miss mary

Meet Miss Mary...

Our family has had the honor and privilege of getting to know this wonderful 92-year-old lady who we call Miss Mary through a community outreach project our College/Career Bible Study group started over the summer. It all started when Nathan stopped by this house along a road that he was patrolling one day. He originally stopped to inquire if she had any old bicycles that she was looking to sell or get rid of, but the Lord used that one stop to put such a burning desire and conviction within Nathan to reach out to Miss Mary. Through many chats with Miss Mary, it turned out that she had always wanted a yellow house. So, we knew now what God wanted us to do. She was going to get her yellow house at no charge to her!

First, we started by clearing out all of the brush to the side and back of the house.

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Then, we power-washed and scraped the old loose paint off of the house during a church Sunday Service day. For those pictures, see blog post entitled, "just all-around great days" dated July 18, 2010.

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Now we're ready to put the yellow paint to the house. Our friend Andy was able to secure a paint sprayer which in turn saved us from hand-painting the entire home with paint brushes and saving us a lot of time.

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Priming the trim and doors was next.

We had a really good helper too.







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Finally, many gracious and helpful people from our church helped finish up the project by coming and helping us paint the trim its official white color. We were so blessed by this outpouring of people to take the time out of their day and serve our Lord by helping finish up the painting of this home.

Above is the Pastor of our church, Pastor Brian, (I think he forgot he was to be painting the house, not Nate) and below is his wife, Miss Sherry.

Even my Dad came to help us as he and my Mom were up visiting. Yes, that's my Dad in the orange jumpsuit, and No, Nathan did not get an inmate out of prison on work-release to help us...that's just my Dad! Thank you, Dad, you were a huge help! (And, thank you, Mom, you were a huge help watching Owen and Letty at home while we finished the painting!)
A Dad and his 2 boys came to help!








And, a number of other willing servants came to help!












Miss Mary was so pleased with her new yellow house.

Even her brother approved of it, which I guess was saying a lot!

Sorry, I took no before and after pictures...they would have been nice though, huh?

Nathan and I were so encouraged and blessed by everyone's willingness and enthusiasm in helping reach out and serve the Lord by painting this house. We have no idea why the Lord wanted this house painted for Miss Mary, but we are so thankful and joyful that we were able to do it. The friendships and bonds that were built through this project are indescribable. The lessons we learned from this service were tremendous, but I would hope that the Lord didn't use this project to teach only Nathan and me but others as well. It's funny now that I think about it that we thought the Lord would use this to bless and encourage Miss Mary, but He also blessed us too! :-)

When we originally took this outreach on, Nathan and I thought that we personally would be paying for the cost of a house to be painted; that is, paying for the paint, primer, and all supplies involved with it. The Lord had other plans...through the local hometown paint store, Lindsay's Paint and Wallpaper, and its supplier, California Paints, we were able to get the paint and primer at NO COST!!!!! Thank you Lindsay's Paint and Wallpaper and California Paints for your helpfulness and generosity! You never know how the Lord will work as you step out in faith and obedience in what the Lord has called you to do. A lesson we seem to continue to learn as we live here in New Hampshire.

Thank you, Lord, for leading us and blessing us so much with this project.

...for we walk by faith, not by sight. ~II Corinthians 5:7

For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God will all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. ~Deuteronomy 13:3-4