Hearthstone Assisted Living Facility

Reaching Tampa was blessed on Saturday, December 15th by the residents of Hearthstone Assisted Living Facility. About 30 volunteers participated in a day of painting, cleaning, games and songs.

The day started off with volunteers breaking up into smaller groups to tackle various projects. One of the biggest groups spent most of their day painting the hallways next to the cafeteria.  Once the hallways were complete they moved on to the entrance of the kitchen. Thanks to some of the professional college painters that came out to help the day went off without a hitch and we even had enough time leftover for some touchup around the center.

Another big project, pressure washing the exterior of the building, was graciously taken on by Stephen Reynolds. Stephen was home studying for an exam and was kind enough to call during one of his breaks to see if we could use any help. Unbeknownst to him he was volunteering for a larger task then he bargained for. Pressure washing the front of the building turned into the sides and eventually became the courtyard, but he loved every minute of it.

The highlight of the morning for the residents was a chance to sing worship songs with Ross and his sister. Ross knew almost every request thrown his way and he played for almost 2 hours. After song time almost 30 residents packed into the activity room for a bingo tournament. There was no cost to enter the tournament and winners won stuffed animals and candy. After lunch the residents took some time to nap and relax and the volunteers helped the kitchen staff clean chairs and table cloths in the cafeteria.

Around 2 o'clock with the work almost complete the Reaching Tampa crew spent about an hour just visiting and praying with the amazing people of Hearthstone. The day was wrapped up at 3 o'clock with some more singing and a chapel service. We were thoroughly blessed by the folks at Hearthstone and they will continue to be in our prayers.

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Friends of Internationals Christmas Dinner

After an amazing day with the residents of Hearthstone Assisted Living Facility the volunteers of Reaching Tampa spent the evening serving at a dinner hosted by Friends of Internationals. Friends of Internationals is a multicultural ministry to international students and their international families and friends living on or near a college campus. The dinner was hosted at the home of Jake English, college age pastor at Idlewild Baptist Church, but many different churches joined together to help out with the evening. By the time dinner was served there were people from 22 different countries all joined together in a time of fellowship. Dinner was also an amazing experience as everyone attending brought their favorite dish unique to the country where they were born.

After dinner we sang Christmas carols and thanks to a large group from Burma had the opportunity to learn songs in the Burmese language. The songs were truly amazing as were the stories from these refugees from Burma. You have to thank God for people with such devotion.

By far, the highlight of the evening for the children was when it came time to open presents. Every child received a gift to open as well as a stuffed animal. The toys were donated to Reaching Tampa through a generous donation from an anonymous source and the stuffed animals were donated by Lifeway.

The most amazing thing about watching these kids open gifts is the fact that quite a few of them did not even know what to do with the "weird colored box" we had just handed them. It was not until they had help opening their gift that they realized what it was they were getting and that it now belonged to them. One mother told us through an interpreter that this was the first time her child had ever received a gift of any kind. Another child told his mother that this is what it must be like to be rich.

The entire evening was a lesson in what it is like to be rich and time to be thankful for the greatest gift of all, God sending His Son Jesus Christ.

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The Pregnancy Care Center

During the month of February about 30 different volunteers from Reaching Tampa spent four of their weekends helping renovate The Pregnancy Care Center.  The Pregnancy Care Center is located in the heart of Nebraska Avenue and is dedicated to reaching pregnant women with the love of Christ for both themselves and their unborn child. 

The first weekend Reaching Tampa started on Friday by taking on the tremendous task of stripping all the wallpaper from the walls and moving the furniture from 3 of the meeting rooms into the back storage room. Following the removal of the wallpaper several of the girls volunteering took markers and wrote verses they felt truly captivated the feeling of the center on the wall as a foundation for the paint.  On Saturday, volunteers from Reaching Tampa came back to lay drop cloths, tape and paint the walls with primer.  The following week Reaching Tampa returned on Friday night to lay drop cloths, tape and paint the first coat on the walls.  On Saturday, we returned again to finish up the most of the painting.  The third week we returned to finish up painting the rooms and moving the furniture back into the rooms so that they could be functional again and started painting the waiting room.  The final week we spent Friday night finishing up the waiting room and cleaning and painting crown molding and chair rails that had been donated.  Saturday several of the guys volunteering returned along with 2 carpenters to put up both the chair rails and the crown molding. 

These weeks had several impacting moments.  One of these moments was realizing from ripping off wallpaper, to writing verses, to painting, to nailing up rails God was really able to stretch and challenge us in ways we had not expected through this one project alone.  It was amazing to think that the rooms that we had the privilege of helping renovate could later be used to reach out to someone and allow them to truly realize that their Savior loves them as they are and is just waiting to rescue them. 

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