NorthWood's Home Makeover Weekend

Last weekend was an incredible weekend for NorthWood and four families from Haltom City. For those who don't know what this weekend is, let me tell you a little background. We have been working with the Academy of West Birdville in Haltom City for years now. Last year we had this great idea to go in and remodel four families homes in the school. The kids of the families submitted a letter telling NorthWood why their family needed a home makeover. NorthWood then went through all the many letters and picked the top 4. Talk about a hard decision...how do you pick just four. After the four families were picked NorthWood split up into four color groups, RED, BLUE, GREEN, and YELLOW and worked for 36 straight hours in one weekend. The works was a blast as people worked together on one project. The relationships that were built were great! The working together was great! The whole weekend is truly great! So after the work is done and the families are spent from their day at Six Flags, it is time for the family to come home and see what has been done. The reactions and emotions are incredible. Check out this video...it will say a lot.


Northwood Home Makeover '08 from Chris Johns on Vimeo.

Blown away by student's obedience!

This past Wednesday Susan, the girl's pastor at NorthWood, and I were getting ready for an incredible Wednesday night service for our middle school and high school. We get a call from our pastor Bob Roberts telling us that he needed to see us in his office. Just so you know, any time I get called into the principal's office, I get nervous. I knew I didn't do anything, just get nervous. Anyway, Bob proceeds to tell us that there is a situation with a lady in the area who needs some help. This was the first time that Bob has ever called the student ministry to the table to meet the need.

So there is a lady from Kosavo who has been living in the States now for several years. She has 6 kids ranging in age from 26 to 11. She also has a girl who is in a wheel chair with Cerebral Palsy. Right now she is living in a condemned trailer with all 5 kids, all sleeping in one king size bed, with no Central heating or air, barely making it on daily basis. She told our pastor that most kids envy another kid's X box or bike, not her kids, her kids envy others beds.

So Bob asks if our student ministry wanted to help this lady out and get her beds for all her kids. The goal was to take up a offering in both youth services and see if we could help out. That night I told my students the story of this lady and her family and asked if they would help out by giving any amount of money. That night our students gave over $1,000. The cool part is that we will be able to take that money and get them other stuff because we had all the beds donated that night as well.