What are you doing?

Many have asked me what I am doing this summer and I honestly did not know. Well, times have changed; I'm in Houston and I FINALLY know what I am doing this summer. For the next two months I will be a Critter* at the Baptist Mission Center. The BMC serves the community by providing food, clothing, ESL classes, and afternoon clubs for all ages 4-17. There are three community centers: Gano, Fletcher and Joy. Critters help run all the services. Volunteers come through out the summer to help at the centers as well. They come in groups from all around the country; many individual volunteers come from Houston. We need them because the BMC offers so much! When volunteers come they help with the different ministries. For example, while Critters are teaching Bible lessons volunteers are keeping the kids quiet and still. Unfortunately, us Critters are on our own for the first week and volunteers will start coming the second week.
We work Monday through Thursday. The days will be very long! Fridays we have house meetings and do the chores. Saturdays will most likely be free. On Sundays we go to different churches. Many of them ask us to speak and lead worship. They also feed us. A lot of people feed us. All of our meals are donated by people, especially by churches. We live in the Mildred McHorter Missionary Building. It is right next to the Gano community center. The building is very new; it just opened up a couple of months ago (picture above). Sometimes it does not feel like we are on a mission trip because the building is very nice. Everything, including the money to build the building was donated. It's amazing what people have given in the name of Jesus. Someone donated a brand new 2007 Toyota minivan anonymously; a former Critter donated about $3,500 to decorate our lounge (picture to the left) and it is nice!
We have had orientation all this past week. We start the actual work this upcoming week. Please pray for strength during the first week. We know that our days are going to be busy from the time we wake up to the time we lay our head back on the pillow. Even though we know that we will have long work days, we are still very excited to work with the community!
*They call us Critters because many, many years ago the previous director got really mad at some of the summer missionaries because of something stupid that they did. She tried to avoid saying a bad word and critter is what came out of her mouth. Ever since then, summer missionaries at the BMC have been called Critters. It's a big thing! When we visit churches the bulletin say that "the Critters are here!"