Tara: "Joy comes from the simplest of things.
the littleist things mean the most and you have to take action if you want change. If you want change, you cant just sit there. keith and the group took a leap of faith and look where it got them. they are working miracles in Seattle.
relationships are important. the way that keith made friends with that lady at Twin Gardens and just how that is a total God thing. and being there for eachother in your faith. holding eachother accountable is key."
Andreal:"I am continually learning about who God is and what he sees. I also learned on the trip (from the 'experience' book) that I can always be serving whether I am resting or working. On this trip I felt that I would be able to be a better servant in the long run in Rochester and on other trips because of the way I was forced to think about my motives behind what I was doing. Remembering to ask God what he was doing in certain situations or thinking about how Jesus would connect with the people there helped me to be in the right mind set. That's only a little bit of what I learned in Seattle, but these are the things that came to my mind first."
Jared : "it was amazing to see how God just puts things together for us. all the stories that we heard from Kieth, Nate, and the rest of the Epic crew were amazing examples of how God can answer our prayers and questions in amazing ways, through dreams and visions and drawing people together through amazing experiences!"
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
We made it!!
We are home! We made it safe and sound. As we drove home in the van, I and Denny ended up in the van made up of mostly girls, it was so amazing to hear the energy and new friendships. The laughter and stories told me that some good relationships had been made or had gone deeper.
One thing that Keith (of Epic Life Church) told us in our debriefing is that we need to do all that we can to not lose the passion from a missions trip. He mentioned that the average time is 10 days before the passion burns out. So pray for our team to remember the lessons we learned on our Urban Journey and pray that we can implement some of those lessons to our daily lives before our routine attacks us and sends us back to our rut.
Also, as Keith told us the vision that God gave him for reaching Seattle he asked us to keep praying for him and his team. The area they have been called to is full of sex shops, prostitution, drugs and all sorts of godless distractions. This will be a tough time but is obvious that they need the help.
So, pray for the Epic Life Church in north Seattle as they reach the Aurora area. Their little church building just off the corner of Aurora and Northgate (the Northgate Baptist Church building).
As for our trip, here is just a small list of serving opportunities we had while in Seattle:
Spiritual preparations times
Served breakfast at the Union Gospel Mission
Sorted food for food banks with the Food Lifeline
made a sand volleyball court for community outreach at the church property
pulled weeds and helped to clean up the grounds at the church property
Aurora beautification project along the store fronts planting flowers and cleaning up weeds
scrubbed and cleaned rooms in the church building which is used for a k-12 school
painted some property for the Jubilee Women's shelter
Cleaned out, bleached, scrubbed and reorganized the Immanuel community service food bank
toured the New Horizon's center for homeless teens
This is among other many opportunities we had to build relationships with the community.
Thanks for your support and prayers.
we will have some students sharing on this blog about some of their insights of the trip in the coming days.
Darin
One thing that Keith (of Epic Life Church) told us in our debriefing is that we need to do all that we can to not lose the passion from a missions trip. He mentioned that the average time is 10 days before the passion burns out. So pray for our team to remember the lessons we learned on our Urban Journey and pray that we can implement some of those lessons to our daily lives before our routine attacks us and sends us back to our rut.
Also, as Keith told us the vision that God gave him for reaching Seattle he asked us to keep praying for him and his team. The area they have been called to is full of sex shops, prostitution, drugs and all sorts of godless distractions. This will be a tough time but is obvious that they need the help.
So, pray for the Epic Life Church in north Seattle as they reach the Aurora area. Their little church building just off the corner of Aurora and Northgate (the Northgate Baptist Church building).
As for our trip, here is just a small list of serving opportunities we had while in Seattle:
Spiritual preparations times
Served breakfast at the Union Gospel Mission
Sorted food for food banks with the Food Lifeline
made a sand volleyball court for community outreach at the church property
pulled weeds and helped to clean up the grounds at the church property
Aurora beautification project along the store fronts planting flowers and cleaning up weeds
scrubbed and cleaned rooms in the church building which is used for a k-12 school
painted some property for the Jubilee Women's shelter
Cleaned out, bleached, scrubbed and reorganized the Immanuel community service food bank
toured the New Horizon's center for homeless teens
This is among other many opportunities we had to build relationships with the community.
Thanks for your support and prayers.
we will have some students sharing on this blog about some of their insights of the trip in the coming days.
Darin
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sunday
Wow, what a busy couple of days. I will have one of our students give a more complete report tomorrow. It is late here and we need some sleep before another early morning of service. In short, Saturday we had the privilege hiking through and around Mt. Rainier, seeing some waterfalls, eating pizza at the Pizza Station at the Hobo Inn in Elbe, WA. Then saw fireworks and live music with the community in Kirkland.
Today we visited Mars Hill Church (Mark Driscoll's church), visited a local sunday market, did our collaborative art projects (ask our students about this, amazing experience) and then sunday eve. service with the Epic Life Body.
Thanks for praying.
More later.
Darin
Today we visited Mars Hill Church (Mark Driscoll's church), visited a local sunday market, did our collaborative art projects (ask our students about this, amazing experience) and then sunday eve. service with the Epic Life Body.
Thanks for praying.
More later.
Darin
Friday, July 3, 2009
Afternoon Post
Life is always tough for me when ever i get up early in the morning and i mean real early.
But, looking through the serving window of the i have seen that my life isn't that hard compared to the men and women who are homeless in Seattle. I complain all about things i have but these people are always happy because they live their life and are happy with what they have. We also went through a walk of down town Seattle and i almost thought i was in Minnesota with how friendly people are and helpful here. It is a different life here for people. They don't have the luxury i learned of having so many churches like we do, like having 5 churches in every corner. i just pray that more churches see that these people are willing to learn about God; the churches just have to take there time in help them. I personally road on my first transit bus ride ever which was fun haha and that is all. Pray for safety and impact we make on this city.
Jordan
But, looking through the serving window of the i have seen that my life isn't that hard compared to the men and women who are homeless in Seattle. I complain all about things i have but these people are always happy because they live their life and are happy with what they have. We also went through a walk of down town Seattle and i almost thought i was in Minnesota with how friendly people are and helpful here. It is a different life here for people. They don't have the luxury i learned of having so many churches like we do, like having 5 churches in every corner. i just pray that more churches see that these people are willing to learn about God; the churches just have to take there time in help them. I personally road on my first transit bus ride ever which was fun haha and that is all. Pray for safety and impact we make on this city.
Jordan
The Increase of Decreasing
Today comes early. Today we are waking up at 5 am to be ready to head down to the Union Gospel Mission to serve breakfast to the men and women there. Today we will be reminded of both the blessings we have and the brutality of living with out. This morning we will see some amazing things and here some amazing stories. I pray that we will able be able to process this through the filter of Love. That we will all be able to see what God's wants us to see.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I pray that today we will not see what we do as just a task or an action to help those who are in need, but to do it for the glory of God.
After breakfast we will spend some time processing and listening before we go back to the church building to do a bit more work on the property. I pray that we will also see this not as a task but as a way for us to continue to decrease so that God and his glory will increase (John 3:30).
Thank you in advance for praying for us today.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I pray that today we will not see what we do as just a task or an action to help those who are in need, but to do it for the glory of God.
After breakfast we will spend some time processing and listening before we go back to the church building to do a bit more work on the property. I pray that we will also see this not as a task but as a way for us to continue to decrease so that God and his glory will increase (John 3:30).
Thank you in advance for praying for us today.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
An alley we walked through on our 'getting to know the city' walk. We were sent around to learn what we could about culture and values of the city.
Some folks we saw along the way. Keith introduced himself and invited them to check out Epic Life.
Playing with some kids at the church. They host a K - 12 grade Christian School.
Thursday
Yesterday was a fun day. We had the opportunity to learn about the food distribution system here in Washington. FOOD LIFELINE is the organization that we worked with. They have trucks that deliver food and travel over 170,000 miles per year delivering food and picking up food.
We split into two teams and were able to prepare and sort through over 1,050 pounds of food for the food programs that they support. Make sure you ask us about shoveling/scooping Rice Crispies, sorting grapes/cherries, and for the mathematically inclined separating dairy, eggs and juices. We were told this amount of food would provide over 800 meals to people in the area.
Later, we were able to take in the culture of Seattle by touring around the downtown pier area and sampling local cuisine at Ivers. We traveled across the floating bridges on I90 East out to Snoqualmie Falls, which once again brought to our attention God's awesome creation. One member of the team decided to play soccer with the majestic pines of the northwest and lost. Jared injured his foot and was taken to the local ER for x-rays. Preliminary results indicate no broken bones but he now is wearing a very fashionable open toed shoe and using crutches.
Today was a good day of interacting with the local business owners as we helped to beautify the community and the church property that Epic Life Church has been graciously given. However, this property is in need of a lot of tender loving care.
The property includes an empty lot next to the church which required a LOT of weeding, trimming and sweeping. We were also able to help put in a sand volleyball court for the church to use in neighborhood outreach. Members of the team also went along Aurora Ave (Hwy 99) and replanted/replaced several flower pots with new flowers and plants. We came in contact with several business owners during this portion of the project who were more than thrilled to with this gesture of love for their comunity and even a few provided some assistance as we beautified the area. One local business owner, Brian, who owns a catering service, was very excited to see us, offering to help by giving us water to drink, a bucket to use for watering the plants and possibly his services to Epic Life Church. Wow! It is so cool to think that something so simple, a tiny seed (a small plant in a planter) may just be the point of entry for Brian (or even the local pet shop owner next door) to be brought into a relationship with Jesus Christ. God is at work here and it is so cool to keep hearing the stories of those who have come before us and how they have heard His voice and His calling of them to this area.
There is so much that needs and can be done here for Epic Life Church so they can focus on ministry to north Seattle. Please continue to pray for Epic Life Church as they bring the hope and love of Jesus to this area. Continue to pray with us as we prayerfully ask "God, what are You doing here?"
We split into two teams and were able to prepare and sort through over 1,050 pounds of food for the food programs that they support. Make sure you ask us about shoveling/scooping Rice Crispies, sorting grapes/cherries, and for the mathematically inclined separating dairy, eggs and juices. We were told this amount of food would provide over 800 meals to people in the area.
Later, we were able to take in the culture of Seattle by touring around the downtown pier area and sampling local cuisine at Ivers. We traveled across the floating bridges on I90 East out to Snoqualmie Falls, which once again brought to our attention God's awesome creation. One member of the team decided to play soccer with the majestic pines of the northwest and lost. Jared injured his foot and was taken to the local ER for x-rays. Preliminary results indicate no broken bones but he now is wearing a very fashionable open toed shoe and using crutches.
Today was a good day of interacting with the local business owners as we helped to beautify the community and the church property that Epic Life Church has been graciously given. However, this property is in need of a lot of tender loving care.
The property includes an empty lot next to the church which required a LOT of weeding, trimming and sweeping. We were also able to help put in a sand volleyball court for the church to use in neighborhood outreach. Members of the team also went along Aurora Ave (Hwy 99) and replanted/replaced several flower pots with new flowers and plants. We came in contact with several business owners during this portion of the project who were more than thrilled to with this gesture of love for their comunity and even a few provided some assistance as we beautified the area. One local business owner, Brian, who owns a catering service, was very excited to see us, offering to help by giving us water to drink, a bucket to use for watering the plants and possibly his services to Epic Life Church. Wow! It is so cool to think that something so simple, a tiny seed (a small plant in a planter) may just be the point of entry for Brian (or even the local pet shop owner next door) to be brought into a relationship with Jesus Christ. God is at work here and it is so cool to keep hearing the stories of those who have come before us and how they have heard His voice and His calling of them to this area.
There is so much that needs and can be done here for Epic Life Church so they can focus on ministry to north Seattle. Please continue to pray for Epic Life Church as they bring the hope and love of Jesus to this area. Continue to pray with us as we prayerfully ask "God, what are You doing here?"
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