Xchange M6 Westbrook Team

random pictures

2006-07-14T00:26:00.000-05:00

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last day!!!

2006-07-13T23:53:00.000-05:00

hey y'all

today was what we thought to be our final work day. But we have decided that because our retreat is in KERVILLE we are going to work until lunch time tomorrow. We just have a little bit of painting to do and then we will be done with what we started. MapQuest says that YO Ranch where we are going is 51 minutes away.

today however we started out with sleeping in a little bit earlier. when we woke up we headed up to the church to start painting a rather large sunday school room. the seventh graders showed up again to help with some much needed work. They were such a God send to us. we keep painting the room and today left it unfinished. that is one of the main reasons that we really feel like we should go back tomorrow.

after cleaning up the church we went home to clean up ourselves and then went catch up with people that were surveyed earlier to see if God had answered their prayers. And God was amazing!!!! me and kevin talked to one young guy named Andrew who told us about his friend Felipe who was shot and how he had very little chance to live. We went back only 2 DAYS later and Felipe was out of the hospital and HEALED!!! Bobby and Charis also prayed with one lady whose husband had just had brain surgery and it was a AMAZING prayer because God's timing is perfect and it really touched the family and our team.

after "prayer for you" we went with pastor box to a local gym and we worked out, swam and played racquetball. bobby even ministered to someone in the sauna. after we went to taco bell and bobby and tyler ate 10 tacos!!! what now mr. pratt??

we had a great day and are ready to see everybody tomorrow!!!

i don't know if we can update the blog on the retreat but we will see y'all on sunday night!

love,
the westbrook team

Tiring Thursday

2006-07-13T18:39:00.000-05:00

tired....
we are so tired....

wow, its been a tiring last few days. we've kept right on painting the rooms. we've kept right on digging. we've kept right on doing all the little things that make medical center baptist church keep going.

and we're still not done...

as of this writing we still have to go back out and see all the people we were to pray for. we have to check back with them to see if the holy spirit is working in their lives. we're to go and tell them it was God who answered our prayers for them.

and i still have some more digging to do. and there is a little bit of paint left to put on the walls. but pastor box says no. we're done.

so we hit that mission trip feeling. that familiar feeling where you're dead tired, still feel like theres more to do, but no time or energy to finish it. and its a great feeling because you know you've accomplished something worthwhile. that all your time was spent wisely.

we've done so much physical work this week, i dont think any one of us wants to do any more work ever again. but we must. there is always work to be done for the kingdom. and its great to know that the God that created us chooses to use us to do His work.

this blog has taken me a while to type because i'm so tired. i keep losing my train of thought. i keep misspelling things. but its all because my energy has been put to what God wanted me to do. do you have energy that you haven't put into His work? yes? go right now and do something nice for someone. tell them that you're doing it for God. tell them about Jesus.

our work is not done until we're told "good work, my faithful servant"

if none of this made sense, dont forget, i'm tired. just like you.

until the end...
kevin

Wednesday's Happenings

2006-07-13T09:16:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Lord, for a really good day on Wednesday. Twenty two seventh graders and their 4 leaders from a church in Ft. Worth joined us for more painting and digging for the drainage project at Medical Center Baptist Church in San Antonio. The seventh graders also passed out 800 Carnival flyers in surrounding apartments and after a short afternoon break they returned to assist with the Carnival. They were a God send! There is no way we would have seen all that was accomplished if they had not pitched in to help. We are seeing You at work, Lord, and what a blessing! The carnival last evening was a huge success. We served about 100 slushies, probably 200 - 300 snow cones and 100 bags of pop corn. There was a moon walk, water guns, bubbles, helium baloons, a fishing hole for prizes, and a pinata. Bobbie was a clown, Kevin tied baloons, Tyler supervised ball games and played soccer with the children, Becca told Bible stories and did face painting, Haley played her guitar and sang and then played some more for musical chairs, and Charis was in charge of the power bead bracelet table where children and youth made their own bracelets while learning about God's sending His Son to shed His blood for our sin so that we might have a relationhip with Him by asking Jesus into our hearts. Our pastor for the week, Pastor Roger Box, said he was extremely pleased and excited about the Carnival as were a number of the church members. We are anxious to see what God will do again today!

wwEDNESDAY

2006-07-13T09:14:00.000-05:00

Never Paint Your Stomach ;D

2006-07-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

hey ya'll, today we woke up tired, sore and having little motivation to work. After quiet time we all found a bit of strength from God to continue on in our mission.
The girls started out painting the banner for the Carnival, and later continued painting the fence, this time brown. the boys kept doing "prison" digging. hah. then, charis, bobby, tyler, and kevin put together a very challenging and frustrating childrens fort with out any instructions ;D. an hour later, they finally got everything together and it was lovely :) the boys kept doing their manly work by dragging massive trees. tyler once again, drove his beloved riding lawn mower for like three hours and is about 2/3 done. while mowing, he "got in a fight with a tree" ...and lost. later on, tlyer and becca mutually decided to paint a rather large "T" on his stomach. this however was NOT a good idea, for the paint was, in fact, rustoleum- a highly non removable paint. so when it came time to remove this "T" from the stomach, it burned and seared of his peach fuz. pahaha. but he's all better now, no need to worry ^_^
after we finished our work on the church we did another "Praying For You" where we each split up into groups of two's and visit the houses near by the church. there, we invite the family's to the carnival on wednesday and then ask "Is there anything going on in your life that we may have the priviledge of praying for you?"
even though our team had little motivation today, God really showed His work today by giving us very responsive houses. Many had loads to say, while few were timid and quick to close the door. we even ran into a couple of pastors, who told us that they would be praying for us along our mission. So i would have to say that God Is Great! because his light really shines when we begin to lose hope.

please keep us in your prayers, for the carnival is tomorrow.
God Bless
in His name

we are green team

2006-07-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

and so the color shall be green...

mon --> DAY

2006-07-10T22:05:00.000-05:00

yes, today was mon day. you were supposed to go around and say "hey mon!" to everyone you met. i'm sure you all got the memo....

anywho...

today involved lots of physical labor. booby, tyler, chuck and i took out a rock garden and began to remove tons-o-dirt from the side of medical center baptist church. work progressed slowly as there was LOTS (underline, bold, highlight, big font, italics, and more effects) of dirt to be moved and lots of rocks and clay that had to be moved.

becca, charis and haley painted the fence and powerwashed the church. they also removed some of the rust. they took pictures of the guys and enjoyed the nice breeze and shade that painting the fence involved. (the girls did more they say, but i didnt see it.)

after watching the praying for you training video, we felt ready to take on the neighborhood surrounding medical center baptist. we began on gary cooper street and continued to canvas the neighborhood. our main goal here was to get the information out about mcbc and about the carnival that we are going to sponsor this wednesday. the students split up into three teams, tyler and charis, bobby and becca, haley and me, and pastor box and the music minister (i forget his name) went to another part of the neigborhood. what we did was we went around, told people about the carnival, offered info on the church, and asked if we could pray for them.

overall, we got a bunch of yeses and noes (are those words?). many of the yes people were going throught pretty tough times. one of the reasons we got the no people was because a jehovah's witness convention was recently in town and people didnt want to open the door or thought we were with jehovah's witnesses.

bobby gave himself a wet-willie
tyler wears shorts
kevin types
haley giggles
becca powerwashes
charis hit people
bobby is playing sodoku

and now for everyone's favorite.....

videos and slideshow

2006-07-09T21:20:00.000-05:00

O Praise Him

SUNDAY YADNUS

2006-07-09T20:41:00.000-05:00

HELLO EVERYONE,
Today we went to worship at Medical Center Baptist church(where we probably will be staying for the rest of the week). We continue to stay at the Stewart's house who are so sweet for opening their home to us. Haley LED WORSHIP THIS MORNING!!! She was amazing and sang David Crowder's O Praise Him. Tyler also gave his testimony and did an amazing job and even got 5 AMEN'S ;) Tyler even described himself as an "GOOD CHRISTIAN YOUNG MAN"!!! and that he is hehehe. During sunday school the boys learned about Ephesians 6 (the verses that we had to memorize) and God is so good!! The guys even got some local boys phone numbers who want to hang out later in the week to play soccer and this should be a great oppurtunity to witness. After church we went out to eat with the Stewarts and the Boxes and celebrated Bobby's birthday. Later we went back to church and were trained on evangelism with a video session series. God taught us so much in the sessions and we plan on later this week using what we learned to work on a survey mission. We are also planning on having a carnival on wednesday. There are many apartments around the church and the kids seems really excited about the carnival. Now we are home and about to eat dinner and watch another evangelism training session. We are having a great time as a group and everyone is getting along great. We really feel that we are exactly were God wants us to be. Leave comments and we will check in again tomorrow.

love in Christ,
The Westbrook Team

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!!!!

2006-07-09T15:25:00.000-05:00

GUESS WHAT??
EVERYONE IN TEAM WESTBROOK HAPPENS TO HAVE A BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK! HOW COOL IS THAT???
YESTERDAY WAS TYLER'S

TODAY WAS BOBBY'S

white dove

friday/saturday

2006-07-08T22:55:00.000-05:00

thank you barnes family!!

the mule was fun!!!

angela sturm

go green van!

Hello Everyone!
Yesterday we were unable to get to a computer sorry for such a short entry! Let's start with yesterday when we left Tallowood at 11:00. After praying at the North Campus I (becca) told the group a need that my mom shared with me about a friend of hers who was praying for workers to come to her church and help with a VBS. The church however was still in Houston which is not exactly what we were expecting. However we felt that God was calling us to drive up to the church even though we were not able to get in touch with the pastor. After praying over this we also went with our intial plan which was casting a lot, ironically the lot landed straight up north(the exact direction we were headed!!). The church was in the Aldine/Westfield area and when we arrived their was NOBODY there, however we continued to eat lunch in the parking lot and tried to get in touch with Pastor Bob Reese. When we finally reached Pastor Reese he didn't seem to need any help from us and said that he would call us back in a day or two. With that in mind we prayed and decided to continue heading north in the direction our cast had told us. We kept north for a while and after a pit stop we thought that we might head towards San Antonio where Mrs. Westbrook told of us Pastor Box's(Annetta's Dad) church at Medical Center Baptist Church. After we prayed over this we called Pastor Box and he suprised us with many things to do and we felt God was really calling us to go this way. On the way (scenic route) we stopped at Kroger and bought a dozen roses and visited a nearby nursing home and delivered some good cheer and hugs. It was a great experience, the best I have ever had at a nursing home! The residents were so friendly and open to visitors, the keep telling us to obey and respect our parents (maybe God is trying to tell us something :) We made another pit stop in Brenham and realized that we were very close to the Barnes' ranch, were we stopped for the night. The ranch was beautiful and we had a great time on the mule and enjoyed God's country. After a WONDERFUL night's sleep, we had a huge breakfast and quiet times at the ranch and then left around noon and headed towards San Antonio. When we arrived at the church today we prayer walked the campus and went to hear a bluegrass gospel band that was visiting the church. We had so much fun at the concert and enjoyed the music and Bobby even won a free cd from the band. After the service we ate dinner with the Box family and heard lots of embrassing stories about Annetta!!! Now we are staying at the Stewart's home who have graciously opened their doors to us. We are now headed for bed and are planning on going to go to Medical Center for church in the morning and after the service we will be training for door-to-door ministries. Pray that we will have an impact in the community surrounding the church. Leave comments and keep on praying
love,
God's hand and feet

Welcome

2006-06-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Blog site for the Westbrook M6 Mission Trip Team. We are so excited to be able to listen to God's voice and follow his direction every day. Please be praying for us and remember to check back to see frequent updates to this site.

In Him,
the Westbrook Team

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Col 3:17