Washtenaw Christian Academy

The Washtenaw Christian Academy (WCA) team arrived safely in Grand Isle this evening. This week, we are beyond excited to work with our partners and serve God and others and help and learn from the local community.

As we begin our week please pray for our team to be a light to others and show the love of Jesus to every person we encounter throughout the week. Also pray that the WCA team can grow closer as a group, and that what they start here would continue as they go home, and they can impact their community and school in Michigan as well.

We appreciate all of you back home supporting and praying for us.

We love you guys! God bless!

Colossians 1:9

We have been introduced to some amazing people who are hosting us this week. We can tell that they spent some time preparing for us. 

Ms. Tiffany introduced herself as our mom for the week and we can see why. We have enjoyed meeting Rio, our cook, and Rusty, our project manager.

We look forward to an amazing week serving alongside the Community Church of Grand Isle. 

We can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. 

This morning we woke up bright and early, well actually earlier, because as a group we walked done to the beach and enjoyed the sunrise. We were hosted by crabs and dolphins. God's design was extra special this morning. It was a blessing to enjoy the beautiful painted skies, comfort of the soft sand, warmth of the sun, cool breeze off the sea, and water lapping against the shore.

After basking in God's beautiful creation, later that morning we got to join Community Church of Grand Isle for their Sunday morning service. We were warmly welcomed and it felt like home. The sermon was perfectly fitted to our week being on the Good Samaritan.

Our goal this week is to love our neighbors. To serve this community, and give God the glory though all that we do.

Who is our neighbor? It is all those we meet this week and in the future. We need to show unconditional love to everyone we encounter, regardless of who they are.

The Good Samaritan showed tremendous mercy, and Jesus tells us to go and do likewise.

Luke 10:25-37

After church, lunch, fellowship, and a game of Exploding Kittens, our group headed to preview all of our worksites and projects. This photo is in Mrs. Louise's house. She is just one of the several people we will be able to bless this week, but they are just as much as a blessing to our group, if not more so, than we are to them.

Luke 6:38

This is Mr. Rodney's property. This house has been through many hurricanes and finally gave in to Ida two years ago. Mr. Rodney's dad was the only mechanic on the island. Mr. Rodney told us that his dad was like an emergency doctor. When tourists came on the island, he was ready to help them with their car or golf cart problems in the middle of the night. 

After his dad passed, he became the only mechanic on the island and like his dad, he does not turn anyone down, no matter the hour of the day or the night. It is a way for him to serve, and the entire island can testify. 

Mr. Rodney's shop is attached to his house. Since the upper level was torn off by the hurricane, whenever it rains, his shop gets flooded. It is a constant battle for him. 

For two years he has been putting out applications to get help but most relief organizations don't help small businesses. For this reason, he has not been able to make it on any list. 

This week we have the privilege to help Mr. Rodney gut his house, clean up, sort burnable items and disposables as well as salvaging things that he still holds dear. 

It is such an honor to be a part of Mr. Rodney's beautiful story. We hope and pray for the best for him and his mechanical services to the island. 

Mrs. Louise's house sustained a lot of water damage. All of the front wall of her living room needed new drywall. We spent the whole day removing wet walls in both her kitchen and her living room. 

Our PPM trip leader knows how to hang drywall. We are excited to assist him in getting new drywall up for Mrs. Louise. 

She is very thankful for our help. 

To God be all the glory! 

Mr. Thomas and his wife have run Cajun Salvage for many many years. What now looks like a landfill was once Mr. and Mrs. Thomas' shop where they collected all sorts of items to repurpose. They have created many many crafts out of scraps. 

One of Mr. Thomas passion is making crosses. He makes crosses ouf of everything, plastic, metal, wood, paper, to name a few. He has given away over 4000 crosses as a reminder of what his redeemer, our redeemer did for us at Calvary. 

Over the last 5 years, Mr. Thomas' shop was hit by hurricanes over and over and over. Like many others, Mr. Thomas lost his home and his cherished salvage business. Being in their 70s, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas can only clean so much. 

For the last two years, they have been watching their collections rot and rust, having no one to give them a helping hand. Mr. Thomas is in line to get a new house, but part of the deal is to get his property cleaned up. 

This week our Pelicans have the privilege to be the helping hands Mr. And Mrs Thomas have been longing for. We have tackled the overwhelming pile and are sorting metal, burnable items and trash to be picked up. 

Mr. Thomas can't thank us enough and keeps showing his appreciation by bringing us drinks, food and of course, crosses. 

We are honored and blessed to show care and love to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. 

Mr. Darrel and Mrs. Louise's house was one of many houses that sustained great damage during hurricane Ida. Her entire house was under water for 8 hours when an 18 feet surge swallowed the island. 

Mrs. Louise has been serving the island as the secretary of the town hall for many years. She processes many requests for help while forfeiting her own requests. She never felt comfortable asking for herself. 

On top of the material loss, Mr. Darrel and Mrs. Louise lost their one son right before the storm. They are still grieving that loss to this day. May the Lord sustain them and give them the comfort and peace that only He can. 

When the Community Church of Grand Isle found out about Mrs. Louise's situation and promised to help her out with her home, she busted out in tears and told them how she preferred to put her neighbors before herself. 

This week our Pelicans have the privilege to be the helpful hands Mrs. Louise has been longing for. We have removed all the wet walls, sprayed anti-mold and treated the walls with mildewcide.  Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will start hanging new drywall. 

Mrs. Louise can't hide her emotions and she warned us that she is a crier. We are so blessed to be a part of her story. And we pray that our work this week is a step along the way for God to continue to strengthen her and fill her with the joy of His salvation. 

We love you, Mrs. Louise! 

We have the living room walls up. We tore down the ceiling this morning. 

We pray that another group will continue to help Mr. and Mrs. Lafont. 

We have been having our nightly debrief and prayer time at the beach. 

Hearing the waves crashing, seeing the stars and the moon above our head and knowing that the Lord spoke those into being have been some more reasons for us to praise Him. 

We serve a wonderful God! 

We have half of the kitchen walled up. We enjoyed learning the basics of drywall installation. We wish we had more time to finish the job. 

It was good to see Mr. and  Mrs. Lafont's joy for the work we did for them. 

On Monday our group worked to clear a property of devastated by a hurricane. Many hands made light work filling the dumpster to the rim and arranging it to fit more.

Just like we filled the dumpster. God filled our week with joy, growth, and precious moments.

Psalms 16:11

We had a group this week from many different places, backgrounds, and with different personalities, yet God fit olus together like puzzle. Each piece had a place, each person made our group better, and together we got a beautiful glimpse of being one body in Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12

On Tuesday and Wednesday we worked at Mr. Thomas'. We worked on removing all the scraps that were pilled up in his workshop. It was hard work but we work at it to bless him, and ultimately gloryify the Lord through our service.

Colossians 3:23-24

Mr. Thomas' workshop was full of a lot cool things. We found flares, and tried to set them off, but they we to old and wet, and we found a bow we would later use to hunt crabs on the beach.

We pilled the metal to the right and cleaned out the junk to the left for the dump truck to pick up later, but we were able to clean the floors of the shop, and give Mr. Thomas back this space in good condition.