Friday, March 20

This was the last day of serving in Asheville. We woke up feeling both saddened that our trip was coming to an end and excited to continue to serve the people in the community of Asheville.

We packed our lunches for the day, including PB&J, fruits, chips and more. Paxton Bouma led us in devotions after breakfast, telling us about grief and gratitude instead of grief but gratitude. After devotions, we packed up and prepared for the work in store for us. Troy, Paxton, Tom and Grant went to houses and installed doors and built a staircase for grateful residents.

The girls went to the Blessing Barn, where they organized and did other chores around the barns to help their organization prepare for another day of providing for the community. They helped restock the “blessing bus”, organized jeans, sorted items to certain barns that are used for storage and helped organize some items for the new "Bargain Barn" thrift store they are opening. They also wrote cards that were put into meals for the homeless.

Jason, Josh, Zach, Kaesy, Nathan and Blake went to Ashville Nazarene church (Ash Naz) to build a sign and a flower bed, and to cultivate a garden. This garden was Pastor Bobby’s idea to get healthy food to the people of the community.

Eventually, when done with their jobs, all the groups went around the city of Asheville and delivered meals to the homeless (which is something the pastors of Ash Naz do often). We split into different teams and went at separate times, handing out hot meals and praying over homeless people across town. This was a blessing to do, but also left some of our hearts a little heavy because of the hurt we saw. After all of our serving was done, we stopped at an ice cream shop for a quick treat.

The night ended with worship, a message given by our director for the week, Hailey, and free time to grow in relationship with our peers through games, as we spent our last few hours at Black Mountain.

Tomorrow we will wake up early and head home. 

 - Written by Josh Rens and Kaesy Van Mannen

As we think about those we met and the stories that broke our hearts as we delivered meals to the people of Asheville experienceing homelessness, we wanted to call upon our church, family and communities to be in continued prayer with us for these people. Specific names we would love for you to pray for would be Blue & Clover, Marshall, Jessica and Audra. Pray that these individuals and the others in this community expereincing homelessness would be protected and provided for by our great God, that He would bring reconcilation and healing to the parts of their lives where they are experiencing deep brokenness and that they would know and experience His love for them as "El Roi", the God who sees.