Teen Challenge is a ministry which provides youth, adults, and families an effective and comprehensive Christian faith-based solution to life-controlling drug and alcohol problems in order to become productive members of society. The Teen Challenge program spread to Europe and in 1969 a center was opened in the Netherlands. Stephan Barendse (son of Pastor Jan Barendse, with whom we worked in Amsterdam in 2008) and his wife Marianne took over as director of the program in early 2010. They soon saw that there was maintenance and repair work that needed to be done around the center, including a complete replacement of the roof covering the main building on the property.
De Spetse Hoeve - Teen Challenge Netherlands
A team of 7 volunteers traveled to the Netherlands during August 2010. While there, they ran in to obstacle after obstacle, but at the end of the week, the work still got accomplished! The goal of the week was to replace the roof on one half of the main building at the Teen Challenge Center. After the shingles were removed, it was discovered that all of the rafters were in poor and rotted condition, and needed to be replaced. The team spent the next 4 days installing new rafters in between all of the rainy weather. On the last 2 days of the trip, the team began installing the weatherproofing membrane, new furring strips, and then all of the new shingles. The last night, we were surprised with a whole team of volunteers from the local church, which then picked up where we left off and they completed the installation of shingles.