BUMS Mission Trip - Day 5 - Wilmington, NC

Hey Everyone,

I am happy to give you our final update from our mission work days here in Wilmington, NC.

This morning we split our group among the 3 main construction sites that we have been working on all week. I actually had the pleasure of getting to drive around in the van to all 3 projects so I could check them out.

Our first project finished at least getting the base of the floor finished in the house. The floor had been completed rotted out, so they had to rip out the carpet and padding and the floor and replace the entire floor. They did an amazing job!

Our second construction team was also working on some flooring. They replaced the b
ase of the floor in a bathroom and a kitchen. They were also beginning to get some tiled laid in both rooms, but weren't able to quite finish.

Our third construction team was doing all kinds of projects at one house. They did some painting on the outside of the house, replaced a window, as well as did some flooring. They had some hiccups throughout the week, but they stuck with it and got a lot of work done.

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We also wrapped up our Vacation Bible School today. We had 12 kids today at Vacation Bible School. It was a little disappointing that our numbers went down after Day 2, but once again our students did such a good job being flexible. Overall, I would consider the VBS (and really the entire trip) a major success.

Tonight, we had our second block party. We hosted it at a ministry called Switchin Gears, which is main ministry of The Anchor UMC, which is the church that Emma Mathis is the intern at this summer. The main purpose of Switchin Gears is to provide bikes for those that are less fortunate. People will donate bikes and they will fix them up to give out to people. We had another great turnout at the block party! And this time we had a good many more kids come and play our carnival games and such! It was great to partner with The Anchor UMC for this event!

It's hard to believe our mission week has come to an end. Tomorrow morning, we will head to downtown Wilmington to let the kids explore the town for a little while before we head home tomorrow night.

Thank you all so much for all your prayers and support to make this trip possible! We couldn't have done it without you!

In Christ,

Todd Handell

BUMS Mission Trip - Day 4 - Wilmington, NC

Hey Everyone,

Happy to give you another fantastic update! This morning the other group that didn't go to the Food Pantry yesterday went today at First Fruit Ministries. It was another great day. It was so cool to hear all the kids talk about today how much they enjoyed working at the food pantry. It was such a neat experience for everyone. So basically how it worked, is everyone checked in and filled out some paperwork, and then based on the number of people they had in their family, they got a certain amount of food.

Everyone gets one package of meat, a couple of "sides" to go along with it, as well as some milk, yogurt, a dessert, some bread, and some fresh fruits and vegetables. It was so cool because people don't take more than they need. They only take what they will eat. It kind of shocked many of us because we kind of expected them to take as much as they could. But they really didn't. Everyone was so nice and so grateful for us being there to serve the past few days.

We also continued to work at our 3 construction sites today. At one of our construction sites, they replaced all of the floor joists in the bedroom and kitchen. Our second construction site worked on some flooring in the kitchen, did some yard work and went under the house to replace a floor joist. Our third construction site also worked on some flooring between the bedroom and closet. They also did some exterior painting, they removed a window, applied framing for a new window, sealed the framing and installed the window.

Sadly, we only had 11 kids at Vacation Bible School today. However, we did have one new kid at VBS, so it is always good to see us have new children at VBS. Regardless, our students have done such a fantastic job this week being flexible in everything we have done. And they have remained up-beat and positive through all we have done.

Tonight, we had our first block party. We partnered with First Fruit Ministries. They often do what they call "street feeds" in the week. So we are kind of took the place of that tonight. We had a line of people waiting to get food when we began cooking! We served over 280 hot dogs at tonight's block party!! So it was a great turnout! We also had sno-cones, popcorn, chips and drinks.

Now we are cleaning up the block party and getting ready to head back to debrief and talk about our day. Thank you all again for your continued prayers and support. We can't believe tomorrow is our last day of mission work and we come home on Friday!!

In Christ,

Todd Handell

BUMS Mission Trip - Day 3 - Wilmington, NC

Hey Everyone,

I am so excited to give you an update about our wonderful day out in the mission field. This morning was spent a little bit differently. About half of our group stayed at First Fruit ministries to work in the food pantry. We spent the first few hours sorting through all the food. It was amazing to see how much food they had donated to them from other local stores. We gave away so much food to those people in need. It was such an awesome experience. For the students who didn't get to go to the food pantry today, they will get to go tomorrow!

The rest of our students returned to their construction sites that they were at yesterday. They were able to get a lot more work done at their perspective sites!

Right now we are at our Vacation Bible School again (it's where I have Wi-Fi so it's the easiest place to update the blog.) We are up to 17 kids today at VBS. Everyone came back plus they brought some friends.

After VBS, we will eat dinner and then head back to First Fruit Ministries and do our annual senior night. It's a chance to honor our seniors for all the hard work and dedication they have put into this youth group over the years.

Thank you again for all your prayers and support throughout the week.

In Christ,

Todd Handell

BUMS Mission Trip - Day 2 - Wilmington, NC

Hey everyone! Hope all of you are doing well! Just wanted to update you on our day so far!

We spent the morning working at 4 different construction groups. One group went to a trailer to do some work on the roof. We did some sealing around the top of the roof. Our second construction group was in a house and did some demolition of a floor in a kitchen and a bedroom. Their goal is to replace it by the end of the week. Our third construction group worked on replacing some siding on a house as well as a window. And our fourth construction group also worked on replacing some floors in a house.

After we finished up our construction projects we headed over to Oleander UMC to enjoy sandwicheps for lunch. Now, we are in the middle of our Vacation Bible School! We have 10 kids here today. Although that may seem low to some, considering we had zero kids guaranteed at the beginning of the week, we are excited to have 10 here today. And we hope to see it grow throughout the week.

Tonight we will go eat dinner again over at Hugh MacRae Park again. Wayne and Carolyn Polston, who are former members of Bethel, now live in Wilmington. They offered to provide a meal for our entire mission team. So we look forward to enjoying that tonight.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and support.

In Christ,

Todd Handell

BUMS Mission Trip - Day 1 - Wilmington, NC

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the lateness of this post, but we just returned back to First Fruit Ministries for the night. Here is a little recap of the day.

We spent the morning worshipping at Oleander UMC. It was so awesome to see how opening and welcoming they were to all of us. They were so excited to have so many young people filling up their sanctuary. And yes, we filled it up. We doubled their congregation attendance today! But they really are excited about us hosting a Vacation Bible School there this week!

After enjoying Papa John's Pizza for lunch, we headed out to canvas the neighborhoods to spread the word about our VBS. We handed out over 500 postcards today!!! We are hoping for a big turnout at our VBS tomorrow afternoon!

After handing out postcards and then setting up and decorating for VBS, we had a brief orientation with WARM, the construction organization we will be working with all week. We have some tough projects ahead of us, but we are excited for the opportunity!

Afterward, we went and enjoyed a Taco Dinner at Hugh MacRae Park catered by The Islands Fresh Mex Grill. It was delicious. We also were able to eat dinner with The Anchor UMC, which is where our own Emma Mathis is the intern for the summer! So it was great to see her and her youth group!

So as you can see, we had such a busy first day! We are so excited about the opportunity to get working on our construction projects and Vacation Bible School tomorrow!



Thank you again for all of your prayers and support!

In Christ,

Todd Handell