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Mood:
happyTopic: Ministry
We have officially started our summer day camps and it has been wild! I will have pictures to share soon. We have been averaging about 30 a day so far and are short on staff this year. Two of our major helpers from the past have been unable to assist us so far. One, a fellow missionary from Georgia is going on a mission trip to Romania during the month of June and can't join us until our July weeks. The other, a mother that attends the mission regularly, is helping her young daughter (early 20's) whose husband just passed away. Please pray for our staff situation and for these two ladies as they leave for a mission trip and assist their grieving daughter.
We do have some Junior Staff members this year. Four youth are helping us (my son, John Allen being one of them) with crowd control, verse memorization, cleaning up, serving...just about everything. They have been wonderful and a BIGGGGG help! We also have a couple of the mothers from the area that help and a couple of young people in their early 20's that also help with game time, etc. Please praise for the helpers that we have and pray for their daily stamina and challenges.
I still teach the Bible stories and Sarah still does the crafts and prepares lunch for the workers. This year our Bible lessons are from a series called "God Gives Us Victory" - all from the Old Testament. We are beginning with Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land and will also cover Samson, Ruth, Gideon, Samuel, and David. Each lesson talks about a "Giant" in our lives that needs to be defeated. For example, the first two days we talked about the Giant of Fear and Unbelief and how they should be replaced with Faith and Belief. Please pray that the kids will have open hearts and minds during the Bible lessons and that God would speak through me and all of the workers that are involved.
This year we are also serving breakfast to the area children. We were contacted by Second Harvest Food Bank in Nashville to see if we would be interested in their Summer Breakfast Program. Sarah and another mother that attends Good News Mission had to travel to Nashville for training last month. Everything is provided by Second Harvest. It has been a real blessing. We serve breakfast from 9 until 10 and have been averaging about 20 each morning. We begin our Day Camps as soon as the kids are done eating breakfast. The local public schools have a summer lunch program and they come daily with lunches for all of the kids as well - another wonderful blessing! Please praise for this opportunity and pray that this new breakfast program will be used as an outreach to the neighborhood.
Thanks for all of your prayers. I'll have updates throughout the summer so keep watching.
