Summer Mission Groups

This summer we will have had 5 groups from partner churches from different states helping us. This week we've had a group here from Virginia, they have been super helpful and hard workers. They've prayer walked, surveyed in neighborhoods, helped us do 2 block parties (one at our house and one at a church member's house), and done some park ministry -- they've been going to different parks and playing pick-up games and asking others to join in, like a game of basketball or soccer, and one day they roasted marshmallows over a charcoal grill, made s'mores, and invited surrounding people to join them! People loved that!! They have been so awesome at doing random acts of kindness and loving on people here.

Also this week we had a pro-inline skater from Texas here and he put on a skate clinic/competition at the skatepark in town. It was wild and there were a lot of teenagers there! Our youth and Bethany were able to meet a lot of youth that night.

Bethany meeting teenagers

The first mission group that came earlier this summer was from Fairhope, Alabama. The sweetest group of southern folks you'll ever meet! They worked hard surveying also and put on a VBS type thing for kids at a local park, and helped us with a Family Movie Night and a block party at another of our church member's homes.

Josiah found himself a pretty girl. :) Oh how he loved Chrissy

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This weekend is Hills Alive! Just to name a few of the bands who will be there... Newsboys, Jars of Clay (ROCK ON!), Need to Breath, Barlow Girl (SuWEET!), Sanctus Real, and several others. We have a booth there and are hoping to connect with locals this weekend. We are giving away a free Ipod Touch. Last year the girl who won started coming to our church and she and her brother were baptized and now her family also comes. We actually had a block party at their house last night. Pretty cool how God works. :)

Next week we have another group coming from Indiana-- they will be putting on a Basketball Clinic during the day and doing a 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament in the evenings. The following week our last group is coming, it is our dear friends from Quitman! We look forward to seeing their faces and working with them too.

Whew, we will be worn out by the end of this month. But we are grateful to all those who have come to help, you never know how meeting someone just one time will affect them, or one random act of kindness like a free hot dog and sno-cone and a bouncy house may touch someone's life. All these things we are doing is so that we can meet more people, build relationships with them, and show them the Love of Christ. Pray for all of the people we have met and will meet this summer, pray that we will be good stewards of the relationships and people He brings into our paths.

p.s. Sorry if there are an abundance of run-on sentences and typos, my brain is a little mushy and sleepy today.