Day 5 of Big A

Hi. Jannah Hall here.

At this moment in time I am sitting on the first flight of stairs at Detroit Love (the place where we're staying at, for those of you who don't know) trying to figure out what to say. Logically I should start out with what we did this morning and work my way to the present, but I think I'll switch things up a bit. 

An hour ago, probably, we had desert baked by our wonderful cook Lori. (Hands down she is the best and sweetest cook I've ever met. Sorry Grandma!) Prior to that we had our "moment of praise and worship" with everyone who had the fortune of being in this building at the time. There we reflected on the day that we had and how we saw the Holy Spirit, along with that we worshiped Him through singing. We had dinner before that and chores before that still. But now for "the main point," pause for dramatic effect…….BIG A!!!!!!!!!!! For me, personally, it was kind-a sort-a uneventful in the sense of all the kids in my small group failed to show up, for good reason I'm sure, but even though my kids weren't there, I still learned a lot from other kids. I learned that even when you're young, you still can have a servants heart, and I also learned that you can still be happy and joyous even when God has different plans then you anticipated, all from these young kids! 

To end on a fast paced summery, before Big A everyone had the opportunity to go shopping for souvenirs, I declined because I was too tired, but almost everyone else went and got pretty cool stuff. Before that was lunch and before lunch was the opportunity of  either serving evangelism or prayer walking. Brionna Haag and I brought lasagna, vegetables, cookies and cleaning supplies to a fire Dept. near by for our serving evangelism, they’re pretty cool guys. To “quickly” finish this, (even though I said I was going to finish this quickly like a half hour ago) before serve evangelism/prayer walking was devotions, (we’re studying James by the way) before devotions was breakfast and before breakfast was when I took a shower. So, there you go. All of today, July 15th, backwards.

Je vous souhaite Fairwell.

            This is Noah Borleis here reporting on the last day in D-town(Detroit). We have had a good week so far. We have done so many things in and through the community (as I’m sure you have heard. Today I went to the police dept. with Kenna, Ashley, Ben, Lilli, and Kevin. We finished what we had started on Tuesday. Which was a refurbishing landscaping project. It looks one million times better than it did before. Then we went to the east side of Detroit to go shopping. I ended up buying a hat from a store called Pure Detroit. I would tell you about all the things we did but Jannah already told you about it. One thing that the book of James and Kevin Dean has taught me is that praying intentionally and believing what your praying for will happen is the only way prayer works. And that was big for me because I didn’t really pray much in the past. So that is one thing that I will bring home with me.

Love yall,

Noah Borleis

Day 4 of Big A

Jayda Reier-

As the week winds down none of us have lost our ambition or drive but maybe some energy. We start everyday with breakfast and then devotions follow. We are going through the small but yet impactful book of James. We talk about verses that impacted us from the reading and what we got out of the “theme of the day”, today’s was about taming the tongue. I think we all stopped and took a minute to assess ourselves on how we feel we do at taming our tongue. Then off we went doing either prayer walking or serving in the community. My group along side a couple other members of another group teamed up to start our project on trimming branches that overhung the road and make a hidden stop sign visible again. As there is a big story on how we came about this project that you will have to ask me to tell you if you get a chance but we showed up and this lady Sharleen [who we met the day before and she gave us the idea of the project] was waiting for us with a smile on her face. Now the cool thing about Sharleen was she has been praying for someone to come along and remove overhanging branches from the road that cause people to swerve and to make the stop sign visible to make her walk to the store safer. Then we show up and she called us her angels. So here we have been praying for God to lead us to the right project and then come to find out we did find not only the project God led us to but the one that someone else has been praying for too. It showed me the power of prayer. Big A is what we call VBS here and I really grew a connection to this one girl and really love my whole group. I think that God has shown me I am capable of spreading the word of God.

Brionna Haag

Hi everyone, I hope your week is going great.  I am with the preschool group so we get to hang out with the littler kids (0-6), which is pretty amazing. When the kids come into the room we have free time where we play with the kids. One of the kids that I got to know really well is Amir, and he is the cutest kid. Well, I mean, they are all pretty cute. Anyway, I kept getting Adian and Amir mixed up, so I was like “sorry dude!” Then he said “that’s okay, you can call me what ever you would like to.” At that moment I was so happy because we were building our friendship up. Another story I would like to tell you is when we go into the big gym to hang out with the big kids. We were walking down the stairs and I was carrying Amir. He started to talk about God. Then I was like “YES, he is getting it!” He then continued bringing up God more and more. I just thought that was another cool experience showing us that teaching these amazing kids about God is sinking in. When we get back from VBS we have dinner, and all of us get REALLY excited about dinner. We all pray in a big circle of like 30 people and then eat. After we are done eating, we go up on stage and talk about what we can do differently to help VBS, which makes the next day go smoother. Then we sing and praise God through telling stories of how God showed up throughout the day. After that we have free time where we can do almost whatever we want to do. Most nights we end up bonding within our youth group and with the Detroit youth that come over to the Detroit Love building. Off to bed, have a good night!

Day 3 of Big A

Consider it joy my friends that you get to read this…  Just kidding, this week has been a blast so far throughout the many trials and tribulations that God brought us so far. VBS has been a blast so far and the groups are amazing.  With much preparation we have became sufficiently prepared for this trip, being the songs, the skits, the games, or the crafts. The food was amazing as usual. Currently I am eating a ice cream sundae of my own invention which contains a zesty blend of ice cream, a slice of cake, a rice crispy treat, crumbled up Oreos, and m&ms. But other than that other things we did to extend the kingdom were prayer walking and servant evangelism. My coworker will talk about prayer walking but I will take servant evangelism. Today, our first day of servant evangelism we decided we want to make a meal for the fire department here. They have to pay for food and cleaning supplies out of their own budget, so they all pitch in around 200 dollars per month. They also receive over 40 calls per day. I hope this keeps you in the loop per say.

Will

We reached the middle of our week here in Detroit and I can definitely say that many of us are realizing the reality of how much time we have left to positively impact the city of Detroit and the people of Detroit. We started out the morning with a wonderful time in devotions by ourselves and gathering as a group to discuss James 2:14-26 (Look it up if you don’t know it, super good stuff!). Today group 3 (composed of Kevin K., Ellie, Kenna, Kyle and I) prayer walked around the neighborhood with no plan on where to go, but constantly praying that God would lead us to people to talk to and pray for. As we were walking through the streets of Detroit, we ran into Larry and the amazing part of this encounter was he was telling us how he prayed three times a day, read scripture, etc. but as we were talking more and more with him we learned that while he was a devout man in prayer and scripture, he did not put that faith into action in his own addictions and in his community. So we as a team were able to express to him everything that we actually just discussed and learned that morning. In VBS, I get to work with the 15+ age group and it’s super inspiring seeing the Detroit teens desire to learn more about prayer (our topic for the week) and I actually think that sometimes they are teaching me some new things too. Lastly, I got to end the night trying shepard’s pie for the first time thanks to Lori’s delicious cooking :)

 From the Heart of Catie

Big A: Day 2

The morning started off like the others. We woke up early, had breakfast, the norm. My team then worked alongside another as we were both doing serving evangelism today. Once together, we loaded up and headed over to the new police precinct not too far away from home base. When we got there we all pitched in on working in a courtyard that was in the middle of the building, yet not very well taken care of; so it wasn’t very easy on the eyes. We were only there for about an hour and a half, but in that time we made such a huge difference. Whether it was the weeding in the sidewalks or the flowerbeds, trimming some of the few hedges or mowing the lawn (with clippers or the real lawn mower).  Seeing the mood change among the police officers from when we got there to when we left was unreal. It left me with such an unbelievable feeling that I couldn’t honestly explain. Later in the day then, we were preparing and going to Big A. The preschool had a couple less children today than yesterday, but it actually worked out really well for us because then it ended up with a 1:1 – student to leader ratio. Today Ben and I taught the lesson on God’s Promise to Abram about his family, and the kids actually seemed pretty entertained in it, which was cool to see. The night ended with getting to hang out with some Detroit youth and have a meal, then some quality team + friends bonding time.

Signing off

Kenna

I began today by waking up at 6:30, eating breakfast, participating in devotionals, and preparing for prayer walking the area surrounding our inner-city head quarters.  When the various groups of team members prayer walk, we have the opportunity to pray for everything and anything that we feel God calling us to pray for while we’re walking the streets of Detroit.  Today, there wasn’t really anyone around in the area that we were traveling, so we decided to pray for the local businesses and recreational areas of the city.  These two things have a very large impact on the people of Detroit, so believe me when I say that our prayers did not go to waste.  After my team and I prayer walked we headed back to Detroit Love headquarters to have lunch.  When we got back to the building, we found that our other team members were still on their other assignments.  This allowed us an opening, so that we could do the chores necessary to maintain the inside of the building while at the same time creating a surprise for our other team members.  Fortunately the team work really paid off and the chores were completed in a very short time.   After lunch and some free time, we headed out to prepare our VBS or “Big A” program as the locals call it.  I am currently working with the pre-school section of our group after a last minute decision changed the previous plan of me working with the older kids.  However, after experiencing the first two days of VBS I can say that I have had a ton of fun.  The opportunity of working with these three to six years olds is better than I could have ever imagined.  There are few things that are as much fun as playing and spending time with these kids as you get to know them and they get to know you.  One of the most fun parts of the program that I have experienced is having a little three year old boy look up at me with this huge smile, all while clamoring for me to “help him dunk the basket ball hoop.  I have also had the opportunity of playing ultimate frisbee and basket ball with some of the other kids who are in the older levels of the VBS program.  Basically, God has changed my heart from thinking that something that I thought would be a hard task is actually a huge growing experience for myself.  It is amazing how God can use children to teach us how to truly conform our lives to His plan for us.  As for the other three days of VBS, I can hardly wait to see what God will do next.  Please continue to pray for all of the team as we do our best to be Jesus in these kids’ lives.  God bless.        Samuel Hardy