I want to praise the Lord and give a shout out to Daniel Teague. Daniel is one of our students here at JIBC. He and his family attend regularly. His dad owns a landscaping design company so Daniel has kind of grown up in the business. Daniel is in the Boy Scouts and is earning his Eagle Scout rank. To do that requires a community project. Daniel chose, after much thought, to do a landscaping project at our Transition House. I thought that was a great idea.
To be honest, I thought he was going to just put in a new flower bed and trim some bushes and rake some leaves. Let me try to describe what is taking place. By the way, you can drive by and see it any time. It is front yard, front and center!
Daniel's landscaping and design project, of course, used his skills in landscaping. But he also used his skills of influence and was able to get almost all of the materials donated at no cost. He went to areas vendors and suppliers and explained what he was doing. They were glad to help a scout earn his eagle rank and to help in a project benefiting people in recovery. He used his skills as a landscaper and his influence with community businesses to accomplish his project. He enlisted people with stump grinders, back hoes, dump trucks, pavers, plants, etc. This turned out to be a full scale landscaping makeover. It could have been a television show.
This past Monday morning as I drove into our parking lot, Daniel had a full work crew busy as they could be. I could not count how many volunteers he recruited. Last Saturday, he even had the children living at the Transition House carrying and placing pavers. It was a beautiful sight. I hope we can put together a presentation of the entire project. He even has plans to repurpose the old bricks he took up.
Daniel has been a great example of using your influence for good and to the glory of God. Well done, Daniel, well done!
Pastor Tom
