We started the morning with a hearty pancake breakfast to fuel us up for a day of commaraderie and fruitful labor.

Since the ground was wet, we opted to work indoors. We found plenty to keep us busy including updates to the sound system and rearranging furniture in preparation for next week’s tea party.

It was a spring offensive! 37 volunteers from Hanover Baptist and the Bailey family descended on the Bailey farm to help in tree felling, lawn raking, clean-up, and fence removal.

God gave us perfect weather as men, women, and children arrived with their Bobcats, pickup trucks, chainsaws, rakes, pruning shears, hammers, crowbars heavy duty wire cutters, and strong backs. We started at 8:00 AM, though Ward and a few of the men were quite early. By noon, the place looked sooo different. It was a special blessing that so many children and teens came out. They effectively mixed work with play, which sped things along and brightened everyone’s day.

Here are some photos of this fruitful event

Click one of the small pictures to get a blow-up, then use your arrow keys to step through the larger pictures. Just click on the large picture to see the thumbnails again.

Monday the 19th through Thursday the 22nd, several church members worked alongside the visiting mission team on a plethora of projects around the church and parsonage:

• Re-wired speakers in the sanctuary.
• Ran wires for a video projector in the youth room.
• Ran electricity for a projection screen in the sanctuary.
• Installed wood laminate flooring in the ladies study/choir room.
• Made repairs at the parsonage.
• Drywalled two rooms in the basement.
• Improved electrical wiring in the basement.
• Installed ceiling fans in the sanctuary.
• And the big one—We removed soundproofing from the sanctuary walls, put up new drywall and painted the sanctuary a nice fresh white.

Interspersed with all this hard work, there was plenty of time to share testimonies and tales of previous missions. And the ladies from Tennessee kept us all well fed!

All the work was appreciated, but the work in the sanctuary—the new drywall and bright paint— makes Hanover Baptist seem so much livelier now. When we sing, you can really hear it!

9:00 AM—Several members took advantage of the opportunity to help at Charlotte Eller’s house with painting, carpentry repair and other odd jobs. Due to today’s dampness, outdoor painting will have to wait for a sunnier day.

7:00 AM—We met for breakfast at Bo’s Cafe. After breakfast, we went to the church to putter around on multiple little projects that needed our attention.