On July 15 another group from Trinity headed over to Detroit to spend a weekend with our friends from Rosedale Park Baptist Church. Although each trip to Detroit is much like the others it seems we always have the opportunity to meet new people and this trip also brought along a few Trinity people who have not been to Rosedale before. One was Sherwin Koning so that right there tells you we had a reeeeaaaally interesting trip... The other was Nate Vander Woude who brought some young blood into the group. Justin Lambers and Alyssa Vander Heide also went so it was good to have a handful of college age Trinitians along with us. As usual, my dear wife, Nancee, was by my side and we also had Brian Koetje and Cory Draper along with us. Thank you all for joining us and serving alongside our brothers and sisters from Rosedale. In fact, that is one thing I am noticing about these trips, more and more Rosedale members are joining us on Saturday to work with us.

We left Trinity on Friday evening around 6:15 and the trip over was fairly uneventful. A quick stop at Wendy’s found some cold refreshments on the lips of a bunch of us. There is nothing quite like a good ole Frosty. We arrived at Rosedale between 8:30 – 9:00 and were greeted by our dear friend Roy. We spent some time just hanging out and eating some Little Caesar’s pizza before setting up our ‘beds’ and getting ready for a little sleep. A few of us played a game of Heartland Strategy (or a game of Steketee as some of our more odd Trinity members call it…….ask Adam Yowtz J) before turning in for the night.

On Saturday we started with a nice breakfast before heading out into the heat to paint the outside of their old church building. About 5 – 6 years ago Rosedale built the church building they are currently using and their old church across the street has not seen a lot of tender loving care. They are working on rejuvenating the old place so they can use it for housing groups like ours and also possibly using it for a gathering place for their youth. They currently do use the main floor for a few different things but they are looking to breathe some new life into the building.

Saturday was a very hot day so we painted a bit and we sweat a lot. Again, it was good to have 2—3 Rosedale folks working with us on Saturday. They had gotten about half the building painted prior to us getting there so by the end of the day the entire outside of the building had been repainted. That was nice to see. A few of us also worked on finishing the siding on one of the houses we have been working on. We also enjoyed a great lunch of grilled burgers and hot dogs along with all the fixings that was prepared by a combination of Rosedale and Trinity members.

Saturday night saw us head out again for some pizza at Pizza Papali’s. It was kind of an interesting evening as we started out with a plan of taking in some music and arts down by the river but when we arrived there was not as much going on as we expected. So, after a bunch of running around we ended up enjoying some good pizza and fellowship.

On Sunday we were able to again worship with them and also be blessed by them. They always seem so appreciative of our relationship. I hope that other Trinity folks will join us as well on future trips to Detroit. There continues to be so many different ways that Trinity and Rosedale can continue to work together and grow together.

~Gary Vander Heide