Missing Lakeshore

Like Josh said at the end of our trip that the Lord appointed us to be at that particular place for a certain amount of time. When it is time to leave that's when he planned for us to leave. It wasn't hard to leave because what Josh said is so true. I'm ready to go back again. It hasn't even been a month since the trip and I'm ready to go back. Once again, Jeremiah 29:11 comes back to mind. I need to rest in the Lord and allow him to show me what He wants me to do. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait.

Here are some links to check out:
http://elbourne.org
http://rebuildlakeshore.com
http://lakeshorebaptist.net

Lakeshore Baptist is the church our church is partnering with. I have been blessed by the Lord to be able to go to Lakeshore twice, once in Nov. 05 and then again in April 06. If it's part of the Lord's will I would like to go back as many times as He wants me to go.

One of the most amazing things from my trip in April was the strength the Lord gave me. I was really sick the first couple days and had no voice the remainder of the trip but I had such an amazing strength that could have only come from the Lord. Among other things the Lord reminded me of was the importance of prayer and resting in Him. I didn't take something in Him in prayer during the trip and wound up hurting one of my friends because of my actions. Of course, I apologized to my friend later on in the evening.

The trains are running again through Lakeshore! That was a pleasant sound to hear! Sometimes they would go through 7 or 8 times in the course of the day. When I was there in November the tracks and guards were still messed up.

They are starting to clear up debree. The stuff that was there in November was gone in April. The sides of the road still have debree but it was debree that has been cleared out since the last time they hauled off debree.

Some of the stuff that my group helped with was building a trench, building a ramp, building a bookcase, cooking, cleaning, organizing, and probably other stuff that I don't know about. One of the days I spent out at Pastor Don's house helping painting his home office while the guys that went worked on the bookcase. Pastor Don was in need of shelves to put all of his books. The trench we helped dig was to help keep the church and the property from flooding when it rains. There was one before the hurricane but when Katrina came through it filled it back up. The little boy (he's in the picture above second from right) was a cutie. While we were working on the ramp he would hang around. With some of the excess wood he made his own cross. Now thinking of it I meant to take a picture of it but I forgot to before I left. While we were taking pictures he would say Maccaroni & Cheese before the picture was taken. :)

It's great to see the progress that is being made between November & April but there is still a lot to go! If you visit Pastor Don's site there are some more pictures of what's currently going on in Lakeshore. He updates his blog quite frequently and I always look forward to seeing a new post.