The Point

This is about half of the girls.  We went to Atlanta to fix up rooms, but the kids are the real reason we went.  Our mission was to encourage where we could.  We will remember them and their stories.

Before and After Photos

Kitchen

It is amazing how much a fresh coat of paint brightens a room.  We painted the walls and added a kitchen table and chairs.  We also painted the freezer.

This counter was covered in contact paper.  It was a simple project to tile it.

A fresh coat of paint and new cabinet handles cleaned the kitchen up so much, the kids kept asking us if we tiled the backsplash.

Bathroom

A curtain to replace the garbage bag, a new shower curtain, cube storage, and a freh coat of Moonlight yellow....we also built a box over exposed pipes coming out of the ceiling.

Intern's Bedroom

We replaced broken closet doors, added bulletin boards, bedside tables, new quilts and painted the beds and walls.

We added a unit of cubes and baskets.  The bed is off the floor enough to store things under it.

Curtains for closet doors, window seat with curtains, pillows and cushion, cube unit with baskets for storage.

Living Room

The non-working TV was thrown away leaving lots of storage, covered by curtains.  The open cubicle became pillow storage.  Big pillows can be used on the floor.

Changed the big blank wall to a giant chalkboard.  The fridge is scheduled to me moved out to the pantry.

Back corner turned into a window seat by adding cushions, pillows, curtains and a lamp.

Apartment 6

We added several cubicle units with baskets to hold smaller items.

Apartment 7

This apartment has 8 girls living in it and all of their stuff is against the kitchen wall on plastic shelves.  Armoires store it behind closed doors.

Apartment 9

One girl sleeps in this alcove, and her clothes were in the kitchen.  Curtains give her some privacy and she can keep her clothes in a dresser.

A coat of paint on the walls, curtains and new quilts...

The entrance to the apartment has a new curtain over the closet, a small table and bulletin boards.

Apartment 8

This kitchen doubles as a closet, but now a new wardrobe hides it behind closed doors.

Curtains, a cube unit and bulletin boards de-clutters this tiny alcove room.

Day 6 Mission Trip

We may be here to serve the Atlanta Dream Center, but we are supporting Home Depot.  I am becoming familiar with the merchandise in the store....especially since we found one 3 blocks away from the ten-plex.

Pastor Paul invited us to their first fund raiser dinner tonight.  It was a nice dinner.  They had a really good presentation on some of their ministries.  They have over 40 ministry projects at the Dream Center.  They introduced us to a prostitute, a drug dealer, a couple that lived on the street,  and 5 orphaned children.  All of them are now involved in the Dream Center now as volunteers or employees.  The children are being adopted by two employees.

The students we are serving this week, are involved in most of these ministries and provide thousands of hours of service a year to people of their inner city neighborhood.  Tonight, we sat with the couple who runs the Safe Haven ministry.  They take children in and keep them while they train the parents to be parents.  They repair families.  It's a great program.

Day 5 Mission Trip

Loading handpainted furniture into the van in the morning.

At lunch, we took our egg salad sandwiches to Dairy Queen.  We had Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Blizzards.  We have been talking about them for three days and they were our treat for painting three rooms.  Really good, by the way.

After a trip to IKEA, we had the van packed to the ceiling with furniture and pillows and rugs.  Later, a team from a local church came to the house to build it for us.  We managed to build 5 cube storage units before the team arrived, and they worked on dressers for us.

While the team was working, we had a bead soup/pizza party with the students who live in the house.  We even had a couple boys make bracelets. It was fun getting to know them a little.

This is Domingus.  He is from Mozambique.  He is very friendly and helpful and slung a paint roller for us, and helped us move heavy boxes.  Nice boy.

Chatting with the kids.....

Teaching the girls how to make bracelets....

It was a long but fulfilling day!