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Praise God, today I started off the morning by giving my team that bible verse from Colossians 3:23.  They really took it to heart, though it was hot the team had more energy with the kids today, and God blessed us by doubling the amount of kids that we had.  For my community service project today I did street clean up where I also had a team helping us.  I reminded them though it is not fun picking up trash, God picks up the trash in our lives everyday including us, so we can go and pick up a few pieces of other people's trash. Not once did I hear a complaint from them when usually other teams that I have had do complain.  When you are willing to show the kids really can see the love of God, tonight I had a little boy named Jacob, who I was watching at the church for a while, while his mom was at a bible study.  He is one of the kids that has really been placed on my heart these past few weeks, and every time I see him I try to show him love that he doesn't necessarily receive from his mom.  I was playing magnetic letters with him and trying to teach him the different letters, despite my best efforts he just called all of them A's.  I turned around for a few minutes to work on something and he started saying "lala".  I did not respond, so he tugged on my pants and yelled "lala" at me.  I realized he was refering to me, and that is what he decided to call me the rest of the night.  When his mom came to pick him up, I asked her about it and she said it was her name.  When giving Jacob back to her, he started to scream because he wanted to stay with me, and it just reminded me that if you take the time and have the willingness to show them that they can see God's love.

Been a while...but God is working

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted in so long, but it has been a pretty crazy couple of weeks. The temperatures have been as high as 105 and no lower than 100. I have definitely learned to drink a lot of water. Because last week I had a bad fever, which made it really hard for me to find the energy to get done what I needed to, but that morning in my quiet time I read the verse where God tells us not to complain, I went into prayer with that thought. I prayed to God that he would give me energy and would speak through me as I went through bible camp and community projects. God definitely answered my prayer when he spoke through me and led a little girl, Miriam, to Him. We have been staying really busy, and even busier now that my own site has opened up, that me and my partner are in charge of. Like I said it is really hot, and while the teams that come to help us have a good heart, they sometimes seem to lose their focus on why they are here, they more or less focus on how hot or tiring that it is, or how they dont want to sing silly songs with the kids, when really these kids are outside in this all day because it is a better place than their homes where there is no one to share God's love with them or sing silly songs with them. Pray that they remember what Paul said, "In everything you do, do enthusiastically, as you are working for the Lord and not for men," Colossians 3:23. Also pray for the community, there have been a few run-ins. Due to rising temperatures, tempers are also rising as we have had few issues this week. I am ready and excited to come home, but I am even more excited to be here serving the Lord and following his will for my life.

They are lost and they are dying and we have to do something about it

In James 4:13-14 it says you are a mist for a little time and then vanishes, I do not know anything about tomorrow what it may bring but God knows.  Tomorrow is the start of another week, I am only here for a mist of time.  Seize the day, because tomorrow could be too late for some of the people I come across.  I pray that I will take the oppurtunity to talk to these people, and God can push me aside and speak through me.  The Christian life is about sacrifice, not pleasure not comfort.  While we are sitting at home chilling watching television.  God is hearing the cries of the hurting.  Being here is not comfortable, not easy, and sometimes it is not fun.  I could have stayed home, not come here into a heat index of 105 times humidity.  That's the mindset of too many, people are hurting all around us, and our churches are the greatest resource in the country, the government will never solve the problems.  The answers lie within the vaults of the church.  But too often we are not God reliant, but self-reliant, which only leads to self-indulgence.  "God I cry out to you, we want you, not to die to our own but to you.  God, I need you now, this is all that I am. Now with my dirty hands I give you everything, everything that I am.  I need you, they need you."

Day 3

I wanna praise God today because he answered my prayer and we walked the extra mile.  Matthew 9:35-36 says the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  That verse really stuck out for me today, because we are all getting really exhausted as the days go on, but these kids still need us as much as they did the first day.  The numbers at our site alone went from 46 to 58 because we went the extra mile.  Bringing the total for all the sites up to 286, so far.  I wanted to attach this picture of one of my site kids Kevian.  It has really been placed on my heart to pray for him, it is really sad when a child feels more comfortable with a stranger such as me than with his own mom.  Please pray that God will give us the strength and the energy as we close out the week and make an impact on these kids.  Love you all.

Day 2

They just need someone to love on them.  We get used to hearing I love you, we find it almost offensive when our parents or close friends don't say it, but these kids are shocked when we do say it.  They will pick their own scabs just to get enough attention for a band-aid.  We walk miles to pick up kids to bring to our site, so many kids want to come, because they feel safe and loved.  I wish we could walk more but we don't have the time.  There is no hapiness or light in these children and their expressions are blank until you say, "I love you," and then you see a smile on their face that you haven't seen before on them.  How much more should we be thankful for the people in our daily lives that do love us.  Please pray that we have the energy and time to walk an extra mile to reach more kids, and show them that there is someone who loves them more than anyone else and it is God.

Day 1

Today, I truly learned how much I take for granted, such as three meals-a-day, a warm shower, and the ability to walk down my street without glass and other things lying all over.  We are going to be staying really busy everyday.  I serve as a staff team member, each week we will be hosting different youth teams.  In the mornings, we serve them breakfast, and then eat breakfast ourselves.  Following that, we, the team staff each take our team and have a meeting.  After this, we each go to a site and then walk different streets picking up kids. Once we get back to the site, we do a bible study, a sport, and crafts with the kids.  Then some kids stay for lunch, most of them hadn't eaten anything since the weekend.  The kids come for different reasons some come because they feel safe, and others just have no where else to go.  Please pray that the hearts of these children, their parents, and their families can be opened.  Pray that through our community service time that the community can see something different.  Pray also that through the events that all the kids, even the entire community, can come to know Christ's love.  God bless.