Spring Arbor University

We have officially arrived at our host partner church in Venice, FL! We kicked things off with a tour of the facilities, an orientation meeting to get to know one another, align our hearts and goals for the days ahead and are now settled in for the night. We are ready and expectant for everything God has for us this week!

This morning, after a good night’s sleep, we enjoyed breakfast together and some devotional time in Ephesians 1.

We are grateful for the time we got to spend with our host church, worshiping together and spending time in the Word.

After service, we enjoyed coffee hour and had great conversation with some of the congregants, followed by time with Melissa who shared her heart, their experience during hurricane Milton and so much about the ministries our partner church is involved in.

We had some down time this afternoon, so we decided to visit the local beach, and explore some of the area to get to know our community better!

This morning we spent time in God’s word, reflecting on His love for us and enjoyed a breakfast together before heading out for a day of service in Sarasota!

We started our day clearing brush from our new friend Peter’s property. He is so excited to be able to move back into his home soon, after having not been able to live there since hurricane Milton! We are blessed to be helping him in this way!

We joined hands in prayer with John from The United Way to pray for our time together. We are partnering with John this week in our ministry and it was so great to be with him this morning. We celebrate teamwork and a heart for Jesus!

The boys may or may not have been late for breakfast this morning and we may or may not have made them perform a jingle about the consequences of being late. They crushed it!!

Our second performance of the evening was a skit about being late. We had lots of laughs after a long hard day of work!

We are back at Peter’s property today to continue our work. Not long after arriving, we found a cactus growing out of a piece of debris. It reminded us of how Jesus brings beauty from ashes, illustrating the promise in Isaiah 61:3 that He provides strength and growth in the midst of our ruins.

We are hitting our stride, working together to clear the way and seeing the progress in real time. It feels great to watch the landscape open up as we work together to serve.

The environmental services folks came by and took about 60 bags worth of brush! It was such a great help to have them come at the time they did!

We are back at our host church to help with their community meal and are helping to prep 100 meals to serve this evening!

After the community meal, where we were able to spend time in fellowship with many people, we walked downtown Venice to enjoy a gelato! First - a group photo!

Today we are at Peter's to close out our last day of ministry work. We are making great progress!

These past few days we've worked alongside another team from World Renew. Fun fact - they are also from Michigan! We had lots of laughs, really enjoyed working together and getting to know each other.

This afternoon we are helping a congregant from our host church named Patti. We are clearing debris from an invasive pepper tree in her neighborhood and helping to move the debris to where it can be picked up!

We used other larger trees to create a bridge and haul away large amounts at a time!

Before we said goodbye, and visited the local alligator, we spoke with some of the neighborhood residents and took time to pray over Patti as a group.

Today is our rec day! We took time this morning and explored downtown Venice before heading to the beach! It's perfect beach day weather!

Beach selfie!

Our flight left early this morning and we made it back home safely. We are grateful to God for the work He has done in and through us this week.