Before and After Garage Pictures

Thanks to Kim for all her hard work in taking and posting pictures! I know that was a big job.

Ok, this is the BEFORE picture...

This is the HALF WAY picture...all stuff to repack and keep

TA DA!!! After 3 full days of working, one 6-foot and one 20-foot dumpster, we finally had a beautiful finished garage!

We also found some treasure! Here is Matt holding up a full set of Raisin Guy figures from Hardees, circa 1990. Also in the bag, a full set of Smurfs.

And we found someone's wedding dress! Yes, that's me...no, it's not mine.

Please be in prayer for us as we try to figure out what God would like us to do for our next ministry project. This was such a great work; we all really bonded with like-minded believers and we knew God's money was being used for His kingdom. We fulfilled the scriptural command to care for widows and got to hang out witht the church. Nothin better. MR

Garage Ministry, Part Deux

DISCO TIME!!!

We finished Lynda's garage on Sunday. Woo hoo, it was a great feeling. I am waiting on Kim Steiner to supply me with pictures, ahem. She is a busy mom, with 2 small children...well, make that one small girl and one small Tazmanian Devil...so I am sure she is cleaning up spilled milk somewhere and will get me the pics when she can :)

Wow, we did so much this week, it's hard to remember it all. The Beltons, including Justice which was very awesome, The Roberts (us), and the Steiners all went to Lynda's for the garage minsitry, and there we met with Lynda and Matt (her son) Ellison. We actually got to Lynda's early, before she was back from her institutional church service, so we plugged in our crockpots and hung out with the church until she came home. We had a rousing discussion about things we are teaching our children, how to make sure we don't pass on any frustration or animosity to them...good stuff, good ideas.

We ate, of course, and had a time of music and Bible study outside. It was a gorgeous day in Faribault, so we took full advantage and bothered the neighbors with our singing. Cameron, Matt and Chris even did a pretty good accoustic rendition of "Jesus Freak" During lunch, we discussed Doug's new website, Simeonconnects.com. There he is starting a Book Club, and we discussed what approach to take on secular books. Our conclusion was that we should read them as a group, because God may be speaking something to a non-believer's heart that we could illuminate but only if we have common ground. The comment was made, "what if I am subjecting myself to undue worldy influence; I don't feel strong enough sometimes to withstand, so I just avoid it." Lively debate ensued, because the Bible DOES say to flee temptation, BUT locking arms with fellow believers and pushing yourself toward that refining fire will make you stronger in the Lord. This was a great discussion and of course, I couldn't put all of it here, but if you have questions about this subject matter, or any, feel free to contact us!

We did eventually move into the garage and clean the rest of it...and it is definately big enough to park 4 cars in. We decided that a disco ball was in order, and that we aren't too religious to dance. We also received an unexpected blessing from the experience...we found an old canister, Slim Jim I think, that had $116 in it!!! So we used some of that to buy pizza and had dinner together too. All in all, a fairly productive day.

Who has an idea for our next ministry project? Who has an idea for Simeon's book club? I am still not sure that anyone reads this, but it is fun to do, and maybe someday another religious burn out will stumble upon it and realize that it is ok to let go. MR

Garage ministry...Part One

Argh! These are pics of the back of the garage!

Here is the view from the front Here is the back corner, dread!

We had actually worked an hour at this point!

This past weekend, we decided to do Garage Ministry for our friend, Lynda Ellison. Her life/house has just been returned to her, after having been taken over in recent years :) As such, her garage looked like, how shall I put this?...a dog's breakfast. Previously, she had rented a dumpster, with every intention of cleaning out the garage, but then it was again taken over and we never really got more than one foot into it. So, Tammy Belton said, "Do we need to do garage ministry on you?" And the answer, as you can see from these before photos, was a resounding YES! All of us who have been meeting together have been putting our 10% into separate accounts, to be used as we, individually or as a group, see fit for ministry. This qualified, and we pooled our money, rented the dumpster and got to work May 9th and 10th-yes, Mother's Day, but it's what we wanted to do.

I am rubbish at putting photos on here, but will do my best to get them on. I can't seem to figure out how to put on captions! All of these are before and during pictures. We need to finish next week, as the dumpster was full and will need to be dumped and then redelivered. I will post final pictures when we are all done. Suffice it to say, there was only a small path before, and after she will be able to park 4 vehicles in there. Wow! MR