Week Five-Week Six

At the beginning of each day and each week, I ask God to completely use me up for His purpose. I ask him to leave me totally drained, to the point where I can ONLY rely on Him for strength for another day.

Be careful what you wish for! Prayer works! I love knowing I'm completely pouring myself out to be a living sacrifice for God. But I think I've been a little too tired and busy for blogging! So let me explain the situation. The fifth week was the week of the fourth of July. It's really hard for us to get teams to get in, so only four teams running one site each came. Because we wanted to minister to as many kids as possible, we ran Whittier with only staff. So it was basically a really relaxing week for me, which was a blessing after and before huge weeks! I did crafts with Amber, a semester missionary who came back this particular week to hang out with us. We had a grand old time! I was pretty heart broken about having to leave my kids, so week five was a beneficial experience for me. I ended up having a wonderful time, and of course I fell in love with the kids! I focused on forming relationships with them and not being bitter about being away from my kids. I might have to leave Kendrick for the last week of club for cross training opportunities, since I'm interested in returning next summer, so this helped me realize that I'm going to have a just as wonderful, if not better, experience. If I'm with kids I'm not used to, I'm probably going to put more effort in to ministering to them without even realizing it. Whatever happens, I know I can trust God with where he takes me.


Week six was our biggest week yet (well, until the week that we're currently in. But I'll talk about that another day). Kacie and I were finally back together at Kendrick! We had a returning team who were extremely sweet and passionate. There are a couple of really cool things that I'm going to touch on. The first was that our team was talking about these two boys who came to club last year, but we had not seen all summer. I thought they were thinking about kids at a nearby site, but on Monday when we were walking to get kids, a woman walked out of a house we had never picked up kids from before and said, "I think the boys are coming today!". It was such a God thing, because this team remembered and LOVED these boys. What I didn't realize until we met their mother was that Pastor Tim had told me about this family. Last spring, one of the missionaries at Kendrick was walking up to their house and there was an ambulance outside. A baby girl had died of SIDS. The boys' mother still sent them to Bible Club that day. I am so thankful that God is allowing us to continue to minister to this family! The second neat event was that we finally started doing discipleship clubs. One of our staff, Erica, goes out to every site and meets up with the kids who have accepted Christ AT Bible Club. The first one she went to was ours! She met with a couple of kids and did a more in depth study with them. They really enjoyed it, and I'm so happy for them.

We're getting so close to being done. I can't believe it!

Week Four

God tested Street Reach with a huge week. We hosted 120 missionaries and ran nine sites, opening a brand new one in a different area of the street Brinkley Heights is on, Rosamond Ave. Having so many people, and people I knew, was definitely tough. We also had various meal problems that made the staff more tense than usual. But I am praising God that He kept His hand on me, the staff, and this ministry.
I ran Kendrick by myself and it was totally fine! I missed having Kacie, but we're utilizing one of our 13 year olds, LS, to help out. 13 is technically to old to come to club, but it's okay if the kid acts as a missionary-in-training. So LS will do water for the kids, line them up, control them at lunch, play with them, walk down the streets with team members, etc. I had to step up in discipline, and I think I learned a lot this week. A New Bethel member told me my leadership skills had really improved. I thought that was a pretty neat compliment!
This next week, there are only four teams at Street Reach, because it's 4th of July week. So Whittier will be a staff-run site, and I have to work there, while Kacie is running Kendrick with a returning team. I love Whittier, and I'm so relieved I will be working with staff rather than a mission team, but I'm heart broken about missing my kids. So please pray for me that I will not be selfish about this.