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Lamon Update Thursday

7/26/2013

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Alyssa teaching the kids about Jesus' death and resurrection.
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Arts and Crafts at Kids Club.
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Sharing the Gospel with Colored Bead Bracelets.
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Spontaneous water fight. I'll give you two guesses who started it...
Thursday’s Activities
  • Breakfast: Katherine made an omelette for Nathan.  He says it was really good.  The rest of us were sad.
  • Yard Work:  We spent the morning doing about four hours of hard manual labor.  An elderly brother and sister had a backyard that had not been maintained for what seemed like decades.  The alderman asked the Lamon church to help clean it up for them as they couldn’t do it themselves.  We pulled up huge weeds which required digging deep with shovels to get roots thicker than my thumb.  We pulled up an overgrown rose bush.  The hardest part though was removing about twenty feet of chain link fence that had collapsed an been buried by rock, cement, and dirt.  It was hard work, but the family, alderman, and church were very grateful.  (I didn’t get any pictures, but someone from the church got pictures and video that I’ll try to put up later.)
  • Not a Fan: After lunch, we tried to read the next two chapters of our book.  Most of us accomplished this task eventually, but the process involved accidental naps after the hard work of the morning.
  • Kid’s Club: Tonight was our last Kid’s Club program.  We taught the kids about the cross and resurrection.  We had more kids tonight than any other night.  We played a sinner/savior variant of Freeze Tag and Alyssa shared the lesson with the kids.  She did a great job!  We did a mini science experiment by sticking dirty pennies into vinegar and adding salt to clean them.  A craft and series of games ended the night.  Over the course of the week, we shared the gospel using the color bead bracelets with around 20 kids!
  • Water Fight: What started with the teens tossing cold water, pool noodles, and soccer balls on me while I showered at night ended as a full scale water fight with buckets and a hose.  It was a lot of fun… and then somebody brought out the shaving cream.
  • Sardines: We played a game of sardines in the dark and Andrew has proven for a second time that he is the king of this game.  We’ve been looking for so long that I have given up and started typing this update for you.  
Prayer Requests
  • Pray for the Back to School Fair on Friday!  Pray we would have the energy to interact with hundreds of kids and invite lots of families to Lamon Avenue Baptist Church.  Pray they would come check out the church and get ministered to.
  • Pray for all of the kids we got to share with.  Pray God would continue to bring them to faith and bring them closer to Him.
  • Pray for the youth night we will be having on Friday night that we’d be able to have some good conversations with the teens that come.
  • Pray for us as we read and study our book that God would grow us through it.

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Lamon Update #2

7/24/2013

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The church usually gives each team one day out of the week to take it easy, do some planning, and go see Chicago.  Since our group is fairly familiar with Chicago, we stayed close to the church and spent some good quality time together.
Tuesday's Activities
  • Practice and Preparation: We used our first several morning hours to finish planning and practicing our lessons for the rest of the week.  I'm really proud of the way our kids are using their creativity and talents!
  • Mexican for Lunch: We went to a local Mexican restaurant and introduced some of our kids to authentic Mexican food for the first time.  I recommended everybody try horchata.  Some people really liked it, others... not so much.
  • Dollar Store:  We went shopping for props and craft supplies.  There were two highlights of this trip.  First, all of the kids decided to call me Daddy through the whole store and tell people I adopted them all and that today was all of their Birthdays.  Second, one of our Naperville kids refused to believe everything was only one dollar because apparently the dollar store in Naperville caters to wealthier folk and prices things all the way up to ten bucks.
  • Not a Fan: We had a discussion about the first two chapters of our book Not a Fan.  A lot of the kids were challenged to think seriously about what makes a true follower of Jesus and whether or not we will be among the people to whom Jesus will say, "I never knew you."
  • Kids Club: We led an evening program for the kids at the park.  We taught the story of David and Goliath and the kids had a lot of fun playing our jousting game.  Our activities didn't fill the time slot we had hoped, so we need to work on a fuller program for the next few days.  Several kids came out for the gospel bead bracelets, but most were very young and didn't fully understand the gospel.  Still, we are glad seeds are being planted!
  • Volleyball: One of the youth leaders at the park had us play volleyball at the church in an attempt to draw in some of the neighborhood teens.  Nobody joined us, but we had fun together.

Prayer Requests
  • Pray that the book we are reading and discussing would help those of us who are not fully committed to Christ to realize it.  Pray it would help us to pursue Jesus as followers and not just fans.
  • Pray for the seeds of the gospel that have been planted and ask God to bring them to fruition in His perfect timing.
  • Continue praying for Jonathan, who accepted Christ on Monday, and for Brian, who needs special attention every night.
  • Pray for the church to find a way to connect to the teens of the community.  Whether it's soccer, basketball, tutoring, or something else, ask God to give wisdom to the leaders here.
  • Pray for our lessons still coming up.  Prodigal Son is tonight (Wednesday) and the cross and resurrection is Thursday.  
  • Pray for our youth night on Friday night to spend time with and influence the three regular teens.
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Getting some Mexican food!
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Lining up for our Noodle Crown Knight Jousting game.
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CHARGE!!!
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Nathan teaching the David & Goliath story to the kids.
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Lamon Update #1

7/22/2013

3 Comments

 
The trip is here and we're very excited to start serving.  Here are some things we did today and how you can be praying for us:
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Lamon Avenue Baptist Church
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Chris with a special needs boy.
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The kids turning our teens into their own Creation Creatures.
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Our gospel team sharing the gospel through color bead bracelets.
Today's Activities
  • Orientation: We arrived in the morning, got the lay of the church buildings, and got debriefed on the community.  We are here to help the church reach a predominantly Hispanic community.
  • Back to School Fair Invites: The Alderman is throwing a Back to School Fair on Friday for the community where there will be free immunizations, backpacks, school ID's, and similar things.  The Alderman asked the Lamon church to distribute fliers.  We did that over about twenty blocks.  On Friday, we will set up a booth for the church at the Fair.
  • Program Practice: We practiced our program for tonight's Kid's Club program.  We'll be teaching the Creation story and our kids have a pretty funny skit ready.
  • Kid's Club Invites: We spread out in the area around the church to pass out cold water bottles with the church address and hand out fliers for the Kid's Club that we will be leading throughout the week.  
  • Culture Shock: This was happening all day.  We met some homeless people, people who only speak Spanish, and even a few gangbangers.  Everybody has been nice and there's no need for our parents to start panicking, but it's definitely a lot for some of us to take in. 
  • Not a Fan: I handed out a copy of Not a Fan: Teen Edition to each of the kids on our trip.  We will be reading through it and discussing the book over the course of the week through some of our free time.  The book should challenge us to think through what it really means to follow Jesus.
  • Kid's Club: Everyone had a blast!  We had a group of about fifteen kids this first night who came to play games with us from the park.  We taught them the creation story and had a blast doing it.  Several kids got Gospel bead bracelets and Grace got to lead a boy named Jonathan to Christ!

Prayer Requests
  • Pray the people we invited today will come to the Kid's club this week, the church on Sunday, and the Fair on Friday.
  • Pray for our teens to teach the Bible and share the Gospel clearly and enthusiastically.
  • Pray for kids and families to get saved and connected to the church here.
  • Pray for energy...it's hot!!!!
  • Pray for safety.
  • Pray the book we are reading is helpful and convicting and causes us to look deeper at our walk with God.
  • Pray for tomorrow's lesson.  We'll be teaching the story of David and Goliath.
  • Pray for Brian, a special needs kid to get the attention he needs in order to learn.
  • Pray for Jonathan, that he would grow in his new faith in Jesus.
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Super: Elijah is the Flash...Kinda

12/4/2012

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The Flash is one of those Superheroes that I don't think gets a whole lot of attention.  His only real power is his incredible speed which lets him do a whole lot of things like create whirlwinds by spinning or vibrate his hand so fast he can shatter glass, steel, and the like.  The stuff he does is really kind of cool, but he tends to be eclipsed by Superman who also has super speed on top of all of his other amazing abilities.  At least the Flash is faster than Superman as shown in this clip from Smallville.

Now, when I originally planned out the Super series, I intended on relating the story of Elijah and connecting him to Flash based on the way he outruns a chariot at the end of 1 Kings 18.  But the Lord led me in a different direction with this lesson.  Instead, I'd like to focus on what happened just before that. 

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January 10th, 2012

1/10/2012

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Ezra: The Sovereign God Desires Holiness
                Last week, we saw that God blesses those who seek Him and obey Him.  Things have been pretty great.  The Temple is rebuilt, God’s promises are secure, and Ezra has arrived with abundance!  Today, in our final study in Ezra, things take a turn for the worse.  

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Jesus and the Cup

10/25/2011

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Where do you turn when times get tough?  What do you do when you're scared, frustrated, lonely, or angry?  My daughter Michaela starts with a pout and works her way up to a really strong cry.  My brother and I have punched walls before when life got rough for us.  As a kid I used to hide under my blanket in bed when I got scared.  Now, I have a tendency to either bottle things up or complain to my wife.  What do you do?  Where do you go?

Jesus sets a wonderful example for us in Luke 22:39-45.

Jesus is about to be tortured, beaten, scourged, humiliated, spat on, and crucified.  He knows this.  And worst yet, the wrath of God is about to be poured out on Him.  Could you imagine the weight of knowing that?  He knows He is about to be arrested and it is all about to begin.  Jesus finds Himself with all of these worries overwhelming Him.  And this is what He does.

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Ephesians 1:1-2 Dear Ephesians...

7/25/2011

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I'm going to be going through the book of Ephesians on Mondays.  I'm going to only do a couple of verses at a time and it may look more like a commentary than a devotional.  Hopefully, it will be a mix of both.  This might be more of a study type thing for anyone who reads it than a pure devotional, but if that's what you're looking for then you can find it here on Mondays.

Ephesians 1:1


Paul an apostle


Paul introduces himself here as the author of the letter to the Ephesians.  He also identifies himself here as an apostle of Christ Jesus.  The word apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos which has the meaning of a delegate or envoy or a "sent out one".  The title means that Paul has been sent out and commissioned by Jesus.  Paul can say this because the resurrected Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and called him. 

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    Mark has been happily married for five years, has a year and a half old daughter, and serves as a youth and children pastor in Oak Park.

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