Our team ready to load into the van the morning of departure and drive from Virginia Beach to Jacksonville, FL followed by another drive the next day from that pit stop to Tampa, FL.
Adam and I, excited about our first missions trip together.
God had so many amazing things in store for all of us that week!
Our Atlantic Shores Waves Team
We were split up into smaller groups. A couple groups did yard work, one at a church camp and ours for elderly women in the community through the Tampa Center for Women's Elderlink program, while another group lead a vacation Bible school and the last group did street evangelism and worked on a church.
Each night after much needed showers (remember it was between 100 and 107 degrees each day. Thank God we had shade in most of the yards we worked in. It was SUCH a blessing!), we would have dinner followed by a service with worship and a challenge. The second to last night, we even had an awesome prayer service and time of reflection.
Side note...those are our team's shirts...the week's theme was "Unhindered".
House #1
We had a couple news crews stop by this first site and interview some of our team members to let the Tampa community know what World Changers was doing that week.
After
With the wonderful homeowner.
We really got to spend some quality time talking with her.
After our team prayed for her, she then prayed for us, which was so sweet.
House #2
After
House #3
After...
now the homeowner has a lovely yard to enjoy again.
House #5
House #6
We spent an entire day working on this one property and we filled two huge dumpsters.
It was a jungle in there...we got rid of most of the trees and brush, and we got rid of the shed and the odds and ends that it contained too.
Pulling and cutting down what we referred to as wild "carrots" because of their orange roots. To this day I have no idea what this plant really was, but it grew all over Tampa.
After...what a difference!
No longer a jungle out there.
House #7
House #10 Before...
During...it was even raining...but we all powered through to finish strong.
After
That night, Adam and I were surprised by our team with a cake for our 5 year anniversary, which occurred on our final day of the missions trip. Boy did I blush! Serving the Tampa community together was the perfect way to celebrate our lives being united 5 years earlier.
After a week of hard work it was time to head home, but first we rewarded ourselves with a pit stop at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure. We hung out with some of our team in the morning and were amazed at Harry Potter World. It was BEAUTIFUL!
Then Brent and Trisha drove to meet us at the park since were in their neck of the woods.
That evening, the team all met up and grabbed one more photo...sadly the camera was on video and a stranger was taking the photo so we could all be in the picture...so Adam had to do some fancy editing to get a still shot, but it's still a cool photo of our team before heading home from an AMAZING week!
Adam and I were so blessed this week by the team of students we worked, who all worked so hard together to bless the women we were working for, and by how God was moving in the lives of our Waves students and leaders.
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