Friday Recap

My apologies for not posting this last night! We had a late night of fun at Hackers, after which my room went right to bed. =)

Yesterday was a challenging day for us on the middle school trip as we spent time with the residents at the homeless center and cleaned up the building for them. I'm continually amazed and inspired by how hard-working, loving, and caring all of our students are.

Quick story:

We were eating lunch with the residents at the Center, when I realized that our group had congregated into one area and hadn't been mingling with the residents much. Wanting everyone there to feel included, I thought I'd round up a few students with me to go talk to the residents. I, however, couldn't even act on this before I realized that some of our students WERE ALREADY DOING THAT! Two of our boys were going table-to-table talking and praying with the residents! During debrief time that night, these two boys got to pray for several of them by name, which was an awesome way for the rest of the group to be a part of what they did, too! I was so encouraged by that! I gave them a HUGE shout-out at debrief time, but I thought I'd give another one on here as well.

That's just one of the stories of the lives we've encountered crossing with the love of our students and leaders here on this trip. I'm so blessed to be here! Parents, families, and friends, be proud of your loved ones who are on this trip. I know I am proud of them; they are leading and loving well. We're heading to Monroe Circle Community Center today to do some gardening and cleaning and whatever else they throw at us! We'll then finish off the trip at the 5 service, so if you come, look for a giant blue blob in the crowd! That'll be us!

MOVE DAY 2 PHOTOS

An Awesome Friday!

Hey parents and everyone, Johnny here just wanting to give a quick update on another awesome day! The middle school team spent there time today at Center for the Homeless. The team started off the day with a tour of the center and getting to hear the vision from one of the staff at CFH, Peter Lombard. After hearing from Peter the team had a chance to hear from Stephanie and Andrew, two of the residents at the Center. It was an amazing/inspiring/educational/encouraging time as these two great people shared their struggles and their hardships and explained how the Center helped bring them out of that and offer them hope and a hand up, not a hand out. After hearing and seeing the compelling vision of the Center, the team jumped in right away and worked incredibly hard in spite of the heat! The team worked on the Community Garden outside that the MOVE mission teams have been a part of since 2007 when the Garden began in what was then an old abandoned lot. The team also worked inside sorting through donations that had been cleaned and were ready to be sorted in order to provide clothing for some of the residents.

The high school team meanwhile was over at the Monroe Circle Community Center working hard at some big projects that were needing some attention. So many great programs are using that space and thanks to all the great organizational work of the team today those programs will continue to have easy access to all the materials and supplies needed to run those ministries. The team then went out into the community and brought many of the kids back for a "Fun Friday" with Rick Glassman and his amphibian and reptilian friends! Rick was great teaching the kids about toads, frogs, lizards and snakes and even brought some along for the kids to see, touch and hold. It was an awesome time seeing some of the kids (and the Move team) with a 5 foot snake draped over their shoulders!

After getting cleaned up, the team had a fun night up at Hacker's golf 'n games! Driving golf balls, playing putt-putt, driving go-carts and hitting the batting cages with an amazing, hard-working, fun-loving group of teenagers and leaders is an amazing way to spend a Friday evening in the summer!

Tomorrow the teams flip flop, high school to Center for the Homeless and middle school to Monroe Circle Community Center!

VIDEO INTERVIEWS FROM FRIDAY

DC here, I made these little videos earlier today so you guys could hear a little bit about what we were working on today! Hope you enjoy. Leave comments and let us know!

We were at Center for the Homeless with the Middle School Group & MC3 for the High School Group.

Thursday: Day 1!

Hello GSM parents and other readers! Tia Brown here! (I'm running point for the Middle School trip!) I can’t say enough how EXCITED/HONORED/GRATEFUL/THRILLED/ENCOURAGED/BLESSED I AM TO BE ON THIS TRIP! So many of our students and leaders have shown AMAZING leadership and work ethic; I’m inspired by how positive this group’s attitude is! DC already blogged about this, but it was HOT outside today! We were in a huge room with no a/c packing boxes with food for Feed the Children and didn’t take any breaks all morning! Our students and leaders worked right through it with no complaints and with huge smiles on their faces! (we even had a bit of a karaoke singing time going on at the two ends of the lines...who knew manual labor could be that much fun?!)

We also had the opportunity to do some cleaning at our home church, GCC. One of the facility care staffers told our group at the end of our day how great it was that we got to help out, because we can now go into the building with a sense of ownership regarding how AWESOME the building looks! The students worked so hard, and I believe that they’ll not only appreciate the cleanliness of that building more from now on, but they’ll also feel a sense of accomplishment along with it. Thanks for the opportunity, GCC Facility Care! Your team ROCKS!

God is doing HUGE things in this group already. The middle school and high school groups were together all day today, and they are both getting along great; it feels much more like one big unified trip than two separate trips for the two different age groups, which is great on every single level! Another thing I really see God teaching us is His power to help us “do all things through Christ Who strengthens me!” Philippians 4:13. We’ve really seen God’s power in us as we’ve all been worn out, hungry, and in need of a serious nap! He’s helped us not just work well, but work with smiles on our faces! I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has for us!

Here's a list of things that one of the students in my group, Kara Anderson, liked from today:

I liked lunch, because I had two PB&J’s, two cookies, and no chips.

I liked being fanned by a giant cardboard box. (context: At Feed the Children, one of the amazing middle school leaders Hugo Manriquez made rounds fanning everyone with a huge cardboard box and passing out water bottles. His encouragement kept us going!)

I liked being in the air conditioning in the church. (Did we mention that it was a bit hot outside today?) ;)

Thursday is underway!

The MOVE team hit the ground running today! First up was a trip over to Feed the Children to pack pallets and pallets full of food boxes. We got the update from the staff over at Feed the Children (FTC) this morning that they were still trying to get caught up after a crazy summer. FTC has 4-5 other facilities across America just like the one in Elkhart. Early in May their facility in Nashville, TN suffered damage and huge inventory loss due to the flooding that hit hard and quick. The Elkhart site has been picking up extra food drops and shipments in addition to their normal distributions. The team packed over 1200 boxes this morning which will help bring FTC up to date and will launch them into August in great shape!

After having lunch out on the lawn at FTC, the team headed back over to GCC to serve behind the scenes with the facility care team. GCC has one of the best teams in the country helping to not only provide room setups and teardowns but also keeping this entire building in excellent condition. The team was helping do some big cleaning projects that get done every quarter or semi-annually, working on some of the garden beds outside and all other sorts of projects!

I just got word that they got EVERYTHING done early so they're off to get cleaned up for dinner and then some well deserved pool time!

WE ARE READY!!

The Move '10 mission trip officialy got rolling tonight and this team is READY! They are ready to work hard, they are ready to serve others, they are ready to serve each other and they are ready to have fun. They are ready to put aside all distractions for the next 3 days and give Jesus all they have!

We can't wait to see all that God is going to do THROUGH this team as we serve others and all that God is going to do IN us! It's going to be an awesome few days!

Stop in to get the recap of each day's activities along with some pictures and feel free to drop a comment we can read to the team during team debrief time at night. It's always fun to get some love from home!

-John