God’s Abundant Blessing on the Toy Ministry by Faye Sentovich, September 2024
Since first beginning the handmade wooden toy ministry in 2021, we have been praying for direction regarding a storage unit or building where Mitch could create a large woodworking shop. For all of 2023, Mitch and I were preoccupied with building a new home after Hurricane Ian took a third of our old home’s roof in September 2022. We moved into our new home in November 2023 and in December Mitch began sharing with friends his vision for erecting a 20 x 40 metal building on our same property. Within a few weeks, one friend contacted us to say his father had just passed and, having been blessed with a large inheritance, he wanted to make a donation to cover the cost of the building.
Superior Metal Buildings, a local Christian owned company provided the concrete and metal building at cost, after Mitch shared with him about Leave the 99 Ministries. The concrete was pored April 22, 2024, the building material was delivered May 8, and the building was erected within 2 days. It has now been insulated, plumbed, wired with the help of a neighbor.
Neighborhood Air Conditioning, a local Christian owned company, donated an AC he had removed from another building, so our only cost was the duct work and labor. Hallelujah!!
With the purchase of a gently used radial arm saw, router, and dust collection system, the wood shop is now up and running so Mitch is busy building more cars and cradles. A friend (LeRoy Piper) is working on an airplane design, and another friend (Lauryn Andres) would like to design marionettes in the near future. If you have an idea for a simple wooden toy that would appeal to girls ages 6 to 12, please share.
We recently met a couple at our church here in Lake Placid, FL who will take toys on their mission trip to Ecuador in December. The husband of another new acquaintance in Georgia (friend of Laurie and Lenny Flohr) has been made head of missions for their church and they are interested in taking toys to Romania in 2025. Mitch and I hope to take a mission team with toys to Honduras in the spring/summer of 2025.
Very soon we plan to purchase our own laser engraving machine. In the meantime, our friend, Jeanna Baker, has offered to partner with us and use her machine to engrave the Bible verse on each toy.l
We are so very blessed by God to have friends and co-laborers in Christ come alongside us.
On a side note, the new building is now also being used to host a weekly men’s Bible study and a weekly counseling session. Mitch hopes to soon be able to mentor local teenage boys and young men by instilling in them the Word of God, and teaching them basic financial responsibility, and simple woodworking skills.
