As many of you know our family spent 2 1/2 weeks down in New Orleans, La with the main goal of providing a new roof for a man named Mr. Joe who owns a triplex several blocks from the 9th ward of the city. As you might remember this was one of the most heavily impacted areas due to Hurricane Katrina. Seven years ago during the aftermath of the hurricane, Mr. Joe had hired someone to redo his roof. As it turns out the person he hired was not honest and did a poor job installing the roof. Mr Joe did not discover this until after the man had been paid and left town with the insurance money.
As of a week ago today the last brand new shingles were laid on Mr. Joe's house in New Orleans. We saw the Lord work in mighty ways over the past several weeks. There were times of great discouragement and times of extreme awe as we got to see God's sovereignty in action. Here is our story...
(Uncle Ben on the far left holding Thomas with the rest of us Repkes)
How We Met Mr. Joe
This past summer Micah and I had a friend who traveled to Germany on a mission trip. Our friend, Debbie Hostetler, also worked with Micah at Samaritan Ministries. One day I asked her, "So how have you been able to get the time off for your ministry trip?" She told me that some of it would have to be without pay, but that Samaritan Ministries gives their employees an extra two weeks of paid time off if they go on a ministry trip. This was the first that I had heard of this, and was very intrigued. Since Micah had started his own roofing business this past year, it made a lot of sense to see if we could find an area that was in need of some construction volunteers.
When I shared this grand idea with Micah at first he wasn't completely convinced. He reminded me that mission trips don't just take extra time, they also take extra money. And on our strict budget that last part sounded out of the question.
"But how about New Orleans? Ben (Micah's brother who is stationed in the Navy) has been after us for so long to come visit him down there. If we stayed with him that would cut out so much of the expenses, since we wouldn't need a hotel."
Micah agreed that that might be a good idea and encouraged me to look for churches in the area that would have some connections. I sent out an email to several conservative/ reformed churches in the New Orleans area, but didn't hear back from any of them. It was a couple of weeks before I tried again. I thought that maybe my first email had looked like spam since it had multiple recipients, so this time I sent emails out to various churches separately AND I not only looked for reformed/ conservative churches, but also those that highlighted rebuilding ministries on their websites. I received an email back from Redeemer Presbyterian, a large PCA church in New Orleans. They told me that they didn't have any projects going on that they could use Micah's skills for, but that their sister church St. Roch's Community Church would most likely be able to use Micah's help. After contacting the sister church it wasn't long before we received a message back from Ben McLeish, part of the deacon ministry. He told us that the offer to help could be an answer to prayer. He shared with us about Mr. Joe, a brother in Christ that has attended St. Roch's church for the past several years. We learned that they had recently discovered that he would need a new roof. Estimates were coming in around $10,000. Because Mr. Joe is on a fixed income there was not nearly enough money to hire someone to do his roof.
In the weeks leading up to our journey to New Orleans, we asked friends and family to be praying for the resources to travel down and also that the church in New Orleans would be able to raise the funds for the materials. We contacted the Peoria Rescue Ministries to find out if they had received any excess donations that we could use to raise the funds for the project. They were very helpful on multiple occasions, providing us with some of the excess food that was left over after caring for the needy of our own area. We held several fundraising events at Samaritan Ministries where the employees donated in exchange for yogurt bars, cookies, fast food sandwiches, etc. We also had friends helping out by making brownies, babysitting our children, donating larger monetary contributions, etc, all to meet the needs of other brothers and sisters in Christ. Our church family at Providence Presbyterian church was helpful in sharing our ministry with the church members, providing funds, and praying for us before and during our work down south.
A week before it was time to leave, Micah heard from Ben McLeish that the church down there did have the funds to pay for the materials and that they could provide some helpers to work alongside Micah. This was excellent news! Adding to the great news was the fact that the Lord had provided just enough money to make the trip down south!
When we arrived in New Orleans we found out that Micah's brother Ben (not to be confused with the other Ben) who we were staying with had been able to get more than a week's worth of vacation time off and was planning to help Micah for the duration of the roofing project! We had known that he would be helping the first few days, but had not realized that he'd be able to use that much vacation time. Micah's brother Ben had also shared with us that several weeks back he had started attending St. Roch's Community Church. Since arriving in New Orleans over a year ago he had not found a church to call home yet. He had attended for the past several Sundays and told us that he really appreciated this body of believers. This made Micah and I even more excited to visit the church that first Sunday.
The Lord's Provision
Looking back on how the Lord orchestrated this trip, His glory is completely apparent. We praise God for Samaritan Ministries and the servant hearts of so many of the employees and members there. Over half of our travel expenses were raised through donations that came in from the fundraisers that we held there. It is also obvious that we would not have been able to make the trip at all had it not been for the extra 2 weeks of paid time off that Micah received as a full time employee at SMI.
It's also neat to realize that if it hadn't been for our friend Debbie's trip to Germany, we might not have thought about being a part of a ministry trip at all this year.
And then if it hadn't been for other brothers and sisters in Christ coming along side us and giving of their time, resources, and prayers, then the trip would not have happened.
Stay Tuned for Part 2!
No comments:
Post a Comment