During the first week of Christmas, I stayed at school with around 20 or 25 other Judson girls for Restoration, a local missions project.

The project came to be because of a Judson student. Over the summer she was inspired to do work to help our community. After much thought and prayer, she started looking in to putting the idea into action.  It took a lot of work and a lot of help, but it was a success!

During the week, we had three different work sites. The first was at the elementary school in Marion. A group of the girls that stayed for the week went with Susan Jones - Judson's Faith-Based Service Learning Director - to work with some of the students. The girls read to the children and helped make Christmas sweat shirts.

The rest of us did work on two of the self-help homes that are being built in Marion.

Day one we went out to the first house.  Upon arrival at the house there was one small set back: How to get to the house! You see the whole yard was mud, not just muddy, but mud. We had to figure out how to build a bridge across the front yard to the front door. We were expecting to get dirty, as in paint, drywall dust, and maybe a little dirt, but shoes being caked in red mud was not something most of us were prepared for. It wasn't too long before the bridge was constructed and we were on our way into the house.

From there we installed insulation inside the house and painted the outside trim. Before we made it into the house though, there was an unknown job that they asked for volunteers to do. Four of us, ready for work, jumped at the opportunity. We may have been a little more hesitant if we had known where that job would take us.

(to be continued)