On Saturday, we had the great privilege of assisting our church's Heart & Hammers Ministry with reaching out to a military family in our community. The husband had recently been deployed to Iraq, leaving behind his wife, son, and handicapped mother. His wife had recently been injured and was held up in crutches while the mother was bound to a wheelchair, so they were unable to take care of some of the things that the man of the house would normally do. Therefore, we heard the call, packed up our trucks and drove down to Monroe to serve this family. The plan for the day was to build a wheelchair ramp and do some yard work and landscaping that was very badly needed! Everything was overgrown and dangerous. However, 4 hours later, the ramp was securely constructed, the yard was cut/edged, the trees and bushes were pruned back (A LOT!), new flowers and plants were planted in the yard, 42 bales of
pine straw were dispersed, and a Bible/salvation message was presented. We accomplished a huge amount in a short period of time, and for that, we were so grateful! Here are a few pictures from our service project:
At the very end, the family came outside and said that this was the most special Mother's Day present she could've been given this year. Just seeing the joy and appreciation on their faces was all the thanks we needed.
Needless to say, all our hard work made us contemplate our landscaping deficiencies in our own yard! So, we stopped by the local farmers stand on the way home and picked up some plants to help spruce up our own yard! We added a lot the front porch and Chris also tore down the railing on the porch, so it's now more open and enjoyable to look at it! We've spent a lot of time out there already! In addition, we picked up some new bushes for our back yard, and began planting our summer vegetable/herb garden. Right now, all we have are 2 tomato plants, 2 sweet banana pepper plants, mint, and lavender. But our intention is to also plants yellow peppers, red peppers, and basil (at least). So there's more to come!
We left out the 2 hanging ferns in this picture . . . oops :)
