Revolution is more than just a worship team and a group of crazy counselors to me. It was the body of Christ. It was like having church all the time this summer!! I’m not lying when I say that it was Christian community at it’s finest. Sure we disagreed and argued from time to time, but through it all our hearts were one and the same. These men truly desire and seek after Christ. I remember thinking during training week of how you become like the people you surround yourself with. I decided quickly at the beginning of our adventures together that I was very very okay with that, and in fact I wanted a little piece of the hearts and personalities of all of the guys to be transferred to me throughout the summer. If nothing else we developed the same expressions and mannerisms by the end lol. God blessed us so much this summer it is hard to believe looking back. From here it’s our desire to not let the summer go – and by that I mean to not stop encouraging, praying for, and challenging one another to follow harder after Christ and to build the kingdom of God on this earth. We can’t let up after a summer like this one!
Thank you all for reading and following along this summer. We honestly could not have done what we did without the enabling power of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of you all. We cannot thank you enough. Continue to pray for the decisions that kids made this summer and continue, if you would, to keep the guys from Revolution in your prayers as we continue to pursue our great Creator, Savior, Redeemer and Lord.
Now, We Shine
“We are the redeemed
We are the ones who are free
And we belong to Jesus
We are now alive
And in this world we will shine
Cause we belong to Jesus
The spirit of God is freedom reins
So come on, come on throw off your prison chains
We're liberated by the King only freedom remains
For the people of God, yeah, the people of God
We're livin in a kingdom that will never end
We're livin in the power that defeated sin
So come on everybody let your praise begin
Cause Jesus is alive and he's comin again
And now is the time for the poeple to rise
Lift up a shout, everybody cry out
Raise your voice, shout out a noise
And dance a dance of joy
We are the redeemed
We are the ones who are free
And we belong to Jesus
We are now alive
And in this world we will shine
Cause we belong to Jesus
We're goin into all the world
Carrying the light of Jesus
And we shine, yeah we shine
In the darkest place we shine
We are the redeemed
We are the ones who are free
And we belong to Jesus
We are now alive
And in this world we will shine
Cause we belong to Jesus”
WE BELONG TO JESUS!!!!!!!
God bless you all!
Monday, August 9, 2010
FCA
FCA camp was an incredible time of rejuvenation and reflection. The camp was held at Indiana Wesleyan and provided all of it’s own counselors - Christian collegiate athletes. Our team stayed at home base in Bowman all week and were able to enjoy the peacefulness and sanctity of having our own space to unwind after a crazy but incredible summer. We had a meeting Sunday night and set up the stage in the Globe theatre in the morning. There were two services Monday, and we played for both. The incredible thing about FCA was that the campers there were all leaders and had an evident desire to worship. We were able to sing with one voice with them from day 1, which typically had taken longer other weeks. The kids had a great desire to learn and excel, having the discipline and healthy spirits that athletes tend to possess.
The kids had a blast with all of the songs but certainly their favorite songs were We Shine and Counting on God. We were able to participate with the kids in several competitions like volleyball and basketball tournaments. We were also able to eat with the kids in Baldwin every day and spark some relationships that way.
The week was light over all which allowed for a spontaneous water fight… the biggest and most dangerous water fight I may have ever been a part of… just ask Denny, Chris and Chris. Seth, with his RA instincts stopped us before we really hurt anything haha. The week also allowed for a late night pizza party with some old friends from Bay Shore. Papa Johns mmMmmm! Thank you Chris!
The speaker this week was Sean McDowell, the son of Josh McDowell. Sean did a great job presenting the kids with evidences for Christ and the Bible. He also spoke on Forgiveness and how that relates to our lives. It was truly a pleasure to get to hear him speak. The other amazing speaker we had this week was Tanya Crevier, the greatest basketball spinner in the world. Seriously ☺ She has traveled all over the world doing camps, conferences, NBA half time shows etc. She was a truly incredible woman of God. She performed an awesome show for the kids and then gave her testimony, talking about setting goals and keeping her integrity high. Keeping her eyes focused on Christ gave her the ability to do the impossible, as she demonstrated with a stick and a basketball! Her last feat of awesomeness was spinning 10 basketballs at a time. It was ridiculous!!
FCA was only three days long, and so we played for the last time together on Wednesday night at a banquet for the kids and their parents. We played the songs Happy Day, Jesus Paid it All, and Counting on God. It was a blast once again and it seemed the kids could hardly contain themselves with the Joy of the Lord inside. After the banquet the kids headed for home and we began the process of wrapping up the summer. We debriefed on Thursday and after we had returned, cleaned and packed everything, we all said our goodbyes, thanked God for the best summer of our lives, and headed home.
The kids had a blast with all of the songs but certainly their favorite songs were We Shine and Counting on God. We were able to participate with the kids in several competitions like volleyball and basketball tournaments. We were also able to eat with the kids in Baldwin every day and spark some relationships that way.
The week was light over all which allowed for a spontaneous water fight… the biggest and most dangerous water fight I may have ever been a part of… just ask Denny, Chris and Chris. Seth, with his RA instincts stopped us before we really hurt anything haha. The week also allowed for a late night pizza party with some old friends from Bay Shore. Papa Johns mmMmmm! Thank you Chris!
The speaker this week was Sean McDowell, the son of Josh McDowell. Sean did a great job presenting the kids with evidences for Christ and the Bible. He also spoke on Forgiveness and how that relates to our lives. It was truly a pleasure to get to hear him speak. The other amazing speaker we had this week was Tanya Crevier, the greatest basketball spinner in the world. Seriously ☺ She has traveled all over the world doing camps, conferences, NBA half time shows etc. She was a truly incredible woman of God. She performed an awesome show for the kids and then gave her testimony, talking about setting goals and keeping her integrity high. Keeping her eyes focused on Christ gave her the ability to do the impossible, as she demonstrated with a stick and a basketball! Her last feat of awesomeness was spinning 10 basketballs at a time. It was ridiculous!!
FCA was only three days long, and so we played for the last time together on Wednesday night at a banquet for the kids and their parents. We played the songs Happy Day, Jesus Paid it All, and Counting on God. It was a blast once again and it seemed the kids could hardly contain themselves with the Joy of the Lord inside. After the banquet the kids headed for home and we began the process of wrapping up the summer. We debriefed on Thursday and after we had returned, cleaned and packed everything, we all said our goodbyes, thanked God for the best summer of our lives, and headed home.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Indiana Central Family Camp
Frankfort Indiana
Family camp was interesting! This was our first camp that ran from Sunday to Sunday without any sort of break before the next camp – FCA - which began Monday morning. Since I have already explained this camp to many of you in person, I will [try to] be brief. However, if I haven’t personally told you the stories from Frankfort yet… hopefully this will be helpful.
When we arrived Sunday night we met with Ryan, the youth director at the family camp, and found the youth tabernacle where we would be playing. After some interesting complications with our lodgings, the kids and our team were thankfully allowed to move to another building for the week. After setting up the stage that night, we got to meet some of the kids and finally fall into bed, which may or may not have been a good choice since the mattresses weren’t the most comfortable things in the world. It was difficult for some of the guys to get to sleep, which made the next day a bit more challenging. However, the neat thing about this week was that our entire team was staying together in the same cabin with the kids. This gave us cool windows of opportunity to build unique relationships.
The schedule at Fankfort was simple. Wake up, breakfast at 8:00, group game at 10:00 (ie, shaving creak whiffleball, volleyball, softball, amazing race with blow up water slide and slip & slide, and beach ball soccer), lunch at noon, 3:00 youth service, 5:00 dinner, 7:00 Family Tabernacle, 10:00 night game (grog, pizza party/concert, scavenger hunt, mission impossible, movie night, and rain date card night), and lights out at 12:00 am. Chis K, Denny, Seth and I decided to throw in our own event in the mornings - a 7:00 a.m. trip to a local coffee shop! As you can see, the camp was pretty simple as far as schedule and busyness. The rest of the time was free time for the families and the kids. Needless to say we played lots of euchre, ninja, and ball that week.
In the afternoons we played teen tabernacle. We played a concert for one of the night events and we ended up playing twice for the family tabernacle event in the evenings. The tabernacle services were always inspiring and something to look forward to. The sermon from John 3:19-21 especially stuck out to me Tuesday night. It was a message that summed up the whole summer for me since it seemed that the basic message at every camp was about letting our light shine as Christians (Matthew 5:14-16). The speaker, Dr. Mark Weeder, presented the passage by showing how our purpose is to seek out the darkness with our light. We are not to retreat from evil and sin, rather we should seek it out and share the light that we have been blessed to receive. The verse tells us how the darkness hates the light because its deeds are evil. Therefore, we who have the message of reconciliation are to seek out the darkness and simply burn bright. This illustration was given:
“As evening shadows faded and dusk was giving way to darkness, Robert Louis Stevenson, a small boy at the time, had his nose pressed against the window pane of his home. He was fascinated by the old-fashioned lamplighter coming down the street lighting the gas street lamps.
"Look," he cried out in excitement to his nanny, "there's a man coming down the street punching holes in the darkness."
I love this illustration. A vivid analogy to what our lives should be like: springs of hope amidst the surrounding shadows, which the world will see from miles away. Heads will turn when we burn for our Savior and remove the “bushel basket” that may be covering us from the eyes of those who need the light to set them free. Therefore, we let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and give glory to God!
Worship this week was tough since the response was far from overwhelming. However, the effectiveness of God’s ministry through us happened during our cabin time and hang-out time with kids. We were able to minister to lots of kids, getting to hear their stories and then helping equip them for going back home. One of the senior counselors purchased several bibles for kids who didn’t have one. We were able to personally give them to the kids and encourage them to live in the power and peace that it possesses.
We learned a lot from this week! We discovered just how addicted we are to coffee, we found we always need to prepare for sets (even when we’ve been playing together for 2 months), we experienced the full extent of what body odor can do to a cabin (AaAhhHhhhhGhhh), learned that old people cheat at games when playing with kids and teens, and finally we got to experience the blessings of a random act of hospitality and kindness. It was truly a week well spent!
Family camp was interesting! This was our first camp that ran from Sunday to Sunday without any sort of break before the next camp – FCA - which began Monday morning. Since I have already explained this camp to many of you in person, I will [try to] be brief. However, if I haven’t personally told you the stories from Frankfort yet… hopefully this will be helpful.
When we arrived Sunday night we met with Ryan, the youth director at the family camp, and found the youth tabernacle where we would be playing. After some interesting complications with our lodgings, the kids and our team were thankfully allowed to move to another building for the week. After setting up the stage that night, we got to meet some of the kids and finally fall into bed, which may or may not have been a good choice since the mattresses weren’t the most comfortable things in the world. It was difficult for some of the guys to get to sleep, which made the next day a bit more challenging. However, the neat thing about this week was that our entire team was staying together in the same cabin with the kids. This gave us cool windows of opportunity to build unique relationships.
The schedule at Fankfort was simple. Wake up, breakfast at 8:00, group game at 10:00 (ie, shaving creak whiffleball, volleyball, softball, amazing race with blow up water slide and slip & slide, and beach ball soccer), lunch at noon, 3:00 youth service, 5:00 dinner, 7:00 Family Tabernacle, 10:00 night game (grog, pizza party/concert, scavenger hunt, mission impossible, movie night, and rain date card night), and lights out at 12:00 am. Chis K, Denny, Seth and I decided to throw in our own event in the mornings - a 7:00 a.m. trip to a local coffee shop! As you can see, the camp was pretty simple as far as schedule and busyness. The rest of the time was free time for the families and the kids. Needless to say we played lots of euchre, ninja, and ball that week.
In the afternoons we played teen tabernacle. We played a concert for one of the night events and we ended up playing twice for the family tabernacle event in the evenings. The tabernacle services were always inspiring and something to look forward to. The sermon from John 3:19-21 especially stuck out to me Tuesday night. It was a message that summed up the whole summer for me since it seemed that the basic message at every camp was about letting our light shine as Christians (Matthew 5:14-16). The speaker, Dr. Mark Weeder, presented the passage by showing how our purpose is to seek out the darkness with our light. We are not to retreat from evil and sin, rather we should seek it out and share the light that we have been blessed to receive. The verse tells us how the darkness hates the light because its deeds are evil. Therefore, we who have the message of reconciliation are to seek out the darkness and simply burn bright. This illustration was given:
“As evening shadows faded and dusk was giving way to darkness, Robert Louis Stevenson, a small boy at the time, had his nose pressed against the window pane of his home. He was fascinated by the old-fashioned lamplighter coming down the street lighting the gas street lamps.
"Look," he cried out in excitement to his nanny, "there's a man coming down the street punching holes in the darkness."
I love this illustration. A vivid analogy to what our lives should be like: springs of hope amidst the surrounding shadows, which the world will see from miles away. Heads will turn when we burn for our Savior and remove the “bushel basket” that may be covering us from the eyes of those who need the light to set them free. Therefore, we let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and give glory to God!
Worship this week was tough since the response was far from overwhelming. However, the effectiveness of God’s ministry through us happened during our cabin time and hang-out time with kids. We were able to minister to lots of kids, getting to hear their stories and then helping equip them for going back home. One of the senior counselors purchased several bibles for kids who didn’t have one. We were able to personally give them to the kids and encourage them to live in the power and peace that it possesses.
We learned a lot from this week! We discovered just how addicted we are to coffee, we found we always need to prepare for sets (even when we’ve been playing together for 2 months), we experienced the full extent of what body odor can do to a cabin (AaAhhHhhhhGhhh), learned that old people cheat at games when playing with kids and teens, and finally we got to experience the blessings of a random act of hospitality and kindness. It was truly a week well spent!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Bay Shore
(There’s no wireless here at the Central Indiana Family Camp in Frankfort so this blog is being posted from a coffee shop in town.)
Bay shore was an amazing camp to be a part of. The counselors that work there are all volunteers and work for the one purpose of reaching young kids with the love of Christ. We truly saw that this week as we were placed on the staff with the counselors as full out counselors ourselves. Denny and I were completely in charge of the senior guys cabin and the other guys worked with two other returning staff in the other cabins. Chris K. counseled in a cabin for a football camp this week and did a fantastic job. We began the week with staff orientation and were privileged to see a video by Bob Ditter about good touch and bad touch, which was stimulating to say the least. Our speaker this week was Kent Fischel who has been coming to speak at Bay Shore for 35 years plus. Kent was incredible and we are excited to work with him again next week at our FCA camp at IWU. He has spoken all over the world at camps, conferences and events, as well as traveled with several professional sports teams doing ministry and getting a chance to work with the athletes.
This week we had many opportunities to work with the kids. The camp had 2 days of skills classes with multiple topics like worship arts, basic car mechanics, soccer, drama, service projects etc. to choose from. I lead the drama skills class this week and Seth led the worship team. Denny helped both of us out, floating between the two. The rest of the guys got to help lead things like soccer and cross-country. It was a ton of fun for me to get to teach the kids some drama and use the concepts that I had learned in high school about staging, acting, auditioning and how God is glorified through the excellence and opportunity of drama. Honey I love you but I just can’t smile, Mrs. Mumbles, and emotional party quirks were some of the skits we did. At the end of the week we got to perform our emotional party quirks skit for the camp and the worship team played How great is Our God for the camp.
Every morning we had discovery time and every evening was celebration time. Discovery time centered on the movie “To Save a Life”, an excellent movie about the struggles of living out your faith in high school (released August 3rd – GO RENT IT). We broke off into discussion groups and talked with the kids about issues like struggles with parents, abortion, teen suicide, depression, authenticity etc. One of most eye opening things we did during that time was crossing the “River of Life”. A piece of duct tape was laid across the floor representing the river of life. When Kent called out different things such as “my parents are divorced”, kids and counselors would walk across the river if that applied. Other statements like “I have felt unwanted and alone”, “I am stressed out”, “I have contemplated suicide”, “I have known someone that has committed suicide” etc., were truly heartbreaking to see how many kids and counselors had experienced those things. No one was even close to alone on these issues; typically at least half of the group crossed over. As one of the kids said later in the week during Afterglow (testimony time), it is just easier to put on a happy face and pretend like nothings wrong when you’re around people – when inside and at home, things are broken. The kids really opened up this week and we heard testimonies from 30 or 40 kids of how God had changed them during camp and was giving them a new way to work through pain and depression. God did some awesome things with the kids this week – and again, many raised their hands and prayed to accept Christ for the first time. Praise God!!! The altars were full almost every night. The night chapels were Celebration Time, where Kent had a lesson and our team opened and closed with music. We also played for at the end of discovery time every day. The kids had so much energy and desire to sing and dance for the Lord it made it easy for us to worship.
There were so many cool things about this camp. One of my favorite games was after a downpour that morning which turned the afternoon game into a slip and slide in the grass. I also enjoyed the day Denny and I worked the canoes and we turned canoeing into pirating. We waited until the other canoes splashed us, giving us the liberty to splash back and eventually flip them. Chris K joined later and the fun was amplified to the next level. The kids started out firmly stating they didn’t want to get wet… by the end they were the ones doing most of the splashing ☺ Worship at the outdoor chapel was awesome as well as worship at the Afterglow where three of the girl counselors joined our team. Elizabeth, Kelly and Jess played guitar, violin, and sang – we had a blast together. “Puttin on the Hits” involved each of the eight teams putting together a lip sync dance to a song. Seth’s team won the competition but the teams all had fun working together throughout the week to put the songs together.
I can’t describe how awesome it was getting to be a part of Bay Shore camp. The counselors alone made the week incredible, getting to see their hearts as they served and prayed with the kids with sincere hearts. The campers impressed me with their transparency and honesty by the end of the week. It was so awesome to see God transform lives before our eyes. We left Friday night after tearing down and grabbing ice cream with the staff. We drove back to IWU and got there at about 3 a.m. We slept in.
Saturday was the first day off we’ve had in a long time. We hit up Sweet Water music store in Fort Wayne for needed supplies and went “out to eat” for the first time this summer at Olive Garden. Kent, who lives in Fort Wayne had dinner with us and invited us back to his home to beat us in Connect Four and hang out for a bit. I was surprised to find out that Kent knows Gary Grey and has spoken at the CFC and Hot Rock in past years. Small world. We get to work with Kent again next week at FCA camp.
God is good. We had some low times this current week and last week at Bay Shore being tired and drained. However, by God’s great grace we were and are able to enjoy the blessing of seeing His hand at work in kids lives. We are half way through our camp in Frankfort now so you can expect a report of this week to come soonish. Thanks for reading. We realized once again last night that we can do nothing without God’s power. We are tired. We are spent. But we are not defeated because the power of the Holy Spirit will never is always available. We have been encouraged by God’s word this week and pray that we finish out the summer with even more energy than we had at the beginning. Please keep the kids and our team in your prayers. God bless you! Thanks for reading.
Ps. You may be interested in watching a video of Denny on a tire swing from Bay Shore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP-70Lp-khQ
Bay shore was an amazing camp to be a part of. The counselors that work there are all volunteers and work for the one purpose of reaching young kids with the love of Christ. We truly saw that this week as we were placed on the staff with the counselors as full out counselors ourselves. Denny and I were completely in charge of the senior guys cabin and the other guys worked with two other returning staff in the other cabins. Chris K. counseled in a cabin for a football camp this week and did a fantastic job. We began the week with staff orientation and were privileged to see a video by Bob Ditter about good touch and bad touch, which was stimulating to say the least. Our speaker this week was Kent Fischel who has been coming to speak at Bay Shore for 35 years plus. Kent was incredible and we are excited to work with him again next week at our FCA camp at IWU. He has spoken all over the world at camps, conferences and events, as well as traveled with several professional sports teams doing ministry and getting a chance to work with the athletes.
This week we had many opportunities to work with the kids. The camp had 2 days of skills classes with multiple topics like worship arts, basic car mechanics, soccer, drama, service projects etc. to choose from. I lead the drama skills class this week and Seth led the worship team. Denny helped both of us out, floating between the two. The rest of the guys got to help lead things like soccer and cross-country. It was a ton of fun for me to get to teach the kids some drama and use the concepts that I had learned in high school about staging, acting, auditioning and how God is glorified through the excellence and opportunity of drama. Honey I love you but I just can’t smile, Mrs. Mumbles, and emotional party quirks were some of the skits we did. At the end of the week we got to perform our emotional party quirks skit for the camp and the worship team played How great is Our God for the camp.
Every morning we had discovery time and every evening was celebration time. Discovery time centered on the movie “To Save a Life”, an excellent movie about the struggles of living out your faith in high school (released August 3rd – GO RENT IT). We broke off into discussion groups and talked with the kids about issues like struggles with parents, abortion, teen suicide, depression, authenticity etc. One of most eye opening things we did during that time was crossing the “River of Life”. A piece of duct tape was laid across the floor representing the river of life. When Kent called out different things such as “my parents are divorced”, kids and counselors would walk across the river if that applied. Other statements like “I have felt unwanted and alone”, “I am stressed out”, “I have contemplated suicide”, “I have known someone that has committed suicide” etc., were truly heartbreaking to see how many kids and counselors had experienced those things. No one was even close to alone on these issues; typically at least half of the group crossed over. As one of the kids said later in the week during Afterglow (testimony time), it is just easier to put on a happy face and pretend like nothings wrong when you’re around people – when inside and at home, things are broken. The kids really opened up this week and we heard testimonies from 30 or 40 kids of how God had changed them during camp and was giving them a new way to work through pain and depression. God did some awesome things with the kids this week – and again, many raised their hands and prayed to accept Christ for the first time. Praise God!!! The altars were full almost every night. The night chapels were Celebration Time, where Kent had a lesson and our team opened and closed with music. We also played for at the end of discovery time every day. The kids had so much energy and desire to sing and dance for the Lord it made it easy for us to worship.
There were so many cool things about this camp. One of my favorite games was after a downpour that morning which turned the afternoon game into a slip and slide in the grass. I also enjoyed the day Denny and I worked the canoes and we turned canoeing into pirating. We waited until the other canoes splashed us, giving us the liberty to splash back and eventually flip them. Chris K joined later and the fun was amplified to the next level. The kids started out firmly stating they didn’t want to get wet… by the end they were the ones doing most of the splashing ☺ Worship at the outdoor chapel was awesome as well as worship at the Afterglow where three of the girl counselors joined our team. Elizabeth, Kelly and Jess played guitar, violin, and sang – we had a blast together. “Puttin on the Hits” involved each of the eight teams putting together a lip sync dance to a song. Seth’s team won the competition but the teams all had fun working together throughout the week to put the songs together.
I can’t describe how awesome it was getting to be a part of Bay Shore camp. The counselors alone made the week incredible, getting to see their hearts as they served and prayed with the kids with sincere hearts. The campers impressed me with their transparency and honesty by the end of the week. It was so awesome to see God transform lives before our eyes. We left Friday night after tearing down and grabbing ice cream with the staff. We drove back to IWU and got there at about 3 a.m. We slept in.
Saturday was the first day off we’ve had in a long time. We hit up Sweet Water music store in Fort Wayne for needed supplies and went “out to eat” for the first time this summer at Olive Garden. Kent, who lives in Fort Wayne had dinner with us and invited us back to his home to beat us in Connect Four and hang out for a bit. I was surprised to find out that Kent knows Gary Grey and has spoken at the CFC and Hot Rock in past years. Small world. We get to work with Kent again next week at FCA camp.
God is good. We had some low times this current week and last week at Bay Shore being tired and drained. However, by God’s great grace we were and are able to enjoy the blessing of seeing His hand at work in kids lives. We are half way through our camp in Frankfort now so you can expect a report of this week to come soonish. Thanks for reading. We realized once again last night that we can do nothing without God’s power. We are tired. We are spent. But we are not defeated because the power of the Holy Spirit will never is always available. We have been encouraged by God’s word this week and pray that we finish out the summer with even more energy than we had at the beginning. Please keep the kids and our team in your prayers. God bless you! Thanks for reading.
Ps. You may be interested in watching a video of Denny on a tire swing from Bay Shore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP-70Lp-khQ
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Camp Mischewana
Last week was different in a good way. We arrived at the camp in Hastings Michigan and once again gratefully found air conditioning in the chapel. We set up the stage and headed to our lodgings. This was where we realized this camp would be different. The lodge, called Shawandasee, was incredible and I actually fell over when I walked in the door. Our eyes first fell on the fireplace and the canoe hanging from the ceiling, next the couches, projector screen and kitchenette. Downstairs we found ping-pong and foosball. We felt like we were in the wrong building or at least like we would be crammed in the building with other camp guests. But as it turned out – we had it all to ourselves. It was such a blessing to have a “home” on the campus where we could go and be ourselves together. That night we had dinner with the kids and played the first worship set on a stage with stained glass and air-conditioning.
By day two we began to discover that for the first time this summer, the team was not expected to do much with the kids. This is where the week got harder. For the last 3 weeks our focus had been on connecting with the kids as opposed to focusing only on being the band and playing music. We started to feel like we couldn’t properly minister to the kids because we had little opportunity to interact with them personally. All of us felt it but we didn’t talk about it until Tuesday night when we found that everyone was restless and discouraged. The meeting took place after the first worship set we had ever messed up during. Kids seemed distracted and disengaged, which added to our confusion. The meeting was the best thing we did all week. We talked and came to the conclusion that no mater how the kids responded to the worship or how much time we were given to be with them, our responsibility was to worship with all our hearts regardless of the response; and to do all we could with the kids but not to become discouraged when we were given free time. It was amazing to see what God did with that when we got out of the way.
For being relatively small, the camp had a lot of really cool things. Zip line, high and low ropes, a mud pit, tubing, water trampoline and blob, outdoor chapels, archery, slip and slide, sandy beach, etc. We had a lot of fun getting to know a lot of the counselors this week. These counselors were true servants and were a lot of fun getting to know. We had a lot of random fun stuff happen this week, like Chris and I and 3 other people getting to cut someone’s hair. Chris, Anthony and I went tubing with three of the counselor/lifeguards and had a blast. We had a hoedown with square dancing, hay bail tossing, and pie eating (I got 3rd, Denny 2nd) etc. We spruced up a mud pit for the kids to play football in and made a video about it. The water was cold… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrdnYccHd2Y. One of the other awesome things that happened this week was getting to know the speaker Joel. We enjoyed going with him out for pizza one night and having a birthday pizza/cake party for Chris H. in our Lodge with him. He was a great speaker and we had a blast working together. Finally, one of the favorite events from the week was getting to be involved in skit night. The team put together an improv skit where we played various roles such as male models, pro wrestlers, racecar drivers, and Anthony played a televangelist. We also did another skit which turned out really well involving pickup lines!
By the end of the week we were bewildered at how much the kids response to worship had changed. We got to see the transformation of a group of kids from bored and zoned to engaged and alive. God truly did a work in hearts this week and as always, it was humbling yet incredible to be a part of it. We then packed up and drove to my house for the night. The guys went out and saw a movie, while I stayed home and got to hang out with mom and dad, which I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated ☺ Mom made one of her famous pies as well as here unsurpassable white chili! It was so good to be home. In the morning we drove out to Bay Shore camp in Sebewaing MI.
PS because the internet at Bay Shore was difficult to access, this post came a week late. Hopefully I will be able to post about Bay Shore later today before we head to the Frankfort Family Camp tomorrow! Thanks for reading! Keep praying!!
By day two we began to discover that for the first time this summer, the team was not expected to do much with the kids. This is where the week got harder. For the last 3 weeks our focus had been on connecting with the kids as opposed to focusing only on being the band and playing music. We started to feel like we couldn’t properly minister to the kids because we had little opportunity to interact with them personally. All of us felt it but we didn’t talk about it until Tuesday night when we found that everyone was restless and discouraged. The meeting took place after the first worship set we had ever messed up during. Kids seemed distracted and disengaged, which added to our confusion. The meeting was the best thing we did all week. We talked and came to the conclusion that no mater how the kids responded to the worship or how much time we were given to be with them, our responsibility was to worship with all our hearts regardless of the response; and to do all we could with the kids but not to become discouraged when we were given free time. It was amazing to see what God did with that when we got out of the way.
For being relatively small, the camp had a lot of really cool things. Zip line, high and low ropes, a mud pit, tubing, water trampoline and blob, outdoor chapels, archery, slip and slide, sandy beach, etc. We had a lot of fun getting to know a lot of the counselors this week. These counselors were true servants and were a lot of fun getting to know. We had a lot of random fun stuff happen this week, like Chris and I and 3 other people getting to cut someone’s hair. Chris, Anthony and I went tubing with three of the counselor/lifeguards and had a blast. We had a hoedown with square dancing, hay bail tossing, and pie eating (I got 3rd, Denny 2nd) etc. We spruced up a mud pit for the kids to play football in and made a video about it. The water was cold… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrdnYccHd2Y. One of the other awesome things that happened this week was getting to know the speaker Joel. We enjoyed going with him out for pizza one night and having a birthday pizza/cake party for Chris H. in our Lodge with him. He was a great speaker and we had a blast working together. Finally, one of the favorite events from the week was getting to be involved in skit night. The team put together an improv skit where we played various roles such as male models, pro wrestlers, racecar drivers, and Anthony played a televangelist. We also did another skit which turned out really well involving pickup lines!
By the end of the week we were bewildered at how much the kids response to worship had changed. We got to see the transformation of a group of kids from bored and zoned to engaged and alive. God truly did a work in hearts this week and as always, it was humbling yet incredible to be a part of it. We then packed up and drove to my house for the night. The guys went out and saw a movie, while I stayed home and got to hang out with mom and dad, which I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated ☺ Mom made one of her famous pies as well as here unsurpassable white chili! It was so good to be home. In the morning we drove out to Bay Shore camp in Sebewaing MI.
PS because the internet at Bay Shore was difficult to access, this post came a week late. Hopefully I will be able to post about Bay Shore later today before we head to the Frankfort Family Camp tomorrow! Thanks for reading! Keep praying!!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Sky Ranch
Good Times in Oklahoma.
Just when I thought we had exhausted God’s summer supply of blessings, He proved me wrong. Praise God for another week of fun, safety, amazing kids, amazing leaders and spiritual growth! We spent the week with the Tri-State Youth Camp at Sky Ranch in Quapaw Oklahoma. Again we were privileged to see God powerfully work in hearts and transform lives through the power of His word and the obedience of His servants.
Since we left IWU last week for Oklahoma we first stopped in Illinois at host homes to spend the night. We were able to attend a Freedom Celebration at a church near St. Louis complete with a full choir, orchestra, and video presentation. We enjoyed the night celebrating our country and thanking our past and present servicemen and women. After 5 hours in the van it was so sweet to simply sit and listen and enjoy the sounds of the praises of God’s people. It was also neat to watch a storm roll in through the giant windows in the sanctuary. The storm was awesome, needless to say it messed with our trailers electronics and we were delayed the next day. The host homes we stayed at that night were amazing. Anthony and I were entertained at the Coxs’ as their year old cat and yellow lab chased each other around the house. We also enjoyed getting our own bedrooms for the night – a very unusual but welcomed thing when you are on the road for 2 months. In the morning we discovered that the trailer lights didn’t work because of the rain. Three hours later we had it fixed and were on the road for another five and a half hours. This video was recorded during the waiting period http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYjIPwIdHdw.
Pulling into Sky ranch was pretty cool. From the road we could see a waterslide, natural spring, a blob, and climbing wall iceberg, and it only got better form there. Sky ranch had the longest zip line I’ve ever seen, skeet shooting, horseback riding, paintball, soccer field, basketball and volleyball courts and air-conditioned buildings. It was pretty nice to say the least. Since we were delayed getting there, we were rushed to the front of the line for dinner so we could set up for that nights worship. This week the schedule included “crazy worship” at 12:45 every day and chapel at night. Crazy worship is just what you would expect - lot’s of upbeat and crazy songs, flying beach balls, and stage diving (done by pastor Mark). There was such a spirit of joy and freedom during those times – it was a blessing to be a part of. Night chapels usually began with 5-6 songs and then the speaker Jeremy would take over. Jeremy is friends with Francis Chan, so it was a good week ☺ The focus was on being a real Christian, with emphasis on being prepared for the Christian walk and living your life with a real and evident love for Jesus Christ. By the end of the week the kids wrote down spiritual goals and action plans to help execute those goals. On Friday one of the girls ripped up her “booty shorts” in a step of obedience to glorify God with her dress. We were so proud of her. We discovered that the favorite song of the week was All My Heart (Stellar Kart) as we heard kids humming and singing it in the cabins, cafeteria and during activities. Other main songs were I Exalt Thee, Undignified, One Way, Counting on God, The Stand and a new song for everyone called In Your Freedom.
One of our favorite games this week was called Comando. It involved the campers searching for 6 flags hidden around the grounds while counselors with flashlights could stop anyone and either send them to jail or accept a bribe in exchange for giving them freedom. Denny and I were partner counselor cops and enjoyed the bountiful benefits of bribery. At the end of the night we had received in bribes a bag of peanut M&M’s, big league chew, honey roasted pretzels, 3 musketeers, jolly ranchers, bracelets and the promise of being served 2 breakfasts, 1 lunch and 1 dinner. We also enjoyed listening to the kids bribe us with singing and acting as well a physical feats of strength. The rest of the IWU guys (except Chris who obtained a scooter by bribery) rode around in our IWU van and threw kids in the back to take them to jail.
The most memorable of the week’s games were the messy games. We played ultimate frisbee with a cow tongue and raw fish, did a slip and slide searching for coins in a kitty pool full of corn and mud water, and finally we played capture the flag with eggs – the point of the game being getting the egg back to your side without being tagged and then smashing it on your head. The fun part was launching eggs from the safe zone to our side and catching the egg on our heads.
All in all it was a great week and once again it was difficult to leave all of the kids on Friday afternoon. That night we drove back to St. Lewis and stayed with some more awesome host families. There was much laughter that night. Next we drove to IWU for the night and we are now at a camp in Michigan!
I hope the description of the week hasn’t bored you too much. Please please please pray for our team that we would truly serve Christ and not do it for the response of anyone. Pray that we play as a team and minister as a team with Christ at the center.
Ps by the way pictures of the summer will be coming, we haven’t quite had the opportunity to transfer them to different computers yet – but they will come. Thanks for reading ☺
Romans 8:31-What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Just when I thought we had exhausted God’s summer supply of blessings, He proved me wrong. Praise God for another week of fun, safety, amazing kids, amazing leaders and spiritual growth! We spent the week with the Tri-State Youth Camp at Sky Ranch in Quapaw Oklahoma. Again we were privileged to see God powerfully work in hearts and transform lives through the power of His word and the obedience of His servants.
Since we left IWU last week for Oklahoma we first stopped in Illinois at host homes to spend the night. We were able to attend a Freedom Celebration at a church near St. Louis complete with a full choir, orchestra, and video presentation. We enjoyed the night celebrating our country and thanking our past and present servicemen and women. After 5 hours in the van it was so sweet to simply sit and listen and enjoy the sounds of the praises of God’s people. It was also neat to watch a storm roll in through the giant windows in the sanctuary. The storm was awesome, needless to say it messed with our trailers electronics and we were delayed the next day. The host homes we stayed at that night were amazing. Anthony and I were entertained at the Coxs’ as their year old cat and yellow lab chased each other around the house. We also enjoyed getting our own bedrooms for the night – a very unusual but welcomed thing when you are on the road for 2 months. In the morning we discovered that the trailer lights didn’t work because of the rain. Three hours later we had it fixed and were on the road for another five and a half hours. This video was recorded during the waiting period http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYjIPwIdHdw.
Pulling into Sky ranch was pretty cool. From the road we could see a waterslide, natural spring, a blob, and climbing wall iceberg, and it only got better form there. Sky ranch had the longest zip line I’ve ever seen, skeet shooting, horseback riding, paintball, soccer field, basketball and volleyball courts and air-conditioned buildings. It was pretty nice to say the least. Since we were delayed getting there, we were rushed to the front of the line for dinner so we could set up for that nights worship. This week the schedule included “crazy worship” at 12:45 every day and chapel at night. Crazy worship is just what you would expect - lot’s of upbeat and crazy songs, flying beach balls, and stage diving (done by pastor Mark). There was such a spirit of joy and freedom during those times – it was a blessing to be a part of. Night chapels usually began with 5-6 songs and then the speaker Jeremy would take over. Jeremy is friends with Francis Chan, so it was a good week ☺ The focus was on being a real Christian, with emphasis on being prepared for the Christian walk and living your life with a real and evident love for Jesus Christ. By the end of the week the kids wrote down spiritual goals and action plans to help execute those goals. On Friday one of the girls ripped up her “booty shorts” in a step of obedience to glorify God with her dress. We were so proud of her. We discovered that the favorite song of the week was All My Heart (Stellar Kart) as we heard kids humming and singing it in the cabins, cafeteria and during activities. Other main songs were I Exalt Thee, Undignified, One Way, Counting on God, The Stand and a new song for everyone called In Your Freedom.
One of our favorite games this week was called Comando. It involved the campers searching for 6 flags hidden around the grounds while counselors with flashlights could stop anyone and either send them to jail or accept a bribe in exchange for giving them freedom. Denny and I were partner counselor cops and enjoyed the bountiful benefits of bribery. At the end of the night we had received in bribes a bag of peanut M&M’s, big league chew, honey roasted pretzels, 3 musketeers, jolly ranchers, bracelets and the promise of being served 2 breakfasts, 1 lunch and 1 dinner. We also enjoyed listening to the kids bribe us with singing and acting as well a physical feats of strength. The rest of the IWU guys (except Chris who obtained a scooter by bribery) rode around in our IWU van and threw kids in the back to take them to jail.
The most memorable of the week’s games were the messy games. We played ultimate frisbee with a cow tongue and raw fish, did a slip and slide searching for coins in a kitty pool full of corn and mud water, and finally we played capture the flag with eggs – the point of the game being getting the egg back to your side without being tagged and then smashing it on your head. The fun part was launching eggs from the safe zone to our side and catching the egg on our heads.
All in all it was a great week and once again it was difficult to leave all of the kids on Friday afternoon. That night we drove back to St. Lewis and stayed with some more awesome host families. There was much laughter that night. Next we drove to IWU for the night and we are now at a camp in Michigan!
I hope the description of the week hasn’t bored you too much. Please please please pray for our team that we would truly serve Christ and not do it for the response of anyone. Pray that we play as a team and minister as a team with Christ at the center.
Ps by the way pictures of the summer will be coming, we haven’t quite had the opportunity to transfer them to different computers yet – but they will come. Thanks for reading ☺
Romans 8:31-What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Camp Joy El
Hello from Oklahoma!
We had a wonderful week at camp Joy El in Greencastle PA. God did such amazing and awesome things while we were there that it was almost difficult to pack up and leave. Personally, it has been too long since I have seen God’s Spirit move in people’s lives in such a tangible way as He did this week at Joy El.
The staff at the camp was incredible, truly defining what it means to be servant leaders. The mission at Joy El is “to connect with each camper on a relationship with Jesus and equip them to share with others”. We saw this happen with every camper as we served there this week. Beginning each morning with staff devotions and prayer for the campers, I was struck by the emphasis the camp has upon personal and corporate prayer, Bible study, and memorization of Scripture. Sadly, such defining dedication to these disciplines cannot be found in most “Christian” environments, but this week revived the importance of these things in my life and with the rest of the team.
The six of us guys were split into 3 groups of 2 and were in cabins with the senior high guys all week. Denny and I had six guys in our cabin. Highlights from cabin time for myself were fly hunting with Kyle (we destroyed at least 30 flies in one night with flip flops and bare hands) and listening to Denny tell ridiculous jokes – like the one about the 3 strings in the desert… We split up into 3 teams for the week, ours being the Pufferfishes. The Pufferfishes finished second in the overall week’s events; waging against team Babbaganoosh and the Terrorific Tugganeers. Highlights from the weeks events include climbing a mountain on the Appalachin trail (we saw a couple hiking from Georgia to Maine who had been on the trail 3 months), capture the flag, sink the ship (canoes), the big swing, Ga Ga Ball, looking at the sunset from the lookout, campfire testimonies, and best of all, chapel! Aaron Meredith, an IWU graduate was the speaker for the week and was captivating to say the least.
Main songs during this week were Jesus Paid it All, Happy Day, I Exalt Thee, From the Inside Out, All Because of Jesus, I Will Exalt You, Your Love Never Fails, and Counting on God. Counting on God was put completely put together in a day and we played it on Thursday night, it was easily the favorite song for the week. The spiritual atmosphere at the camp seemed to increase exponentially during the week with the message of the cross on Wednesday night. The theme for the week was “Share the Message” (Matthew 28:19,20). We were challenged to seriously consider eternity in our lives as well as the lives of friends and this week we saw kids getting serious about evangelism!
Wednesday night we saw God move powerfully. The message of the cross penetrated so many chains and hurts, touching the kids hearts so much that 3 of the kids gave their lives to Christ for the first time along with many others rededicating their lives and calling out to God for the salvation of friends and family. That night we had an impromptu extended worship service, which took the rest of the night, where God truly moved our lives. The testimonies of the kids were incredible as we shared at the campfire on Thursday night. It was an honor and pleasure to be able to be with those kids this week!
After Joy El we drove to Seth’s house to spend the night in St. Clairsville. In the morning we drove to IWU and spent the night there getting to see friends and women of significant interest to some of the guys on the team. Chris Kleman got to finally see his mom who he hasn’t seen since Christmas – so that was definitely a praise! Next we are on to Oklahoma! Sky Ranch is the name of the camp and we are hoping there are horses…
Feel free to leave comments or questions on any of the blog posts! To those of you that have been praying for us, we can’t thank you enough. I hope you have enjoyed reading and please continue to pray. God bless!!
We had a wonderful week at camp Joy El in Greencastle PA. God did such amazing and awesome things while we were there that it was almost difficult to pack up and leave. Personally, it has been too long since I have seen God’s Spirit move in people’s lives in such a tangible way as He did this week at Joy El.
The staff at the camp was incredible, truly defining what it means to be servant leaders. The mission at Joy El is “to connect with each camper on a relationship with Jesus and equip them to share with others”. We saw this happen with every camper as we served there this week. Beginning each morning with staff devotions and prayer for the campers, I was struck by the emphasis the camp has upon personal and corporate prayer, Bible study, and memorization of Scripture. Sadly, such defining dedication to these disciplines cannot be found in most “Christian” environments, but this week revived the importance of these things in my life and with the rest of the team.
The six of us guys were split into 3 groups of 2 and were in cabins with the senior high guys all week. Denny and I had six guys in our cabin. Highlights from cabin time for myself were fly hunting with Kyle (we destroyed at least 30 flies in one night with flip flops and bare hands) and listening to Denny tell ridiculous jokes – like the one about the 3 strings in the desert… We split up into 3 teams for the week, ours being the Pufferfishes. The Pufferfishes finished second in the overall week’s events; waging against team Babbaganoosh and the Terrorific Tugganeers. Highlights from the weeks events include climbing a mountain on the Appalachin trail (we saw a couple hiking from Georgia to Maine who had been on the trail 3 months), capture the flag, sink the ship (canoes), the big swing, Ga Ga Ball, looking at the sunset from the lookout, campfire testimonies, and best of all, chapel! Aaron Meredith, an IWU graduate was the speaker for the week and was captivating to say the least.
Main songs during this week were Jesus Paid it All, Happy Day, I Exalt Thee, From the Inside Out, All Because of Jesus, I Will Exalt You, Your Love Never Fails, and Counting on God. Counting on God was put completely put together in a day and we played it on Thursday night, it was easily the favorite song for the week. The spiritual atmosphere at the camp seemed to increase exponentially during the week with the message of the cross on Wednesday night. The theme for the week was “Share the Message” (Matthew 28:19,20). We were challenged to seriously consider eternity in our lives as well as the lives of friends and this week we saw kids getting serious about evangelism!
Wednesday night we saw God move powerfully. The message of the cross penetrated so many chains and hurts, touching the kids hearts so much that 3 of the kids gave their lives to Christ for the first time along with many others rededicating their lives and calling out to God for the salvation of friends and family. That night we had an impromptu extended worship service, which took the rest of the night, where God truly moved our lives. The testimonies of the kids were incredible as we shared at the campfire on Thursday night. It was an honor and pleasure to be able to be with those kids this week!
After Joy El we drove to Seth’s house to spend the night in St. Clairsville. In the morning we drove to IWU and spent the night there getting to see friends and women of significant interest to some of the guys on the team. Chris Kleman got to finally see his mom who he hasn’t seen since Christmas – so that was definitely a praise! Next we are on to Oklahoma! Sky Ranch is the name of the camp and we are hoping there are horses…
Feel free to leave comments or questions on any of the blog posts! To those of you that have been praying for us, we can’t thank you enough. I hope you have enjoyed reading and please continue to pray. God bless!!
Friday, June 18, 2010
A week of Blessing
Hello from Seth’s house!
It’s been a while so I’ll fill you in on some highlights from last time. Training at IWU ended Friday morning and we left Friday night for St. Clairsville Ohio with our 15-passenger van and enormous trailer packed full of our equipment. As a backseat driver myself, it is easy to feel uneasy in such a situation – especially when a 21 year old Honduran is driving for the van’s maiden voyage. Needless to say, that five-hour ride provided us with the now popular phrases “everything you do up there is amplified back here” and (next time a car blows a tire in front of us) “just blow forward” and “this gas station is really ghetto, I think we might get shot”.
It has been a really great week at the Friends Church and getting to stay with the Wengers. There couldn’t have been a better way for us to start out the summer. Sunday morning we led worship for the all three services. Sunday night we attended youth group at the church and got to participate in banana night – every game involved the eating, tossing, spewing or handling of bananas. We’ve played and helped out at VBS all week, which has been a blast. Our main songs for VBS this week have been Undignified, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, One Way, Every Move I Make, and I am Free. The kids have a lot of fun dancing and clapping with us as we sing; we even had a train form in church for the past four days! Wednesday and Thursday nights we got to play worship sets for the youth group and the college aged group as well as play ultimate frisbee and make smores with the kids and adults. Anthony shared his testimony at the youth night and several of us were able to share our testimonies and challenge the staff for VBS in the mornings this week.
Soccer (FIFA) has consumed a large part of our free time.
We have had some serious hospitality from the Wengers and the people at the church. God has been so gracious through the hands and feet of the church! When you have random ladies walk up to you and ask you what kind of pies you like, you know life is good ☺ The leaders at the church have been so gracious and so much fun to hang out with that our final favorite phrase for the week is “look at me right now. Yup, I’m getting paid for this!” Other phrases of the week deserving honorable mention are “it’s my favorite”, “you just took it to the next level”, “what is this? A center for ants?” and “it’s ok, I’m a nursing major”.
All in all we are so thankful to God for such an amazing week and are looking forward to the week to come at came Joy-El. Tonight we play at the VBS closing ceremony and then we’re off Sunday morning. Keep us in your prayers and keep the kids and camps in your prayers as well. The message that hit home for all of us this week is that God is love and He is always faithful! Hopefully that truth finds you today as well, wherever you are. Thanks for reading guys (if you made it this far that is haha).
It’s been a while so I’ll fill you in on some highlights from last time. Training at IWU ended Friday morning and we left Friday night for St. Clairsville Ohio with our 15-passenger van and enormous trailer packed full of our equipment. As a backseat driver myself, it is easy to feel uneasy in such a situation – especially when a 21 year old Honduran is driving for the van’s maiden voyage. Needless to say, that five-hour ride provided us with the now popular phrases “everything you do up there is amplified back here” and (next time a car blows a tire in front of us) “just blow forward” and “this gas station is really ghetto, I think we might get shot”.
It has been a really great week at the Friends Church and getting to stay with the Wengers. There couldn’t have been a better way for us to start out the summer. Sunday morning we led worship for the all three services. Sunday night we attended youth group at the church and got to participate in banana night – every game involved the eating, tossing, spewing or handling of bananas. We’ve played and helped out at VBS all week, which has been a blast. Our main songs for VBS this week have been Undignified, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, One Way, Every Move I Make, and I am Free. The kids have a lot of fun dancing and clapping with us as we sing; we even had a train form in church for the past four days! Wednesday and Thursday nights we got to play worship sets for the youth group and the college aged group as well as play ultimate frisbee and make smores with the kids and adults. Anthony shared his testimony at the youth night and several of us were able to share our testimonies and challenge the staff for VBS in the mornings this week.
Soccer (FIFA) has consumed a large part of our free time.
We have had some serious hospitality from the Wengers and the people at the church. God has been so gracious through the hands and feet of the church! When you have random ladies walk up to you and ask you what kind of pies you like, you know life is good ☺ The leaders at the church have been so gracious and so much fun to hang out with that our final favorite phrase for the week is “look at me right now. Yup, I’m getting paid for this!” Other phrases of the week deserving honorable mention are “it’s my favorite”, “you just took it to the next level”, “what is this? A center for ants?” and “it’s ok, I’m a nursing major”.
All in all we are so thankful to God for such an amazing week and are looking forward to the week to come at came Joy-El. Tonight we play at the VBS closing ceremony and then we’re off Sunday morning. Keep us in your prayers and keep the kids and camps in your prayers as well. The message that hit home for all of us this week is that God is love and He is always faithful! Hopefully that truth finds you today as well, wherever you are. Thanks for reading guys (if you made it this far that is haha).
Monday, June 7, 2010
Who's who?/What's up?
Hey everyone,
So we started training week today! Everything is a lot of fun and we have been able to be really productive so far as a team. Today we knocked out T-shirt orders, coffee and donuts from Carmal McNuts, song choosing and printing, mastered trailer training, got polar pops from circle K, experienced Baldwin, figured out setup and the running of our crazy awesome sound system, and thoroughly nailed down 6 songs. Twas a good day ☺
The team is doing well and excited to be here and finally playing – what we’ve been waiting for, for 6 months. All the guys are phenomenal musicians and everyone has sweet equipment – like Chris’ sparkly orange drum set. Here’s a little about each of the guys:
Denny King is the team leader, sings and plays keyboards for us with mad skills. Denny is a junior and in nursing and music at IWU.
Seth Wenger was one of my fellow RA’s last year and will be an RA again in Hodson next year. Seth plays lead guitar and sings. He owns a Gibson Les Paul... enough said. He’s a church music major and a junior.
Anthony Cottrell is our bass player. He owns the thing even though he is technically a guitar player. He also is using has one of the coolest bass rigs I’ve ever seen: huge powerful speaker, and ridiculously amazing head. He’s a senior and a CM major.
Chris Hurlehey plays drums and can beatbox like it’s his job. He also follows in the footsteps of Aaron Gillespie and Phil Collins singing harmony from his perch on his super comfy drum throne.
Finally, Chris Clayman is our soundman and everything else the team needs. Chris mastered our system today and is really good at communicating with the band what things we can do to tweak and refine. He also has an amazing heart for worship that is really apparent even in the back at the soundboard. In fact he told us last night that his greatest fear about the summer is that he will end up on his knees during the songs and forget to run sound for us.
Please pray for our equipment that it doesn’t get beat up, damaged, or broken.
And pray the same for us as well if you would ☺
So that’s us. We practice all week and head out Friday. I’ll let you all know the rest of the cool things we do once we do them. God bless you all. Keep us in your prayers, as well as the kids and staffs we will be working with this summer.
So we started training week today! Everything is a lot of fun and we have been able to be really productive so far as a team. Today we knocked out T-shirt orders, coffee and donuts from Carmal McNuts, song choosing and printing, mastered trailer training, got polar pops from circle K, experienced Baldwin, figured out setup and the running of our crazy awesome sound system, and thoroughly nailed down 6 songs. Twas a good day ☺
The team is doing well and excited to be here and finally playing – what we’ve been waiting for, for 6 months. All the guys are phenomenal musicians and everyone has sweet equipment – like Chris’ sparkly orange drum set. Here’s a little about each of the guys:
Denny King is the team leader, sings and plays keyboards for us with mad skills. Denny is a junior and in nursing and music at IWU.
Seth Wenger was one of my fellow RA’s last year and will be an RA again in Hodson next year. Seth plays lead guitar and sings. He owns a Gibson Les Paul... enough said. He’s a church music major and a junior.
Anthony Cottrell is our bass player. He owns the thing even though he is technically a guitar player. He also is using has one of the coolest bass rigs I’ve ever seen: huge powerful speaker, and ridiculously amazing head. He’s a senior and a CM major.
Chris Hurlehey plays drums and can beatbox like it’s his job. He also follows in the footsteps of Aaron Gillespie and Phil Collins singing harmony from his perch on his super comfy drum throne.
Finally, Chris Clayman is our soundman and everything else the team needs. Chris mastered our system today and is really good at communicating with the band what things we can do to tweak and refine. He also has an amazing heart for worship that is really apparent even in the back at the soundboard. In fact he told us last night that his greatest fear about the summer is that he will end up on his knees during the songs and forget to run sound for us.
Please pray for our equipment that it doesn’t get beat up, damaged, or broken.
And pray the same for us as well if you would ☺
So that’s us. We practice all week and head out Friday. I’ll let you all know the rest of the cool things we do once we do them. God bless you all. Keep us in your prayers, as well as the kids and staffs we will be working with this summer.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Welcome to the Revolution
Hello Everyone!!!
Who knew that I would ever make a blog! Dan Drews and I now have more in common than I would have ever thought. Even as I type, I have a hard time believing it myself! At any rate, it's real, and it will be interesting. haha.
This blog is here so you can stay involved with the team while we're on the road. We'll keep you updated so that you'll know how to pray for us, and you'll get to laugh with us about all the little kids we'll have ridiculous stories about! Our hope is that with your prayer and support, God will bless our ministry by keeping us safe and giving us the words and attitudes of Christ so that He can infect people's lives with real life and true love!! We are humbled at the opportunity that God has given us to speak and to worship with so many young people about the amazing and never-ending love of Jesus Christ!
Our summer together begins with training at IWU on the 7th. After four days of practice, training, and prayer together, we head out to Clairsville, Ohio where we have our first camp at Seth's home church. The dates for all the camps are online at the IWU website:
http://www2.indwes.edu/church_relations/ministry_teams/revolution.html
Check it out! There is also a beautiful picture of our beautiful faces for you to enjoy!
This summer our job is to love people and love God :) Couldn't be a better job in the world, in my opinion!!! Mainly were a worship team, so we'll play at all of the services at the camps, but we'll also be at each camp's disposal, serving as counselors and mentors, clean-up crew and bible study leaders!
Prayer request #1: Pray for team safety and that we'll have a attitude of service the whole time!
I hope this blog is helpful to you and that you will stick with us as we go out this summer! Next time I'll fill you in on who we are, what we do, and what each one of us is about. Tell your friends, and stay involved with us! I will try to keep this updated weekly, or at least as we have access to the internet. God bless you all, and thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)