Team Picture – Local Newspaper :)

The team got together at 7:30am in front of the back door of Baby House. We were going to make the ‘official team picture’ which is going to be posted in the local newspaper, thank Jesus! While we were waiting on everyone else to get ready people were mingling around with their own activities, Joy was riding a small bike that belonged to Lexi, Jenny was laying under the tree watching the tree branches bouncing in the breeze, David was trying to take a picture of himself, and Ursula was sipping her coffee in silence. I kept watching Lilian walking back and forth to her mobile room..I have no clue what she was looking for..

Lunch was perfect! The result…see David and Cliff, who both just fell asleep for a few minutes because of their hard work earlier.

The Construction Job is Half Done, The Babies are Splendid, &  The Cooking Team is Running Greatly!

I went to get my breakfast at the Baby House and bathed my babies, Brian and Ella, again this morning. I was at the office checking with Phillips (Adullam House Blogger) regarding the being internet up and down for the last 2 days. Molly, Josh’s little girl, just makes my day. She was making coffee while telling me “I am going to make a cup of coffee for you Ms. Heaven” and Taylor, Pastor Justin’s daughter, follows with “You will like it Ms. Heaven. This is delicious coffee.” I responded “Oh so sweet thank you my girl!” They are so adorable but I don’t think children drink coffee haha. Afterwards I visited the team working on construction while waiting for the internet to be turned on again. I  met my team leader Sanjay to let him know that Philip spoke with me this morning, saying our Brickthink activities during our trip here would be printed in the local newspaper which is great!!

Dinner time! Once I got into the Baby house I immediately could smell the great aroma of the food which made my stomach start to sing. Naomi, representative of Adullam House, showed her hospitality by preparing British Cuisine made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour…I could not wait! Everyone was more focused on the food instead of the normal chit chat haha. Thanks Naomi and her team!

Now, lets get ready for service guys…there are plenty of cars waiting to give all of us a ride to the church. It is the time to praise and worship for His mercy endures forever. We are really enjoying being together here, doing all things together, and spreading the love of God that He has for us :) :)

Heart beats young, heart beats old, a love of Christ, your heart beats bold. Don’t float listlessly on a sea of confusion, for a life without Christ is a life of delusion.

-Heaven

Noon after Lunch Break

I just got back from The Spackman’s house where I am staying during this trip, did a little cleaning up in the kids bathroom and put in some more shampoos, shower gels, and tooth pastes etc. Most of the bottles were almost empty.

Nearly each of us has a baby here. Mine is Brian… Leda has Ella, Jenny has Amariam, Ursula has Elijah, Joe has Terry, Larry has Maron and there are many others. They really make us impatient to get done with the work everyday so we can rush to shower and pick up the babies to spend some quality time with them. How does this sound? Fabulous isn’t it? You guys need to experience it yourself. Elders often say that nothing is better than to experience ourselves…I agree. This is my little poem for all my babies here in Adullam House :)

These little tiny babies
Was sent from God above
To fill our hearts with happiness
And touch our lives with love
He must have known
We’d give our all
And always do our best
To give our precious babies love
And be grateful and so blessed.

-Heaven

The show goes on…

The ladies on our team are SUPER LADIES coming from a background of various job fields. They are easily taking over to do the construction job on this New House/Shelter for the Adullam Kids…of course with huge help from our SUPER MEN guys in our SUPER TEAM lead by Sanjay! Wow, maybe these ladies do some part time construction work in New York City that I just do not know about…I will find it out though…sttts….just between us okay!

I went to the construction house this morning after I gave baths and fed 3 of my babies (Brian 2 weeks old, Ella 3 weeks old, and Eli – the bouncer guy- 1 year old). Surprisingly, the job was already half done. They are making lots of progress.

Afterwards I headed to the Babies House to check what was going on in there. There were tons of fruits, vegetables, juices, pies covering the entire table in the kitchen so I kept walking down to the store room. I saw Zuleika and Lilian were storing the extra supply food from Costco that Zuleika voluntary purchased. I thank her very much for that kind donation to make sure the team is feeding well, now we can enjoy all those “luxury meals”  Jesus how we thank You for all these blessings..so lucky we are to have You Lord :)

Today is not over though,

-Heaven

Starting Work …lets work, BrickThink Team!

Fridah’s alarms rang so loud and woke both of us (we are a roommates). I was like “Girl, what time it is?”, and she replied “5:30am.” I suggested we go back to sleep haha. At 7am we both heading to the babies house to join the team for breakfast. Afterwards we headed to the new house where most of the team planned to work on construction.

The Team starting everything: Sanjay and Josh gave instructions to Ursula, Jena, and Fridah while David and Cliff were doing measurements and work on stereo foam. Destiny and Samara got busy counting something while Joe and Dave were trying to figure out something on their role too..wow very busy day today huh?

I know I will have to check on ladies at the kitchen too before lunch so I can record their activity cooking lunch for people, Patricia and Leda are such great cooking partners, trust me! I need to pick up some supplies where Zuleika and Lilian are working. I will be right back folks :)

-Heaven

Adullam House

Praise God in the morning, praise God in the noon, and praise God in the Night. The Team is getting ready for the service at 11:00am at Harden Street Church which belongs to Adullam House. Praise and worship were followed by testimony and preaching by Pastor Justin and Pastor Nick. It was just awesome…awesome :). We also had some time to explore downtown Montgomery from 3pm – 8pm and then we went straight to Mr. Pete & Mrs. Angie Spackman’s house from there. We gathered all of us (The Team and Adullam House Crew) and are getting to know each other better while enjoying the hospitality of The Spackman’s. The kids surrounding us make it perfect :) Thank Jesus…all about You Lord. We just love You!!

-Heaven

Welcome to Alabama and the Adullam House!

We finally landed safely at the Montgomery Airport. Josh, Keila and Enrique were already there waiting for us. Most of the team loaded into Josh’s truck which was attached to the luggage car. The rest joined Enrique and Keila in the Tahoe. We head to downtown Montgomery and visited the Martin Luther King Church and some other parts of the town. It was about almost 12pm when everyone was starving. Our team leader Sanjay had told us a couple days before departure that Josh would be taking us for the best Southern Food (Soul Food) ever. Cannot wait! We got to the stated restaurant and…wow….wow the food was very delicious. It was one of the best places I’ve ever tried. I was eating my meal as Jenny, Zuleika, and Lilian were talking. I couldn’t hear what they were discussing because I was enjoying my food so much.

Now, Adullam House here we come! As we entered the gate of Adullam House, we could feel it ..sense it..know it…that this is a real place for kids, sort of like a Disneyland for them. There is a huge area covered by trees, flowers, bare land, plus donkeys, goats, chickens etc. This place is so lively. There is a long bride connecting The Babies House, The Spackman Family’s House, and the New Building where we are working on now. The bridge was a gift from Bethel Church in Lousiana. Thank Jesus :)

We walked into the Babies House and became speechless, our eyes just staring at the heavenly babies all over the place. It feels like we’re in the Eden Garden with all different ages of babies around you. It presents an amazing atmosphere that is very difficult to describe. Only God knows, and you can only imagine.

-Heaven

11/19/10

Friday is our last day in Alabama. We wish we could stay longer to get to know more of the guys better. We also love the slower pace of things here.

We had a teaching early this morning and another one at dinner time at His Place. They are really lucky to have such great teachers come in and speak life into the guys. You can tell that the volunteer teachers really care about the guys.

One member of our team spent some time at the thrift store talking with one of the newer guys and was able to pray with him before his court appearances. He told us today that both of his cases had been dropped! God is merciful and loving.

Now it’s time for bed as the team is getting up super early for the first day of deer hunting season out at the farm. Pray for us! And pray for the guys at His Place in Opelika, Alabama, that God would continue to do a work in their hearts and make them mighty men of God.

11/18/10

Today was a big high for our team in Alabama. Going back to work at the thrift store every day can be really daunting. The work is tiring, but the biggest challenge is just having to face the piles of donations that need sorted and boxed and tested. At the beginning we didn’t know what difference we could make with such a mountain set before us. But today we cleared out the entire center area of toys and other unsorted things! The visible change really was a shock everyone
- the guys, the store workers, and our team as well. People kept saying how amazing it was to see the floor again. We realized that with God you really can move mountains… literally!

After lunch our team got to visit Hope’s Inn / Hosanna House. The drive from Opelika was just beautiful. Us city boys loved seeing the farms and horses and country towns and houses along the way. And the home itself is amazing and so much larger than I had imagined. Besides the bedrooms there are kids play rooms, places for the ladies to lounge and meet together, and a wing that has a free community clinic.
They’ve also started work on a prayer garden on some donated land. The team was blessed to get to see it all.

We visited a friend from Times Square Church on our way back to town.
I was laughing that I was sipping homemade Indian chai tea and snacking on curry venison in a trailer home on a dirt road in Alabama talking about deer hunting. Ha ha! God has a great sense of humor.

One of our team went to a prayer meeting with some of the ministry staff, leaders, and guys from His Place. I stayed back and got to know a few more of the guys. Also I discovered that they have a meeting room in the back and an exercise area in the garage with a ping pong table. I lost every game i played, but it was a lot of fun. I thank God that He gave us this opportunity to spend time with the guys here at His Place.

Here are some before and after photos of the donation mountains:

11/17/10

We are loving Alabama!

Wednesday was another day living and working with the guys at His Place. During our day working at the thrift store we took a break to attend the Harvest Evangelism staff meeting. Pastor Rick and Miss Kim were there with the heads of each ministry. We listened at they made preparations for the upcoming christmas season. There is a lot of work required to make everything happen! Pastor Rick was also full of great stories that had us all laughing. He told us that Times Square Church is their largest supporter and what a blessing the church and the visiting teams are to the ministry there.

We attended church again tonight. The senior pastor came around and interviewed each of us on the team and asked about our backgrounds, why we came to Alabama, how we got involved with BrickThink, and similar questions. You always have to be prepared on the mission field!

Before bed I had a great conversation with a few of the guys at His Place. We stayed up late talking about the program here and how God is changing their lives. I had the opportunity to encourage them and remind them that it’s all about that personal relationship with Jesus.
I think was the best part of the trip for me and the real reason we came on this missions trip. The work we do is a great help, but the personal interactions with the guys is the best part.