A lot…

A lot … has been going on since I’ve last updated. Seems like I’m not getting to write as many of these as I’d like to, but every time I feel like I have time to write something, its late, and I’d just rather get to bed. So, lucky for you (or un-lucky if you don’t like reading my ramblings), I had the rest of the evening for Saturday off, and am taking the time to write a little something …

Well, first off “big” news … I’ve reached 5,000 visits to my blog! I know that may not seem like a big deal, and I’m not doing this for fame or to gather a following or anything, but I was impressed at over 5,000 individual/first time visits to my blog since I started back around November.

Okay, now to some REALLY big news. I can’t say with certainty yet, and therefore must be vague with the details, but it looks like I may have a job lined up for the fall. Things have really come together for that in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve had a couple of really great conversations about it in the last week. Honestly, it kinda scares me to death, but God has really given me a peace about pursuing the opportunity, which has to be from Him because left to myself, I wouldn’t think that I could do this! So, hopefully soon I’ll be able to share more details about that!

We had an amazing time in St. Louis. We arrived there on the 9th of July to prepare for the students arrival the next day. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent in training and preparation for the groups to be out on the mission field starting on Monday. Each church/youth group that came was paired up with an inner-city church or location at which they were going to run a Vacation Bible School or Back Yard Bible Club type of ministry. I was put into a group of 3 ministries that were partnered with 15th Street Baptist Church in East St. Louis. It was definitely eye opening. Just a few years ago, the place where we were serving in East St. Louis was one of the top 2 poorest zip codes in the entire United States! Sometimes it is easy to forget that some people right here in our “back yard” live with so little. It wasn’t un-common for us to knock on a door to invite kids to the VBS where there would be anywhere from 7-20 kids in one home/apartment, etc. often from a couple different families. Anyhow, we had a lot of success with our Vacation Bible School and at least 7 kids made professions of faith in Jesus Christ for the first time that week!
The people at 15th Street were great! I got to visit with one of the deacons there name Joulius. He was a man in his late 60’s early 70’s who had graduated with an undergraduate degree in Political Science, studied Law at Harvard and taught law at Southern Illinois University for 26 years. The entire time he was teaching at SIU, he still lived in East St. Louis trying to reach the community and trying to do all that he could to give them more opportunities. He was part of the team that got the public commuter train to come across the river so that people in their community could have transportation to the city and be able to get jobs there. He also wrote the grants that are being used to build new/nicer housing complexes to promote a better community. He was a really cool guy.

The group of interns this summer have realized that we have a lot of things in common as far as our interests go. All of us are musicians of some sort, piano players, guitar players, percussion, vocalists, etc. We all enjoy the artistic side of things ranging again from music to photography to painting, etc. Which brings me to my next topic. Tomorrow we’ll all be painting together! It came to us a while back that we should have a day where we each buy a canvas and just paint … so that idea transformed into us picking a Bible verse as our inspiration and then everyone is going to paint whatever they are inspired to based on that scripture verse. Our verse is Psalm 19:14 “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You o Lord my Rock and my Redeemer.” Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pictures of our artwork soon!

I continue to learn SO much this summer as I spend quality time with the Lord, and as we continue to encourage one another on our team as we share what we’re learning and as we continue to walk through “Master Plan of Evangelism.” Sometimes it feels a little bit like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant, but God has been so faithful in teaching us this summer, and is speaking to us in specific ways. This is one of those experiences that is going to continue to take a while to process, and will be hard to explain to people everything that this summer was for me … but if I get the chance, I’ll sure try.

Okay, that’s going to be it for tonight … I’m tired. I’m still training for the marathon in October, and I had to run 12 miles this morning. . . my legs are sore and I’m tired so I’m going to bed! Blessings to you all!
-E

Post about a 4 a 5 and a 1 1/2 …

The 4 is for the 4th of July! We traveled to St. Louis area to spend the day with one of the Collegiate Regional Directors for the Student Ministry team. He directs the greater St. Louis area ministries. His family lives on a horse ranch just outside of St. Louis. We went up on the 3rd, stayed in a hotel on that evening and then spent the day with he and his family. Their farm was great, his 5 kids were awesome, and we had such a good, relaxing time with them … all capped off by shooting off fireworks with the kiddos.

The 5 is for $5 Prom! Last night we had a $5 prom here in the house. The deal is that everyone has a $5 limit to buy an outfit (plus using things already in their wardrobe) for our “prom.” We had a blast shopping at goodwill. Then when we got home from there, Angela had set the table with the dishes and silverware, candles, place cards, etc. After decorating the basement, we got dressed up and went upstairs for dinner … we even had Chocolate covered strawberries! When dinner was finished we moved the party downstairs and had a little dance party in the basement … and finished off the night with an “after prom” party of watching The Princess Bride! So fun …

The 1 1/2 is for the amount of weeks that we are preparing to spend in St. Louis. We are leaving today to travel up there to prepare for the St. Louis Project. It is a mission project that youth groups from all over bring their students to St. Louis to be paired up with a church in the St. Louis Metro area to run a VBS for the week, do community outreach etc. We’re going up tonight to get ready for the arrival of the church groups tomorrow, and then the rest of the weekend will be a training weekend focused on evangelism before they go out starting Monday to lead their VBS or Back Yard Bible club. I’ve been a part of the St. Louis, Denver and Houston projects several times in the last 6-7 years and I’m looking forward to this week as well!

Another brief update from this neck of the woods. Still praying about the Fall and where/what God is leading me to. Hope everyone is great!

-E

scripture.

What’s the last scripture that you memorized?
-E

mentors of faith

I’m meeting a lot of people this summer who are quickly becoming mentors in the faith. Our team is getting the incredible opportunity to sit with and visit with some really great guys who are working in ministry in different areas of the Missouri Baptist Convention. So far I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with 3 guys that work in collegiate ministry in different parts of the state Gene Austin who works on the campus of Truman State, Randy Dudik who works at Missouri S & T in Rolla and Bill Victor is a regional collegiate ministry coordinator. All are men that I worked on a team with during our two weeks of Super summer, they are great men, and I’ve learned a great deal from them.
Also throughout the summer we’ll be spending days in the office with men who will come talk/teach about different things (the above men included). This week Gene came and talked with us about strengths, gifts, and leadership. It was great. It’s always crazy to me to take those sort of tests that consist of like 20 questions and then get a 25 page report back that explains me and my personality to a “T”!

The last couple of days we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Rick Hedger who is the Partnership Missions Specialist for the MBC. I LOVE hearing his heart! I was so challenged by him in just the short amounts of time that we were able to spend with him. The way that I pray for missions will change after our time with him this morning. Another thing that I took away from today was that Rick calls the places we serve as missionaries, “appointments,” . . . “what’s your appointment?” We blur the line a lot of times by having people say that they are “called into full time missions” . . . we are ALL called to live a misisonal life. Sure, some people are called to do mission work full time in other parts of the world, but some are called to be missionaries in our public schools, some in their offices or factories, or in their classes, etc. Another thing that stuck out to me today was Rick said, “you are either a missionary, or a mission field.”

This weekend we’ll be traveling to the St. Louis area to spend some time with another convention worker and his family for the 4th of July. I’m really excited to be getting to learn from all of these men. The crazy part is that (in the words of Jeff Carson) most of what I’m learning is being “caught” rather than “taught.” You see I’m learning a lot, and being challenged and convicted more by just watching their lives than I am by hearing them teach. Sure, they are great teachers, but just seeing them live out their faith has been incredible

Anyway, had part of the afternoon off from the office and just finished up some reading, so I thought I’d jump on here and leave a post while I had the chance! Hope you are all doing great!

-E

… another quote from this summer “a ‘radical Christian’ is likely someone who just loves Jesus a little more than you”
things that make you go hmmmm.