Saturday, March 21st As we depart from Pittsburgh this morning, we all can’t help but wish we could stay here another week. The week was both very long and very short. Our work here was hard and exhausting, but spiritually renewing. We will keep the people we have met here in our hearts and in our prayers. The people from the Pittsburgh project are all unique and special and have a deep passion for the work they do there. They have so much of God’s love in them and are so willing to share it with the world that they could [View Full Entry]

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Friday, March 20th It was our last day here in Pittsburgh :(. The group at Jim's house was all ready and eager to go in the morning. The group was joined by Jonathan, another member of the Pittsburgh Project, as Dave had several meetings in the morning. It was a very cold day that required all layers to be worn for the whole day and many trips inside to warm up. Amy, Mallory, and Kenzie loaded all of the very heavy garbage bags from the destruction at Jim’s house into the van and returned to the Pittsburgh project dumpsters. The other [View Full Entry]

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“Rise and Shine and oooooooooooooooooooooooooh that’s sore…” After stretching out our sore muscles, grabbing breakfast, and making our sack lunches we met with more wonderful people from the Pittsburgh Project. Mark and Courtney are a couple who work with youth programming and came to talk to us about their newest project of Urban Farming. Their Urban Farming project is a lot different from the farming some of us are used to and has a completely different set of challenges. They have several plots around the neighborhood where they grow vegetables and fruit to for [View Full Entry]

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Thursday, March 19th It was our last day at Kim’s house. Jessica and Katelyn pulled the outside paneling off Kim’s bathroom, added more insulation, and replaced the paneling. Scott and Stephanie rebuilt the stairs to Kim’s attic as Zan worked to cut wood for them. When Ed returned from getting the right size gutter, Scott and Ed returned to finishing the ends of the roof box. As we worked Kim introduced us to her very friendly and quiet German Shepherd, Conner. Stephanie served as a counter weight to Scott as he finished up the box and everyone else prepared the gut [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday, March 17th Fog, Fog, and more Fog… that was how our day began. Will, the director of the youth program at the Pittsburgh project took our group on a tour of some of the neighborhood in the north side of Pittsburgh. We stopped briefly to offer prayer to peace in the streets. From there we regrouped and headed out to work on our homes. Amy, Mallory, McKenzie, Susan, Kevin, and Michelle went to Jim’s home in the Southside. Jim is a very gracious man who has a beautiful, but very old home. His kitchen is PINK and filled floor to [View Full Entry]

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Our Monday objectives: To meet our home owners, learn about our week’s projects, and get all of our supplies ready for tomorrow. We began our morning with breakfast and individual devotions at 8:30. At 9:00 we met with Dave and Ed who work with the Pittsburgh project. They gave us our mission, should we choose to accept it, and described the homeowners we would be working with. Ed then took us to the two different work sites in Pittsburgh to meet our homeowners. Our group will be splitting up into two groups, one focusing on roof repair for Kim and the [View Full Entry]

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Sunday, March 15th It’s 59 and partly cloudy in San Diego, but here in Pittsburgh it’s 57 and partly cloudy! We’re excited to begin our Mission work here in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh. This morning we attended worship at Mosaic, the local church here on the Pittsburgh project campus. Mosaic was a very friendly community service full of music and very different than what we are used to. Stephanie commented on how it was her first church service that she could feel the sound vibrating underneath her feet. After a wonderful welcome from the people at worship, we he [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, March 14th After a very long 15 hour drive (including the hour we lost due to a time-change) we were very happy to be out of our 15 passenger van and in the guest house here at the Pittsburgh project. Our group which is (4 short of 15) took about 15 bathroom breaks on the ride here. We were pretty squashed in the van but still enjoyed the bonding experience. Amy took over for Scott in driving just before lunch and knocked six minutes off of our arrival time! We rolled into town about 15 after 10:00 pm and were [View Full Entry]

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Well it was a hard but necessary decision. We decided that now might not be the best to visit Tijuana. We said all along that if it looked like it might not be safe we would not cross the border we wouldn't. From what we have been hearing and seeing the situation near the Mexican does not appear to be safe enough for us to take the risk. So, we made a made mid-plan correction (almost a 180 degree turn actually). Next Saturday we will head to Pittsburgh instead of Tijuana. Yes some things will be lost-- a warm sunny destination, [View Full Entry]

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Thursday Word of the Day: FINISHED!!!!! We are finished with our brick patio!! No minute today was wasted as we raced to finish the patio before the end of our final work day. The morning was a little chilly, but we got to work as soon as we arrived. There were bricks to be laid, bricks to be found and cleaned, and a flower bed to be built. At the far edge of our patio, we used landscaping timber to create a flower bed, so eventually flower and shrubs could be planted to block the view of the parking lot beyond. [View Full Entry]

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