Tutoring Day

Today our team split up into two groups. Half of us participated at a summer tutoring program at Northwest Community Church. Today was our first day on this job! We saw God work in so many ways! One example is the complete transformation in the kids’ hearts by the end of the day. At first there was a combination of shyness, “get-to-know-each-other” conversations (“How’s it going?, Do you play sports?”, etc.), and kids hiding behind a “punk” facade. However, God worked in so many ways today through these kids. Everyone knew each others names within fifteen minutes of the program! By the end of the day the students were giving out hugs and asking “When will you come back?” when we were leaving!

One other story from today regards ShaVon. Yesterday ShaVon worked so hard and spent so much time filling the church’s basketball hoop with rocks to weigh it down. Today all of her work payed off! The kids absolutely loved their “recess” and played basketball the whole time! Half of our group played against almost all of the boys and enjoyed the chance to play so much!

-Grace

Office Work!

Today I was at Powell Elementary school in Washington D.C. doing some common school work but recently I have been praying to the lord that I could start relationships with some of the teachers and offices workers. So today when I was offered to work in the offices and file this (bi-lingual) newsletter into envelopes I was fine with that and jumped right on it even though it would be several hundred letters I’d be filing. At first I was working in a alone but later the other office worker came in. Her name was Mrs. Vargas, immediately we started talking and even though she spoke broken english I got to know many things about her career at the school, her family life, her interest in why were there, and the reasons why she ended in the office in the first place. She went through a very traumatic experience in the classroom and decided to leave the classroom go through counseling and work in the office until she recovered and could teach where she had since 1996. This relationship I created with her was an answer to prayer because i finally and been able to meet some of the locals and find out their way of life.

-Dominick

Northwest Community Church

First day of my first missions trip ever and all i can say is wow. Wow to the energy and wow to the environment and wow to the Spirit. Being my first missions trip i had no idea what to expect. Waking up early enough to catch the last bagel and staying up late enough where we are litereally laughing at the leaders because they are singing picking out their outfits for the next day. Being able to meet all new people and experince chapel and worship where everyone is hands up praising the man upstairs. Just truly amzing. The one thing that I really saw God working today was while painting a small room in the church getting it ready for tomorrows tutoring. Six very uninqe girls working in a tight space may be difficult but not for us six. Playing K-LOVE on the ipods and litterally rushing to finish in time; can we do it? YES WE CAN! Harmonizing to every word that came on the station we all smiled at eachother knowing that God made this all happen and that God created this project for us with out complaining or arguing we got the job done and knew we did it for him and God’s people.

-Allie A.

Powell Elementary