What to Bring and Where You'll Work!

It's almost here, so let's talk about packing and working -- for both work and worship. At work, you are going to need long pants (jeans or carpenter pants are great), teeshirts with sleeves, closed-toe shoes, and socks. Around the school and at worship, you can wear modest shorts, shirts with sleeves (absolutely no tanks), and sandals. I am attaching a packing list that may help out.

Packing for work is easy -- you will need a paint brush, a scraper, a hammer, safety glasses, work gloves and sunscreen. Our work sites are in downtown Buffalo, and most of the work will include painting house exteriors, building handicapped ramps, repairing porches, etc. Here is picture of the kind of houses we might have as projects. If you check out the slope of these roofs, it is easy to see why we can't do a lot of roof work.

One key item that is not on the packing list but is a necessity is a FAN. The school is not air-conditioned since it gets cool at night in Buffalo, but we suggest you bring an individual fan for your own sleeping space.

The Buffalo Bash

Our Associational Coordinator Mike Flannery and his wonderful wife Bev are hard at work coordinating many aspects of our Buffalo project, including the Buffalo Bash. As you know from the new schedule, with our shortened work week Wednesday is a full work day with a community outreach activity in the evening. Our activity is a huge party in Riverside Park which will include children's games and activities, a local band, and fireworks. Almost 100 local volunteers are mobilizing to make this a huge outreach evening for Buffalo. Please begin praying for this! Also, please plan a way that your church participants can contribute to this -- hopefully bringing an activity your church group can do with kids (face painting, bean bag toss, balloon animals, frisbee, etc.) and maybe even a monetary contribution from your church to help offset the costs of the evening. If you have any questions, call Mike.

New World Changers Schedule

For new World Changers, welcome to the daily schedule! For veteran WCs, welcome to the very NEW daily schedule! For everyone, please read it carefully. As you can see, we will hit the ground running on Monday, so it is super important that everyone arrive on time and ready to go!!

Who Is Coming to Buffalo?

Here are the churches who will be part of the Buffalo project! Please pray for each church and for the participants and chaperones. We can't wait to meet you all in person!

• Casey First Baptist Church, Kansas, IL -- 10 participants -- Rex Goble, leader
• Emmanuel Baptist Church, Plano, IL -- 17 participants -- Doug Holm, leader
• Ethelsville Baptist Church, Ethelsville, AL -- 9 participants -- Annette Howton, leader
• Etowah First Baptist Church , Etowah, TN -- 16 participants -- Matt Rush, leader
• First Baptist Church, Westerville (Columbus), OH -- 9 participants -- Bob Veeck, leader
• First Baptist Church, Many, LA -- 30 participants -- Jeff Leach, leader
• Iva First Baptist Church, Iva, SC -- 20 participants -- Paul Pinson, leader
• Judson Baptist Church, Nashville, TN -- 40 participants -- Lora Hayes, leader
• Olive Grove Baptist Church, Creedmoor, NC -- 24 participants -- Rev. John Monderen, leader
• Sandy Creek Baptist Church, Asheboro, NC -- 9 participants -- Jeremy Hyatt, leader
• Shiloh Baptist Church, King George, VA -- 15 participants -- Mark Morgan, leader
• Valley View Baptist Church, Sevierville, TN -- 20 participants -- Kevin Daniels, leader
• Woodward Baptist Church, Muscle Shoals, AL -- 23 participants -- Kyle Adcock, leader

Meet Our Summer Staff!

We are going to have the greatest summer staff EVER in Buffalo in July! Our Team Leader/Office Manager is Bethany Siebert, a veteran World Changer who is ready to provide superb leadership to both group leaders and students. Our Music Leader is Jared Patterson, a 20-year-old student at Belmont University (majoring in Audio Engineering Technology, by the way) who loves music (of course!) and everything outdoors. Liz Vest is our Mission Communication Specialist; she is from Cleveland, TN, and is a student at Bryan College (majoring in Communications) who plays the piano and loves to travel. Last but not least, Michael George is our Audio/Visual Technician, and he is a student at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, TX; he loves youth ministry and sodas (an interesting combination).

Please commit to pray daily for our summer staff as they lead World Changers projects all summer. They are now in Birmingham, AL, but they can't wait to meet us in Buffalo!

Meet Mel, Our Worship Speaker!

Our worship speaker, Mel Howton, is originally from Caledonia, MS. He went to school at Mississippi State back in the day and is currently a full-time students again working on a ministry degree, hopefully graduating in August with a BA in Pastoral Ministry. Mel has been the pastor of Ethelsville Baptist Church in Pickens County, AL, since April 2003. He has been married to Annette (Net to Mel) for 25 years as of July 20th, and they have two adult children, Maeghan -23 and Jordy -21. He loves to hunt, fish, any type of team sports, cooking (probably the best cook on the planet!), and 1970's music. Mel is a veteran of six WC projects, two as worship speaker. We are THRILLED to have Mel leading us in worship in Buffalo, and we can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for all of us! Please pray for Mel!

Our Facility

Here are pictures of our high school. It is an older building that has been totally renovated last year. It is well-kept and roomy. The school has limited air-conditioning since the temps in Buffalo are cool most of the year. Bring small fans for your sleeping comfort! The auditorium is large and very nice, located directly inside the front door. The classrooms will make nice sleeping rooms. The cafeteria is on the fourth floor, so we will work up a good appetite as we climb the stairs! The boys will shower in a locker room group shower that will be rigged up for 9 individual stalls. The girls will have a 7-shower locker room, as well as an overflow shower trailer. There will be no summer classes while we are in residence.

Welcome To The Buffalo World Changers Blog!

Hello World Changers! I am Pam Rector, Project Coordinator for World Changers in Buffalo. I look forward to meeting you guys in person, but in the meantime, I hope this blog will be the next best thing. Jim Gatschet, our Construction Coordinator, is busy selecting houses and staffing his team of Crew Chiefs and Supervisors. We recently had a preproject in which we visited the city of Buffalo, viewed some sample project homes, toured the school where we will stay, and met with Mike Flannery, our Associational Coordinator, and his wonderful wife Bev. I am posting several pictures to let you SEE what is going on. I will try to post info several times a week, so please please please do a quick check daily!