Missions in North Carolina!

Last week was our first week of missions! We had the opportunity go serve through disasters relief in North Carolina. Over the course of the week, each team was assigned to at least one home that had been damaged from Hurricane Helene last year. Due to lack of finances or simply just time, these houses hadn’t been repaired back to their original state since then. This week was filled with an abundance of blessings!

We arrived in NC last Saturday afternoon, after a 3 hour road trip from our base in Georgia. The next day, each team was sent to a different church around us. Me and my team went to a small local Presbyterian church. What struck me most was how the church body was still grieving what had been lost since the hurricane. One of the announcements made that service was for a Helene remembrance night, as they were coming up on the one year anniversary of the hurricane. When headlines go away, it’s easy to forget the tragedy that hundreds of lives are still grieving. For this area in North Carolina and others as well, so many families remain displaced and hurt from the traumatic incident that took away so much. I wondered how many of these families and homes are still being prayed over.

Me and my team of 6 other girls got to install insulation in a crawl space underneath a home of a married couple. When the hurricane came through, it flooded the bottom of their house and completely molded the insulation. I wish I could say this job was all sunshine and rainbows, but truly it wasn’t the most enjoyable task. Most spaces in the crawl space only had enough room to lay down on the dirt and insects that were surely beneath us. The picture above shows our uniforms for the job site. The gloves I had on were far bigger than my hands, my glasses kept fogging up, and by the end of the week my tennis shoes were completely covered in mud. But God was so so good through it all! I am so blessed to have a team who makes anything we do so joyful! Even in the thick of the mud, I saw pure laughter, genuine smiles, and hearts eager to serve! The couple we served were so hospitable and the wife cooked us lunch twice out of her own generosity. She spoke mostly Spanish and the meals she made us were most definitely the best food I’ve had since being away.

One of the core values of the organization we were serving with was ‘Relationship over Task’. This is something I’ve been excited to grow in during this trip. Naturally, I tend to focus on completing tasks before I make the time to connect with other people. I struggle to slow down and love others well when there is a job in front of me that needs to be done in a matter of time. Going into this last week, I knew I wanted to practice patience and focus more on building connections with the homeowners over fixing their house. While we didn’t get to see the couple too much, the Lord gave me this time to grow closer to my teammates. And no, I definitely didn’t do this perfectly. But I saw the Lord giving me the strength to slow my rushed pace and draw my attention to the people around me even when there were jobs to be done. Thank you Jesus that your mercies are new every morning, your grace is more than I could ask for.

This is my team!!! They are the 6 girls I will eat, sleep, and serve with for the entire 9 months. Though our squad has 31 of us total, we may not always be doing ministry in that big of a group. Most of the time, teams will be separated into different ministries or even sleeping locations within the country. From left to right, starting with the top row of this picture is Naomi, Jaydin, Abby (our leader), Carlee, Karen, Kynsie, and me! They are seriously such a blessing, I already love them all so much!!

Thank you for reading this! We are now back in Georgia for one week of debrief before we head out to our first country: Eswatini!!! I seriously could not be doing this without the support of your prayers and the financial gifts that made this possible! Be blessed!