Pat Hazlett's Thoughts

What I gained by participating in the Katrina relief mission trip was watching the Holy Spirit work in my life and the lives of others. I also learned that it only takes a listening ear, a hug, or a touch of your hand to help heal the hurts of those affected by the floods. Ministry begins outside the walls of a church.

Pat Hazlett, Team 20

Team 20 ONN Coverage

Ohio News Network interviewed Chris Cole of Team 20 on his repeat trip; the 3rd since July for Chris. That segment will be on the evening news tonight.


Stephanie Mennecke also interviewed Dave Adair and I for a segment to air several times tomorrow morning. Keep an eye on ONN for those stories.
Special thanks to Stephanie and ONN for continuing to cover our relief operations. This helps us build our volunteer base, both for our current effort in New Orleans and others in the future.

Last week's trip was amazing! Amazing is overused and made the yearly list of words that should be outlawed, but I don't mean that in the trite way it is overused. We had volunteers from 11 to 68, men and women, from seven different churches. Yet, everyone worked very well together, led when leadership was called for and followed when they needed to follow.

I saw the lady who asked me before the trip if we didn't have any work for women spend the week painting just finished walls and ministering to homeowners. I saw people who have never "done-it-themselves" lay laminate flooring, operate cutoff saws, finish drywall, and help install kitchen cabinets. I saw generation Y put down their game controllers for a week to install doors, muck out a nasty house, and sleep where half the outlets don't work.

The Holy Spirit guided the unskilled and placed the skilled where they were needed. I haven't installed kitchen cabinets for 16 years, but completed two houses with some good help. Rick Peszlen had minimal experience with wood flooring, but was training others to install it his 2nd day and his team completed two homes and part of another. Jarrod Rossiter put a new face on flooded house, just by removing the splintered, pealing front door and replacing it with a new one. 12 year old Emily Peszlen, who had never painted before helped paint two complete homes, herself, and her teammates ;-) All the rest of the team did work, they didn't know they could do and had opportunities to minister to people they never suspected they'd have or that they were prepared for.

We'll continue sending volunteers to do this work for a long time to come. The homes we have nearly completed are the first on their street. There are many others waiting to be done. The homeowners we are helping to rebuild have received less than $20k from insurance and government grants to restore $140k (pre-katrina) homes. They are on fixed incomes and have increased expenses due to health problems since the storm. Some are older widowed women. All of them desperately need your help to get them out of their FEMA trailers and into their homes again.

If you have minimal construction experience of any kind, you are an expert in this effort and your skills will be used by the Spirit to get this work done. If you have no experience, you'll find the work you are drawn into will be easy to learn. This is the nature of Kingdom work. This is very fulfilling, contributes to you spiritual growth, and you'll have a lot of fun working with new friends; brothers and sisters in Christ.

Spring break teams are forming, but we can schedule groups through January and February with interest. If you would like to know more, please see the web site or give me a call.

Servants Unite!

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1 Peter 4:10, Mark 12:30-31, Mathew 9:36-38, Romans 12:4-8

John McGuire
www.ServantsUnite.org
614-523-3996 home
614-404-8610 cel

Team 20 is home!!!

More later, but we got in at 5:30 tonight after a wonderful week. Near to flawless as any have been. More tomorrow!

John