What Happened at Soaring Wings Ministries This Summer?

I love summer!  I don't love summer just a little bit.  I love summer with a passion!  I love the long hours of daylight.  I love the summer flowers and vegetables.  I love sitting out on the porch.  I love swimming and I even love the summer heat.  We had quite a summer here at Soaring Wings Ministries and now that summer is winding down I have some time to share about all that transpired here at Soaring Wings Ministries. 

Our summer activities began on June 19th and continued through August 3rd.  We partnered with Week of Hope through Group Work Camps out of Loveland, Colorado and during those 7 weeks we served as a host site for the Week of Hope Campers.  Each Monday morning through the summer a van would pull into our driveway with about 12  Week of Hope Campers.  The campers were here to volunteer and we were ready for them with a list of outside jobs, repairs and projects that needed to be done.  They worked everyday Monday - Thursday from 9:30 am. to 3 p.m.  They repaired shed roofs, built a pergola, cleaned outdoor furniture, washed the siding on the house, weeded, put in new garden beds, built a swing set, stained picnic tables, cleaned out the barn, organized the tool shed, put up a garden fence, built two shed doors, built an outdoor bench, repaired outdoor furniture, sewed cushions for outdoor furniture, built a firewood box, worked on the plumbing in the addition, baked cookies for the homeless, put together Blessing Bags and served the homeless in downtown Fort Collins.   

The Week of Hope Campers spent Monday and Tuesday working on their assigned tasks.  On Wednesday mornings the campers would spend the morning putting Blessing Bags together and baking cookies.  On Wednesday afternoons we would all go down to Fort Collins and give out the Blessing Bags, cookies and water to the homeless in Fort Collins.  Thursday mornings the campers would work finishing up their projects and we ended the week with a cook out of hotdogs, watermelon, chips, brownies, ice-cream and iced tea on Thursday afternoon.

The campers and their adult leaders were hard working, cheerful and willing to tackle any project.  They never once complained about the relentless summer sun.  There is hardly any shade to be found here on the property at Soaring Wings Ministries and so for the most part the campers worked out in the blazing hot sun.  I never saw people work so hard in hot sun and keep at their work without one thought of slowing down or quitting.  We were so very grateful for all of their hard work.  They accomplished tasks that would have taken us forever to accomplish or that we would not have been able to accomplish on our own at all.  

During the summer we also saw much progress being made on the addition which will house two homeless individuals.  The plumbing was worked on with our friends, the Hausermanns from New Mexico, leading the Week Campers on installing pipe.  How excited we all were to see the piping for the plumbing being laid in the ditch and ready to be hooked up to the septic!!!!! We also saw the electric work being worked on and were beyond excited when the electrical worked passed the first state inspection!!!!! 

I thought it would be fun to close this blog with some numbers.  I hope these numbers will give you some idea of all that transpired here at Soaring Wings Ministries during the summer.   

*78 Week of Hope Campers served at Soaring Wings Ministries this summer. 

*1,560 volunteer hours were donated to Soaring Wings Ministries by the Week of Hope Campers.

*200 Blessings Bags were made by the Week of Hope Campers for the homeless. 

*60 dozen chocolate chip cookies were baked and given to the homeless by the Week of Hope Campers.

*220 homeless were served in Fort Collins with blessing bags, cookies, water, Bible tracts and care notes being given to each homeless person by the Week of Hope Campers

*252 hotdogs were grilled on the grill here at Soaring Wings Ministries along with 49 pitchers of iced tea, 21 bags of chips, 294 squares of brownies, 7 gallons of ice cream and 7 watermelons being served with the hotdogs.  

It was a great summer!!! So much was accomplished here at Soaring Wings Ministries to create a warm and loving environment and all the work was done joyfully and for God's glory.  Here at Soaring Wings Ministries we try to be honoring to God in all that we do and to live by God's word.  I believe that was accomplished here this summer.  The verse that stayed with me all summer was Ecclesiastes 2:24 "A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil.  This too, I see, is from the hand of God".   This summer was a blessing from God and we are so very grateful to all of the hardworking Week of Hope Campers, the staff from Group Work Camps who made sure Week of Hope ran smoothly and to all of our supporters who prayed, loved us from afar and who supported us financially.  We saw first hand this summer that much can be accomplished for God's glory when we all work together.  A HUGE thank you to all of you!!!

Anita Rennells
Soaring Wings Ministries
Wellington, Colorado