Thanks to the allergy tonic recipe, I have been surviving pretty well (twice a day!). We re-financed our house this month, and were able to get a bit of money in the process, which is going into savings for a new car (well…new to us that is!). If you have read this, you know of some of the crazy things that have happened with this car! Being able to refinance was a blessing in itself because our mortgage was going up significantly.

Playing pica boo!

Another blessing was Aaron having a wonderful time at the technology in missions conference earlier this month. He feels confirmed that that is the direction God would have us go…now the question and prayer is…when and how? Should we do it full-time or part-time? Should he work on the side to support us or should we raise support? Lots of fun questions…but we serve a faithful God who graciously leads us in the direction He would have us go. Appreciate your continued prayers.

Ahh! I found you!

Karis has taken 6 steps several times now! I am wondering when she will get inspired to walk…but it sure is fun seeing her become a little girl. She loves exploring everything!

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