Heading Home!

Well the Nashville team is packing up and getting ready to eat one last breakfast here at the hotel before we take off back to Indiana! We had an awesome fun day yesterday at Nashville Shores Waterpark that was filled with lots of fun and water but also lots of conversations and discussions about all that God did this week. It was a great way to spend our last day here in Nashville.

We'll be hopping on the bus here in about 45 minutes to take off with an estimated arrival time at GCC by 8 pm. We'll have updates posted through twitter and facebook but if we are going to be way off then 8 we'll have everyone call.

DC: @dccurry (Web address: www.twitter.com/dccurry)
John: @JohnKeim (Web address: www.twitter.com/johnkeim)

The team is sad to be leaving but I think they're excited to see their family and loved ones and to bring all that God did here in Nashville back with us! Thanks for praying, thanks for following along, thanks for commenting! There will likely be some more pictures from the last couple days uploaded at some point so feel free to check back on the blog!

Day 4 Photos!

Here's the photos from Day 4!

In this slideshow you'll see some crazy face photos! I asked them this question: "If you could make one face for the world to see what would it be?" Then immediately i said, "I WANT TO SEE IT NOW!" and snapped the photo of whatever face they made! We had SO MUCH fun with this one!

Also you'll see some photos at the end from B.B. Kings restaurant in downtown Nashville where we ate and watch some of a Live music that was played by Stacy Mitchart (THEY WERE GOOD!) Our students LOVED this!

ENJOY!

UNBELIEVABLE

That is the only word I can use to describe the team yesterday, UNBELIEVABLE! As DC mentioned we were heading out to the Beechbend neighborhood to finish up some projects and did we ever!

Yesterday we;
-finished a siding tearoff we started the other day
-got a trampoline out of a very high tree on the river bank
-painted a shed
-painted the interior of a new garage
-painted the wood trim throughout an entire house
-painted the ENTIRE first floor of a big house with primer, walls and ceilings
-assembled some new furniture for one homeowner
-helped reorganize a United Way distribution center

All that plus all the cleanup was done in just under 7 hours! Amazingly that's become the norm for this team, they are such a hard working group. We've never once heard a single person complain all week long either. The team has so much joy in serving others that it's inspiring and encouraging to everyone we've come into contact with. Every single partner or homeowner was overwhelmed with gratitude for all that we were able to accomplish!

After all that hard work we've got a team fun day planned for today! So glad to be a part of NASHVILLE 10!

Jam packed day of work!!

I started the upload for the photos last night and they never loaded so we're at it again. Photo's from yesterday will be posted just after dinnertime when we get back to the hotel.

Lots of work to do today! We're headed back out to the neighborhood we kicked this trip off at to finish up some of the projects that are ready for completion. I'm stoked and I know the students are too!

There's nothing like finishing a project you started! This will be a great day...JAM PACKED with projects but pretty much like everything else, our students will make it look like a piece of cake!

They dominate projects! It's awesome to be apart of!

Tuesday Recap

Yet another amazing workday with the Nashville team! We headed back to Lighthouse Ministries to try and finish up the projects we didn't get to yesterday. The team jumped back in doing a lot of painting again and some of the team was helping to remodel one of the apartments to be handicap accessible. When it's all added up we were able to bring 400 man-hours in just 2 days to help further the vision of this ministry.

After cleaning up, Rick Bryant, the director at Lighthouse, thanked the team with great sincerity for all the work we had done. Rick mentioned on several occasions how much joy the team had while working so hard throughout two hot days. He also spoke about one of the recent chapels they had at Lighthouse and how we're called to amplify our lives, to turn it up so others can see and hear Jesus through our lives. Rick affirmed the team that that was exactly what they had been doing on this trip, they were amplifying the impact of their life through serving Jesus.

It was a great day and we even got done early so after some much needed showers, we headed downtown Nashville to spend some time checking out the city and having dinner at a great restaurant with a live blues band! It was some seriously awesome team time!

Now today we're getting ready to head back out to work on some of the houses affected by the flood!

Day 3 Photos!

Today's photo's are coming soon!!! :)

A few thoughts this morning.

Hey Hey everybody!!! Just an FYI, I'll be posting some videos today of the place we've been working yesterday and today.

Hope you all are doing well at home, we love and miss you guys but are having a blast here in NASHVILLE.

Here's a couple of the things I love about this group:

• We have an AMAZING team-bond we have!
• Everyone is VERY encouraging.
• They work HARD!!
• They don't complain!
• They're all looking for ways to learn more about God.
• They group loves to have fun!!
• They're considerate of people at the places we're working! (Being friendly, talking to them)

Here's some things I love about this trip:

• It reminds a lot of us of home so working in this environment strikes a big cord.
• People are recognizing that the God of Granger Community Church is a nationwide God..."he's everywhere" was the language used by some students in debrief.
• Southern people are some of the nicest people in the world. (I miss this about Texas)
• The work is challenging...it brings out our limitations VERY quickly!
• Partnering with a great church.

Monday Work Day!

Johnny here with a quick report on today's work projects! It was again a very hot day and again the team worked very hard! Today we headed over to Lighthouse Ministries which is one of Cross Point's local ministry partners. You can read more about Lighthouse at their website (www.lhmm.org) but their main focus is helping former alcoholics and addicts get clean, stay clean and get their lives rehabilitated. They provide shelter and food for the residents, a 6-month recovery program and a work placement process. They're a ministry doing great work and Cross Point joins alongside them quite frequently.

Today we were able to finish all of the detailed painting on one of the dorms, get a base coat on the entire 2 story chapel, paint the back side of one of the dorms and help with a massive remodeling of one of the apartments. It was a TON of work and the team cranked it!

Everyone's grabbing a quick shower and then it's off to dinner!

Monday Project!

Today we'll be painting with a partner ministry to Cross Point Church called Lighthouse Ministries.

They have some painting that needs to be done and you know what I say to that "I'm ya hucklberry!" (Movie reference from Tombstone meaning I'll accept that challenge.)

If you don't know what I'm talking about.

Sunday Recap

Sunday started off great as we joined Crosspoint Community Church for worship! Our team did what they always do, they listened intently, they worshipped passionately and they reflected Jesus in all their actions! It was a great morning at a great church doing great ministry in the Nashville area.

After church we headed back out to the neighborhood we're working in and got back at it. One crew went back to Delbert's house from Saturday and worked like crazy cleaning up all the small debris and nails that were left from the big demo day. The rest of team split into two crews that tackled two more houses. These houses already had the low siding taken off but they both had all the higher siding left to come down. The two crews went to town on these houses and got a TON accomplished for it only being a half workday. Between pulling off wood siding, peeling off the fiberglass backerboard, popping ALL the nails out and all the cleanup that goes along with that it was a busy afternoon. The team never ceases to amaze though as they worked hard pushing through the heat, encouraging each other and cranking through a lot of work.

More later!

Sunday Recap and Photos

Hey everybody yesterday was great!

In the morning we headed over to Cross Point Church for their 10:00 service. It was a great service and students had great things to say about their experience. The group got a kick of of noticing that the worship leader was Chris Sligh, one of the finalist for American Idol. It was hilarious watching try to figure out whether to sing or vote! haha

A number of students said that the message spoke to them in ways like never before so it was obvious God was all over it!

I had a chance to talk to the campus pastor and lots of other people after service and they all talked about how much energy and excitement our students brought to the service! It was a blessing to hear!

In the afternoon, we went back to the same neighborhood we worked in the first day and we split the group up and got the chance to work on three different houses. The group is working CRAZY hard and having fun doing it!

I'm having trouble getting all the photo's to load but here's a few for now from the group I was working with yesterday and I'll post the rest of mine and the ones Jeff took at the other worksite later tonight.

Headed to Crosspoint for Church

This morning we're excited to be taking the group to Crosspoint.tv for church.

I'm excited to see what God shows us through being together with the body of Christ here in Nashville.

JESUS IS BUILDING HIS CHURCH AROUND THE WORLD!

Sunday Morning Update

Hey everyone, John here and wanted to give a recap of our awesome work day yesterday! Yesterday was our first work day down here in Nashville and we arrived at Delbert and Kathy's house to help prep their house for rebuild. Their is a river that is back behind their property that is typically 20 feet below the crest of the bank but when the flood hit it rose 80 feet! The water was over 6 feet high when it rushed into their house, destroying almost everything they had. The inside of the house had already been gutted but all the siding remained. With wood siding and all the water that got behind the walls, all of the siding had to come down!

You can see all the hard work in the photos and the video below where you get to hear from Brad who is the professional contractor who is volunteering his time to help get this house rebuilt.

During debrief time it was amazing to hear all that the team had gotten out of the day. Many students mentioned how the neighborhood and house were "just like where we live" which made the tragedy sink in that much more. The students also noticed how much more we got done by working as a team and encouraging each other through the brutal heat!

One final thought from a student during debrief was that when she saw pictures of the family inside the house it was like God's reminder that this is bigger than the heat, it's bigger than our discomfort, it's bigger than our exhaustion, this work that we are doing for Delbert and Kathy could lead to them knowing Him.

Pretty awesome stuff on work day #1! Now the team is getting ready to head to Crosspoint Community Church this morning! More later!

Day 1 Photos

I didn't get to take as many photo's as would have liked but here ya go!!

A couple of videos from today

Photo's will be uploaded asap, you can expect them first thing in the morning. I'm getting them ready for upload. In the meantime check out this video from today.

Saturday Morning update

Seems that most of the team got some great sleep last night, at breakfast a few minutes ago I heard there were a few of the girls rooms that stayed up talking for a little while but that's about it.

Sleep it great but there's an awesome opportunity for relationship building during trips like these so I don't mind it much.

Today we're headed to Crosspoint.tv's Bellevue campus to meet Ryan Bolt so we can start our projects for the day. John Keim's been working with Ryan for months now helping us develop an awesome mission trip experience. As soon as I decided we needed to cancel the Mexico trip for various reason. John and I started looking for some stateside options for a trip this year.

John called up Crosspoint.tv because we knew they were doing a great job with the "flood relief" and we asked if we could partner with them in their efforts to help this city. They said, "yes" and here we are!

Alright, we're leaving here at 9:55 a.m. so if you could be in prayer for us today that would be awesome!

If you're on twitter, John and I will be posted what we're doing throughout the day & those posts will also be on my Facebook page.

Our twitter accounts:

DC: @dccurry (Web address: www.twitter.com/dccurry)

John: @JohnKeim (Web address: www.twitter.com/johnkeim)

WE MADE IT!!!

DC here,

We made it here to the hotel in Nashville safe and sound! We're about to get some food, talk a little bit, swim some, hang out, then hit the sack. We'll be hitting the ground running tomorrow!!!

This trip will rock. I'm praying that we'll have massive amounts of opportunities to drink deep at the fountain of Living Water!

BRING IT NASHVILLE!!!

New Blog!

Hey everyone there, this is the new blog address for the GSM Nashville 10 Mission Trip! We'll be updating regularly with stories and pictures of our time in Nashville!

Feel free to leave comments to encourage the team!