The Mud Pit

Over these past few weeks both our Middle School and High School ministries have kicked off their years! It has already been an amazing year! We have seen tons of new students coming to our ministries and are super excited to start relationships and friendships with new students and build on the relationships that we have with the current students. To start off both Wild Kingdom (Middle School) and Ignite (High School) we had cook-outs at Parkview, and they were a great time to reconnect and have fun after a long summer.

This past sunday, we had an awesome High School event at Parkview. We started the Night playing a game that is a cross between Ultimate frisbee and a food fight with fruit, called “Ultimate Fruit”. Then we did human bowling into a mud pit and in that same mud pit played mud volleyball (Pictured above). We all got super Muddy and Gross…

In the Pit!

After a while having fun getting as dirty as possible, the Glen Ellyn Fire Department brought out a fire truck and turned on the sprinkler to we could all wach off!

Getting Sprayed Down

It was an awesome and memorable night that will go down in the history books. It was an amazing night and only a taste of the amazing things God has in store for us this year!

Tutoring

It was our second day tutoring children at Northwest Community Church. We had already built close relationships with the kids from the first day we were with them and we loved being with them even more the second day. These children, although we were tutoring them, really taught us how to love on a deeper level. We only spent two days with these kids but God had given us a passion for them that was beyond anything we could imagine. We don’t know the families and backgrounds they come from, but most likely they have hard home lives. We guessed this by some of their violent actions such as hitting each other and some would not talk to us much. However, by the end of the second day almost all of them had really opened up to us and they gave us hugs and asked us when we were coming back next. It was a bitter sweet goodbye as we realized we would never see these kids again but we knew we had shown them God’s love for them as best we could in those two days. We all had tears in our eyes as we left the church and our little buddies. But the one thing that I kept remembering through the sadness was knowing that God’s love had not only touched their lives, but even our lives! These kids made me want to love more and deeper than before and I know I will never forget them. They were such a blessing to me and I know God will continue to bless our little buddies as well. I’m so thankful for God’s unconditional and reckless love.

-Jessie Garmon

Jordan with some of the kids from the Daycare

On day 4, seven of us went to a day care community program in the rougher area of DC. I was kind of expecting the kids to be mean and shelled up, but almost directly after we arrived, kids were grabbing us and tugging and pulling on us. It was by the grace of God that these kids were so welcoming and excited for new people,because we are only going to be at the day care for two days. It was a huge relief that they were so embracing to new faces, and by the end all the kids were sad to see us leave. Definitely my favorite site of this trip.

-Jordan A.

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

Bright and Early at the Airport

Hey everyone, It was a great day 1 here in DC!

We got to tour around Arlington National Cemetery in our down time before we headed back to Fairfax Community Church for a wonderful meal and great worship. We had some great worship and a good session delivered, and everything looked very encouraging. The folks at the church have been very welcoming so far, and are making us feel at home. I’m looking forward to the rest of this trip, and I feel like we will have a very productive week doing the Lord’s work.

-Steve R.

Beautiful day at Arlington National Cemetery

Just wanted to give you the info from Ignite’s Sunday meeting and end of our “God’s Story” series. Hope youenjoy it and are challenged to be on mission with God, for Gis Glory.

These Bible Passages looking at God being on mission from the Old Testament to the New Testament:

OT

-Genesis 3:15

-Genesis 12:1-4

-Genesis 28:14

-1 Kings 4:34

-Isaiah 49:6

-Daniel 6:26

-Jonah 4:11

-Habakkuk 1:5

-Malachi 1:11

NT

-Matthew 24:14

-Mark 16:15

-Luke 4:42-43

-John 17:18

-Acts 9:15

-Romans 10:14-15

Here as well are the tips for living missional:

-Eat, Laugh, Pray, Serve together

-Share Stories about what God has done and is doing.

-Come to serve on Sundays not just be served.

-Eat with Non-Christians

-Hobby with non-Christians

-Talk to Co-workers, fellow students, teachers.

-Participate in School, City and Neighborhood events.

-Serve Your neighbors

IGNITE:

We are beginning a series called “God’s Story”. This is looking at the story of the Bible, from creation to now. That God is writing a story, from the beginning that we were created for him and his purpose and things were beautiful and perfect in the Garden. Then Sin entered the world bringing with it, death, pain, and destruction. The big climax is Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh, became our sacrifice to rescue us from our sin. Finally now almost 2000 years later Jesus is working through those whom follow him to restore the world and make things new. We will be looking at these four movements in God’s story each sunday Starting March 6th and ending April 3rd. We will be looking at Creation, Seperation, Redemption, Restoration.

WILD KINGDOM:

For the last month or so we have been collecting questions from the Middle Schoolers to create a series called “Q&A“. This series was really decided by the students and took a far diffrent turn than enitially expected. We will be tackaling some major questions of the faith and of the world. The series will be introduced on April 22nd along with looking at the question of “What is the Gospel?” It will then continue in the following order for into June:

• “Is there a God?”
• “What about other religions?”
• “Why can we trust the Bible?”
• “Why is there evil in the world?”
• “What is the Rapture?”

Hope this creates some great conversations and really helps the students develop a Biblical worldview.

Pray for the teachers that God would give them the words and boldness to proclaim his truth. But most importantly pray for the hearts of the students who will be there on Tuesday and Sunday nights to hear God’s word. Pray that God would change hearts and move the students to worship Him.

The whole group at Retreat!!

At 3pm Sunday February 27th Wild Kingdom returned from its 2011 winter Retreat. We got to spend an awesome weekend at Camp Timber-lee in East Troy, Wisconsin. We were joined this weekend by the band 38 Acres, who led us all weekend with music that glorified God and really made our times in worship fun and high energy. Our Speaker who was originally scheduled to come speak to us did not show up, but God in the sovereignty, provided us with J. Mark Lynch,  the perfect speaker for our retreat and a guy who had an immediate connection with the students. He spoke with us about how we are not alone, that God is with us and that God through Jesus Christ has saved us to himself through the brokenness of life; that we can Escape to Him though Jesus. But not only that Jesus saved us fromsomething but also to that we are God’s plan to reach a broken and hurting world. Enjoy the video, we will be posting some of the amazing stories of what God has done in the lives of the students here at Parkview. Here is the Winter Extreme Video for our week! enjoy! Come Back soon!

preparing for worship through song

“In God’s Image” is the name of our new fall series in Parkview’s youth ministries. Our first lesson was from Genesis 1:26-28. It was wonderful to see how students reacted to the truth of God’s Word that they have all been created in God’s image and as such they have intrinsic worth and value in God’s eyes.
Before the lesson we spent time worshiping God through music. The song we opened with talked about the freedom we have in Christ to dance, run and live for God. I wish you could have experienced the joy in the room as students sang at the top of their voices and danced before God without shame! What a great night!
Glenn