The Hollands: Spring Break 2009

This year for spring break I took some of the teens from church on a "mini mission trip" to Merrillville, Indiana. We went up to work with the Wesleyan Church and took a side trip into Chicago to the Chicago Area Food Depository. We had a great time. We went up on Wednesday afternoon, settled in and went to prayer meeting that night. At prayer meeting Pastor Chris Kaste shared his salvation story and asked me to do the same. After that we prayed. It was really cool. The church is really on the verge of seeing God do some amazing things. I appreciated the fact that most of the prayer requests were outwardly focused. Cool stuff.

The next day we really got the "work" part rolling. They had a storage area above some classrooms in the back of the sanctuary. We removed the old press board floor and put down new tongue and groove plywood. We washed windows, picked up trash and really stayed busy all day. I think we went back to the house around 11:30 that night. I'm very proud of the teens, they did a great job!
On Friday we loaded up in the van and headed to the Windy City and I might add the Cold City. It was GREAT being among Bears Fans...no sissy light blue and white up there. We boxed up "Senior Boxes" at the food depository. These boxes of food would be given out to senior citizens with enough food for three days. They told us they wanted us to do 250 boxes, we ended up doing 1019 total! It was a three hour shift. Good times were had by all on the assembly line. We then spent the day in Chicago. We went to Ginos East pizza for lunch, amazing pizza! Then we headed to Navy Pier for some shopping, we walked down Michigan Ave. It was a good day.

Saturday we did some yard work for a couple of Merrillville Church member shut ins. We took the leftover plywood into the attic and made a walk way for them down the middle of the attic.
And of course if you are familiar with Merrillville we did take a trip to the mall. It happened to be a sports memorabilia weekend at the mall, tons of really cool stuff. I wish I had some $ I could have left with some sweet Bears items.

On Sunday Jaye, Anna, Joseph and Jessica (fresh off her trip to New York City) drove up for Sunday Morning Service. I was given the chance to preach that Sunday. Then we had a carry in lunch after service. It was a great time.

More pictures Here