I love being outside in God's creation! It's so amazing to think about God when you look at all He has created. I do a lot of front porch sitting when I'm at home and even though it's not the best view in the world it is still a view that I love to look at and think about all the memories of working in the garden with my family, mowing the yard, playing games and tending to the roses. Sitting here I like to think about how I also had a hand in helping things to grow that God created. I feel so privileged to be able to be used by God in helping tend his creation... whether it be through tending the garden or tending the people he has created.
This past week we have gotten a chance to visit with some older people in my church who are now home bound. They are not able to attend church any more because they can not get around well and do not have a lot of visitors. We got to go and talk with them and sing some hymns with them one day this week. It was really cool to talk with them about where they have come from and what they have learned in this life. Our team had a good conversation about how we sometimes over look those people who have gone before us that really helped to set up the church. We realize how times have changed and we have to prepare and plan for different times but we also realize that the people who started everything should be given credit and listened to and be loved. We also got a chance to do a worship service at the nursing home where my great-grandma is at (she is 102!). Granny Reid was having a "good day" when we went and she even got to sit out and worship with us! Some of the people were not alert enough but others were. We had a couple of people talk to their hair dresser about what we did for them that day and they told her how much they loved us just taking time to come and worship with them and visit a little afterward. There was one lady that I talked to and she told me "I know that Jesus you were talking about!". She also shared a little bit of her story with me. It is so wonderful to hear about people and where they have come from and how Jesus has helped to bring them through life! We also noticed that not only people that were staying in the nursing home were listening to us but their visitors, nurses and even the maintenance men stopped by to listen for a little bit. I pray that the people that were there understood what we were saying about the love of God and will seek and find Him.
Today we went to the "Caring Hearts Free Clinic" clinic in VA. This is a free clinic for those without medical insurance. We helped them move some furniture and update their files and do anything else that they needed us to do. There were two boys that were helping the clinic while we were there today. They were juniors in high school, and seemed to be really interested in what we were doing this summer. They wanted to know why we were there and what we normally did and things like that. They were some pretty cool guys themselves, we enjoyed getting to know them. Anyway like I said we got to help out with their filing and stuff. It is crazy how many people that they are serving, I do not remember the exact number of people that they have served already this year but it was a very large one. We did get to visit with some of the patients that were coming there, however they did not tell us a lot about their lives, they just wanted to know about why were there.
This week we have also been helping out with VBS every night at my church. We were able to talk with the youth the first three nights about what we are doing all summer and how they will have chances to do the same thing when they are in college and how they can be a missionary right here at home. We talked with them about our ministry that we do through drama, interpretive movement, and music. They were all really interested in all of the summer missionary opportunities that are provided through the Baptist State Convention. :) I am excited that the youth of our church are starting to dream big about their own ministry opportunities!
Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and prayers as we go throughout the summer. Some things specifically that you could be praying for are the older people in our church who are overlooked. Pray that they will be remembered for the things that they once did and that their voice will be heard. Pray for the people that we served and served with today in the clinic. Pray for the youth of the church here and around the world that they would start dreaming big about the missionary opportunities that they have everyday. Please pray for our team to minister to the people around us everyday; people in our hosts homes, people who provide us food, and anyone and everyone that we come into contact with. Thanks again for your prays they mean so much to us all! God is working and you are a part of what he is doing around us when you pray!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
going home...
We have finished our week in Mars Hill and have now moved on to Sandy Ridge :) We loved getting to be in Mars Hill and help with their VBS and get to see Todd... but it's good to be moving on again. It is exciting to see how God is going to use us in Sandy Ridge and how much the team has grown together. We are all staying in the same house for this week and are looking forward to spending a lot of time together! We are going to be helping out with the VBS here this week. We are a station that the kids come to each night. They can ask us questions, we can share our stories and show them a little bit of what we do. We got to be a part of the Sunday morning service this morning. We did a sketch that really seemed to touch the hearts of the people there and we sang one of our hymns and did a creative movement. We also got to lead the youth in Bible study during the Sunday School hour and it was nice to have an introduction that way to the kids. This being my home town I am super excited about showing the people here how I love to worship God. I hope to inspire the people here as well as everywhere else we will be going this summer.
Today is Father's day. A day to celebrate our father's and what they mean to us. In a way I feel bad that we are here at my home since I don't have a father here on earth to celebrate with... however I do get to celebrate my Dad in a way that I would like to since I am at home. The others have gotten to call their parents and Kristen got to see her family yesterday for her birthday. She can now drive the van... but she has not yet. Kristen's birthday was yesterday and we celebrated on the road... it was fun! Celebrated 21 in a little different way than most people would celebrate but still good I think.
If you are praying for us... you could pray for us to reach the people here in Sandy Ridge and help them to want to reach out to other people. Please pray for us as we are all in the same small space all week as well... haha. Please pray for good conversation this week as we are talking to the people here at the church. Pray for the "shut-ins" we will visit this week and for the different places we will be going to help out.
Thank you so much for your prayers and all of you that have been wanting to keep up with us this summer. I hope you are all doing well!
Today is Father's day. A day to celebrate our father's and what they mean to us. In a way I feel bad that we are here at my home since I don't have a father here on earth to celebrate with... however I do get to celebrate my Dad in a way that I would like to since I am at home. The others have gotten to call their parents and Kristen got to see her family yesterday for her birthday. She can now drive the van... but she has not yet. Kristen's birthday was yesterday and we celebrated on the road... it was fun! Celebrated 21 in a little different way than most people would celebrate but still good I think.
If you are praying for us... you could pray for us to reach the people here in Sandy Ridge and help them to want to reach out to other people. Please pray for us as we are all in the same small space all week as well... haha. Please pray for good conversation this week as we are talking to the people here at the church. Pray for the "shut-ins" we will visit this week and for the different places we will be going to help out.
Thank you so much for your prayers and all of you that have been wanting to keep up with us this summer. I hope you are all doing well!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Quick update...
Hey everyone. I have a few minutes to give you a quick update...
The team has now moved on to Mars Hill, but before we left I got a chance to talk with the youth that does not know Christ. He is an awesome kid and said that he was really interested in knowing more but wasn't sure about things yet. I hope you will still pray for him and I'm hoping to maybe here if he makes a decision to accept Jesus into his heart. He said that just to see regular kids like us come to his town just to hang out with him was pretty amazing. I hope he could see Christ's love in all of us!
Anyway... as I said we are at Mars Hill Baptist this week helping with their VBS. We each have a different place to help out and get to know the kids. We also get to deliver food to people and work in the "Fields of Hope" this week. It is a ministry that the church has to help feed people who are in the community that can not afford for buy food from the grocery store. We will help them plant and weed and stuff so that they can grow the food for them. It's a pretty awesome ministry!
That's about all I have time for right now... but hopefully we will have a chance to write again at least once more this week. We are without wireless and using friends computer this week. I hope you all are doing well... we are praying for all you missionaries out there! :)
If you would like to pray for us pray for energy as we run with children all week. Pray that they would see the love of God in us. And also pray for some unspoken requests within all of our personal lives. Thanks so much for what you all mean to us!!
The team has now moved on to Mars Hill, but before we left I got a chance to talk with the youth that does not know Christ. He is an awesome kid and said that he was really interested in knowing more but wasn't sure about things yet. I hope you will still pray for him and I'm hoping to maybe here if he makes a decision to accept Jesus into his heart. He said that just to see regular kids like us come to his town just to hang out with him was pretty amazing. I hope he could see Christ's love in all of us!
Anyway... as I said we are at Mars Hill Baptist this week helping with their VBS. We each have a different place to help out and get to know the kids. We also get to deliver food to people and work in the "Fields of Hope" this week. It is a ministry that the church has to help feed people who are in the community that can not afford for buy food from the grocery store. We will help them plant and weed and stuff so that they can grow the food for them. It's a pretty awesome ministry!
That's about all I have time for right now... but hopefully we will have a chance to write again at least once more this week. We are without wireless and using friends computer this week. I hope you all are doing well... we are praying for all you missionaries out there! :)
If you would like to pray for us pray for energy as we run with children all week. Pray that they would see the love of God in us. And also pray for some unspoken requests within all of our personal lives. Thanks so much for what you all mean to us!!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Laundry and Journaling...
Tonight I'm sitting here in the living room of my host home and everyone is asleep. I'm waiting on some laundry to get done drying so I thought I would give you a little update. While I've been sitting here I've been journaling and thinking about how God has been working in those unnoticeable ways... until you sit back and really think about things.
God is so amazing and I'm learning that he works in and through us when we aren't really paying attention. The team has gotten to spend a lot of time with the youth group these past few days. We have gotten to know them all pretty good and they have been able to ask us anything. We have really just considered what we were doing this week as just "hanging out" not really doing much it seems like, however, we have had more than one adult come and tell us that we have really made an impact on these kids. They apparently have gone home and told their parents that they would really like serving God in a way like this during their college experience. Of course we have told them about the other opportunities that they have to go and serve the Lord through the Baptist State Convention and other organizations. They seem excited and really are genuinely interested in one day becoming missionaries themselves. It is so cool to think that God could be using us to help someone answer a call that he has given them for their life! I feel like the youth of this church have really bonded with Mike and Andrew this week, after all it is a youth group of boys, however, I can not speak for them.
Today we got to do "mission and fishin" with the youth. We helped them with a mission project at a nearby camp and then we got to go fishing with them. This was a great opportunity to talk to the youth and let them teach us a few things. I think sometimes we forget how smart some young people are and we should never miss a teachable moment to learn... whether it be us teaching them or them teaching us.
We have not gotten to the boy that I spoke of in the post before. He has had baseball during this week, however I believe we will get to see him tomorrow. Tomorrow is our last day in Laurinburg. It is crazy to think about how much time has already passed! Oh... and we "broke" our first kid this week. We were playing dodge ball with the youth and he broke his thumb. He thought he had just jammed it and kept playing... he even went and played a baseball game after he left the church! I guess I just don't understand boys and how they get hurt without even knowing it. Haha!
We lead two worship services this week and both of them went really well. We got a chance to worship God by leading others in worship, while we worshiped. Another funny moment. We ended our last service on Wednesday night and a man near the front stood up and said he would like to say something. He said "I have lived in Lexington for 23 years and have never seen anyone as pretty as her" (speaking of Kristen). It was hilarious... it has been the joke of the week!
Well now I'm starting to ramble... I hope everyone is doing well and knows that we are thinking about you and praying for you! If you would like to pray for the InVision team and our ministry please pray for the youth of Laurinburg, that they would be open to whatever God calls them to do, whether it be now or in the future. Please pray for the team as we begin to pack up and get on the road again to another place. Pray that God would be preparing the hearts of the people we will encounter and say good-bye to. Also pray for our team to always represent the love of Christ. I praise God for the bonds that have been created between the youth and our team and between the team members.
God is so amazing and I'm learning that he works in and through us when we aren't really paying attention. The team has gotten to spend a lot of time with the youth group these past few days. We have gotten to know them all pretty good and they have been able to ask us anything. We have really just considered what we were doing this week as just "hanging out" not really doing much it seems like, however, we have had more than one adult come and tell us that we have really made an impact on these kids. They apparently have gone home and told their parents that they would really like serving God in a way like this during their college experience. Of course we have told them about the other opportunities that they have to go and serve the Lord through the Baptist State Convention and other organizations. They seem excited and really are genuinely interested in one day becoming missionaries themselves. It is so cool to think that God could be using us to help someone answer a call that he has given them for their life! I feel like the youth of this church have really bonded with Mike and Andrew this week, after all it is a youth group of boys, however, I can not speak for them.
Today we got to do "mission and fishin" with the youth. We helped them with a mission project at a nearby camp and then we got to go fishing with them. This was a great opportunity to talk to the youth and let them teach us a few things. I think sometimes we forget how smart some young people are and we should never miss a teachable moment to learn... whether it be us teaching them or them teaching us.
We have not gotten to the boy that I spoke of in the post before. He has had baseball during this week, however I believe we will get to see him tomorrow. Tomorrow is our last day in Laurinburg. It is crazy to think about how much time has already passed! Oh... and we "broke" our first kid this week. We were playing dodge ball with the youth and he broke his thumb. He thought he had just jammed it and kept playing... he even went and played a baseball game after he left the church! I guess I just don't understand boys and how they get hurt without even knowing it. Haha!
We lead two worship services this week and both of them went really well. We got a chance to worship God by leading others in worship, while we worshiped. Another funny moment. We ended our last service on Wednesday night and a man near the front stood up and said he would like to say something. He said "I have lived in Lexington for 23 years and have never seen anyone as pretty as her" (speaking of Kristen). It was hilarious... it has been the joke of the week!
Well now I'm starting to ramble... I hope everyone is doing well and knows that we are thinking about you and praying for you! If you would like to pray for the InVision team and our ministry please pray for the youth of Laurinburg, that they would be open to whatever God calls them to do, whether it be now or in the future. Please pray for the team as we begin to pack up and get on the road again to another place. Pray that God would be preparing the hearts of the people we will encounter and say good-bye to. Also pray for our team to always represent the love of Christ. I praise God for the bonds that have been created between the youth and our team and between the team members.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
InVision 2009 Beginning
So... I don't really blog. Haha. I hope that you will understand, but I wanted people to know what was going on with InVision 2009. We are a traveling creative ministries team that is sponsored by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Which means that we travel around the state of NC to help lead in worship through drama, creative movement, and song. We will also be heading to Canada for two weeks during the summer. InVision 2009 consists of 5 team members...
Kristen Johnson
Britney Acosta
Amanda Mitchell
Andrew Blakeley
Michael Tyndall
We have been training for 2 weeks in Mars Hill with Todd. He is a wonderful teacher and has helped the team to grow together in so many ways. We have gotten to know each other really well and are comfortable to discuss pretty much anything. We have trained and know all of our pieces for worship and love worshiping the Lord in so many ways.
We took our first road trip together as a team on this past Saturday. We had a blast singing to the radio and playing "circle of trust"... or the question game... whatever you want to call it. We arrived in Laurinburg and met our host home people. We got to hang out with the youth as well. The church has been working hard to keep youth at the church and interested... so the youth are our main focus this week.
Sunday Morning we helped out with worship by doing a couple of songs and one drama. We then got the whole night service to ourselves :) So we lead our first full service together on Sunday night. We had a few glitches with the sound system but other than that it was a true worshipful experience for us and we hope and pray that it was for the audience as well. Then we got to hang out with the youth, we played some games and they got to ask us questions.
Yesterday was our "day off" but we still got to see some of the youth and the pastor and his family. Today we are hanging out with the youth again. We are hoping to help the youth realize that they can dream big and be the people that God wants them to be just by hanging out with us and having good conversation.
Please join us in prayer for the youth of First Baptist Laurinburg. Pray that they will see God in our team and that they will dream big for themselves. There is also at least one youth that we know of that does not know Jesus, so we ask you to pray for him, that his heart would be open as we talk with him this week. Please pray for our teams energy as well, when you spend all day talking with people and putting everything you have into others sometimes it's hard to keep a good energy level to take care of yourself as well.
We also know a lot of other summer missionaries and we would like for you to be praying for those people as well. I won't list ALL of the names but I encourage you to pray for missionaries that you know and don't know. I hope you realize that if you are a Christian you are a missionary wherever you are... so I will pray for all of you readers as well.
We as a team plan to keep you updated as much as possible about our summer. God bless all of you!
Kristen Johnson
Britney Acosta
Amanda Mitchell
Andrew Blakeley
Michael Tyndall
We have been training for 2 weeks in Mars Hill with Todd. He is a wonderful teacher and has helped the team to grow together in so many ways. We have gotten to know each other really well and are comfortable to discuss pretty much anything. We have trained and know all of our pieces for worship and love worshiping the Lord in so many ways.
We took our first road trip together as a team on this past Saturday. We had a blast singing to the radio and playing "circle of trust"... or the question game... whatever you want to call it. We arrived in Laurinburg and met our host home people. We got to hang out with the youth as well. The church has been working hard to keep youth at the church and interested... so the youth are our main focus this week.
Sunday Morning we helped out with worship by doing a couple of songs and one drama. We then got the whole night service to ourselves :) So we lead our first full service together on Sunday night. We had a few glitches with the sound system but other than that it was a true worshipful experience for us and we hope and pray that it was for the audience as well. Then we got to hang out with the youth, we played some games and they got to ask us questions.
Yesterday was our "day off" but we still got to see some of the youth and the pastor and his family. Today we are hanging out with the youth again. We are hoping to help the youth realize that they can dream big and be the people that God wants them to be just by hanging out with us and having good conversation.
Please join us in prayer for the youth of First Baptist Laurinburg. Pray that they will see God in our team and that they will dream big for themselves. There is also at least one youth that we know of that does not know Jesus, so we ask you to pray for him, that his heart would be open as we talk with him this week. Please pray for our teams energy as well, when you spend all day talking with people and putting everything you have into others sometimes it's hard to keep a good energy level to take care of yourself as well.
We also know a lot of other summer missionaries and we would like for you to be praying for those people as well. I won't list ALL of the names but I encourage you to pray for missionaries that you know and don't know. I hope you realize that if you are a Christian you are a missionary wherever you are... so I will pray for all of you readers as well.
We as a team plan to keep you updated as much as possible about our summer. God bless all of you!
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