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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
What a great past couple weeks. We had a great time at the beach as a family before the team of International World Changers came for a week to help us reach out to our church's community. Twenty-six young people and adults from four different States and Germany joined our youth group and church members each day.
In the mornings we had three teams: one was cleaning up garbage and weeds at a park (which was connected to an Orthodox church!), one was painting a tall fence around a local Elementary school yard and one was teaching English to the children inside the Elementary school (used like a summer day-camp). Praise God for the many opportunities to share and show the love of Jesus!
In the evenings we went out each night to a large playground and basket-ball court near our church to host a free festival, which included activities for the little children, teens and adults. They included face-painting, balloon animals, stilts, hula-hoops, cookie-art, hair-wrapping, basketball, street-dancing, crowd-games (parachute games, tug-o-war, water-balloon volley, etc) and lots of free, cold water! It was amazing to us to see how hungry and thankful the people were for our love and kindness. Everynight they would come back, even early, waiting for us to arrive so they could help us unload the equipment from our van! Everynight the numbers increased, as did our relationship with them. The last night we had over 300 attend and stay for the three hours, begging us to come back again. Many received a New Testament, but we hope everyone saw and felt the love of Jesus through us.
We are proud of our three girls for their leadership and hard work during this whole week! We have posted several pictures on our facebook (if you haven't already seen them!). Please pray as we follow up these relationships and plan for continued outreach as a church this fall. Pray for God to speak through His word to their hearts.
This week, we are reconnecting with the Gypsies (Alan) and women in the bars (Whitney), but also focusing on getting the girls ready for their year at Dakar Academy. It is hard to believe we will be leaving for Hungary/Africa in less than 3 weeks! Thank you for praying for us as a family in that regard as well.
In the mornings we had three teams: one was cleaning up garbage and weeds at a park (which was connected to an Orthodox church!), one was painting a tall fence around a local Elementary school yard and one was teaching English to the children inside the Elementary school (used like a summer day-camp). Praise God for the many opportunities to share and show the love of Jesus!
In the evenings we went out each night to a large playground and basket-ball court near our church to host a free festival, which included activities for the little children, teens and adults. They included face-painting, balloon animals, stilts, hula-hoops, cookie-art, hair-wrapping, basketball, street-dancing, crowd-games (parachute games, tug-o-war, water-balloon volley, etc) and lots of free, cold water! It was amazing to us to see how hungry and thankful the people were for our love and kindness. Everynight they would come back, even early, waiting for us to arrive so they could help us unload the equipment from our van! Everynight the numbers increased, as did our relationship with them. The last night we had over 300 attend and stay for the three hours, begging us to come back again. Many received a New Testament, but we hope everyone saw and felt the love of Jesus through us.
We are proud of our three girls for their leadership and hard work during this whole week! We have posted several pictures on our facebook (if you haven't already seen them!). Please pray as we follow up these relationships and plan for continued outreach as a church this fall. Pray for God to speak through His word to their hearts.
This week, we are reconnecting with the Gypsies (Alan) and women in the bars (Whitney), but also focusing on getting the girls ready for their year at Dakar Academy. It is hard to believe we will be leaving for Hungary/Africa in less than 3 weeks! Thank you for praying for us as a family in that regard as well.
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