Tuesday morning

Good morning family and friends!!

Yesterday was a great day! The kids were pumped to begin their work projects and dive into service.

Two of our teams are working with Pastor Brad. The work crew will be helping him clean and build his new church building and one of our childrens teams will be helping to run a neighborhood VBS. Monday both teams helped to get the word out about the VBS. They met the neighbors, invited people to church and canvassed the area. They really enjoyed being in the neighborhood. They said people were really friendly and wanted to talk. They also got to see the space where the church will be and learn about Pastor Brad's vision for the area and this church.

The sports camp group went swimming, unexpectedly. :)But they were ready for anything. Buddy had this to say:
"Today we got to go swimming and we didn't have suits but we (the boys) jumped right in anyway! It was cool how we opened up to the kids and they opened up to us. Now we're buds."
Lucas said:
"Please pray for more kids to show up at camp. The kids were really happy and energetic. So much fun! We put everything we had into them."

The New Beginnings VBS was able to work with 20 students yesterday from preschool to age 14. They are supporting the teachers by playing games, tutoring activities and recess supervision. You could pray for this team for opportunities to take on more responsibility.

The gardening team worked hard yesterday and had the dirt to prove it. Their leaders told me that they never had to be told to work and they were always busy. They are pulling weeds and cleaning up a lot near one of the partner churches.

In the afternoon we visited Pacific Garden Mission. We had a tour of the facility. This is the largest homeless shelter in the US. The tours are given by a person who has come through the facility and is now enrolled in their bible program. It was a great tour and awesome discussion about the different ways to do ministry and how God is at work there.

Dinner at the Hammernick's home is a special time of relaxing and fellowship. The kids are reaching out to each other and being intentional about having real conversations. So fun to be a part of it with them.

Last night Joel shared about Shalom. I'll let them tell you but it was a beautiful message about the way God intended things to be. A couple of powerful ideas from the talk:
We will never minister effectively to anyone that we think less of.
We are all broken. In this neighborhood they just can't hide it like we can in our neighborhoods.

We had an awesome group discussion with our team following Joel's talk and we, the leaders, are super proud of your kids!

I will keep adding pics throughout the day. Keep sharing your comments and thank you thank you for your prayers. Please pray for continued safety. The kids feel very safe and are full of joy. For energy and health and for the kids to remember to drink water! For God to continue to unite us as well as move and change our hearts.

Today we head downtown for the meal share after work projects. We can't wait to see what God will teach us today!

Blessings on you!