tacos and revelations

So I was walking around the neighborhood with our college group that is here this week, doing community outreach where we just bless the neighborhood in whatever way whether that be by pulling out neighbor's weeks, praying for people or just praying for churches. We talked to Bishop Macintosh in his little store that sells odds and ends groceries like cereal, crackers and soda. I met him last week but got a weird vibe...I kinda looped him in with the other christians in the neighborhood that have church once a week in our neighborhood to feel good about themselves and then go home to their comfortable homes. He was telling our group how he grew up just a few blocks down and how God saved him from drugs so now he is a bishop at a church and he has this not for profit store that he serves the community with. He owns 6 houses that he turned into drug rehab houses, they can stay as long as they want..one guy has been there for 9 years. He is a super cool guy and it really imacted my group. They saw how devistated our neighborhood is and were questioning, as do I, what are all of these 37 churches doing here...there should be peace and love sweeping through the streets instead of despair, greed and lust. So I prayed for forgiveness that I had judged him, its cool to see people really loving on and serving our community. I want to go there every week and buy a taco there and build relationship with him, and maybe YWAM will be able to partner with him and his church to serve our community together. Everything he quoted was strait from the bible..super legit which astounded me to find in this neighborhood. I told him that I will bring by all of our groups by to meet him. When I got home I read 1st corinthians 4:5 which allined with my feelings,it says: so be careful not to jump to conclusions before the Lord returns as to whether or not someone is faithful. Forgive me god for judging this honest loving man of being selfish and lazy.

craziness gospel and trams

God is good. I don’t even really know what happened today, but that God moved in amazing ways that I’m not sure anyone can describe. So we had our full day of 3 outreaches today. After the second one we had supper and then debriefed after supper. It was a great debrief; there was a female student., Mary that really made some emotional leaps and bounds. She was able to bring to the group personal issues that were holding her back this afternoon. After many tears and like 25 minutes, we got through it as a team. I have never seen such a tight nit group so willing to carry each other’s burdens and help each other through whatever they are dealing with. The last outreach was just normal 2x 2’s where you just go out with a partner and go show them Jesus. I went with Meg and Val. Val really wanted to give some socks to a friend that she had made earlier in the week, chris who was homeless. We got there and after seeing he wasn’t there, we prayed right in the spot that we met him in earlier that week. While I was praying that God would show us who we were supposed to minister to…Val slugged me on the shoulder and there was Chris. We were able to give him socks and pray for him, he’s a super cool guy. He is a Christian who has been down on his luck the last few years after he lost his job and wife at the same time. Then we rode up and down the tram between casinos for a while, met some nice people, at one point got stuck on a tram and just got to know everybody, it was a cool experience. What put a capstone on the night for me was meeting our hitchhiking friends Tim and Cory from Reno. They had traveled all the way to Texas and were on their way back to Reno. We had similar taste in music so we talked about that for a while, then I prayed for them. I didn’t feel like I should go yet even though we were running out of time. I asked them what they thought of religion and they said the didn’t really know what they believed. So I layed out the gospel, who was Jesus and why He had to die. He was so receptive. I felt really blessed that I got to share that with them. I have had kinda a rough week of evangelism just because leading weeks its kinda hard for me to talk to people on my own because I am busy ministering to the kids. But this week I had less responsibility being less students, but I feel like I haven’t really taken advantage of that all week. Anyhow, we got back to debrief, by this time it is like midnight. We talk about our experiences, all of a sudden, one of the leaders, Holly, starts laughing hysterically, then laughing right after. She expressed that she didn’t talk to anybody the whole time because she was having a rough time emotionally. She wanted to feel God in a deeper way. She felt like she had been sharing that God was a certain way all week, but hadn’t actually felt Him in that way. We all really admired her courage and vulnerability as a leader to express this doubt that she experienced…not many leaders would do that. Woww….what a great night!!

rewards and gifts

so Rich was teaching on missions today and he said this thing that has totally resinated and stuck with me all day and it is cool because I have been thinking about this for like the last month. So he said that the more we do, the more blessings and rewards we get in heaven which I have heard allot and never fully understoon. Why is it right to work towards having rewards in heaven, we should serve God because He first loved us and because He is worthy, not to get rewards. But then he said the reason why we should do this is so that we can lay then down at Jesus'feet in heaven. How cool is it to come to the thown with a ton of rewards that he has given you and then to lay them back at his feet to show our love back to Him. I have never really though of it that way. And then tonight the team did a chapel service at the rescue mission and during the worship I asked some of the women to dance. One of the ladies thanked me for dancing with me, she said she had allot of fun and that when she came in she ached all over her body, but after we danced, she felt no pain..I was like..wwhhaaaa..yess...Praise God!! He is so good...it;s cool because I have been dancing allot more lately, I have always loved it, but lately I have really been getting into it and kinda feel like it is a gift from God. And this experience shows me that maybe it is an anointing that God is going to use to bless people and bring back lost sheep to Him...exciting!!!

Mission Adventures 2010 week 2!

so, we just had 61 crazy kids from scotsdale Christian Academy come through for a mission Adventures week. It was so hectic with that many people, plus they were here for one less day as usual which means we had to cram everything together, pretty much no free time. I learned so much from these kids. Their faith was stonger than I have ever seen in kids that age, even for being rich kids. There were a few of them that I became best friends with, I invented a game called awkard neck tag where you rub your neck on another dude when you hug him sneakily, they loved that soo much! I was so impressed with the stories they would come back with. We do an outreach called five dollars acts of obedience where we take them to a mall and give them five bucks and tell themt o ask God what to do with it. One pair of kids, we always pair them together like Jesus did in the bible, bought a locked necklace thing and gave it to a lady that opperated the carousel, it made her cry. They prayed for her as she said she was leaving in a few weeks. Another group met a lady at a kiosk and bought here a smoothie. She wondered why and they said because they love her because God loves her. Most of the students loved the surveys. I was with a couple kids on their first survey. We talked to a guy named Phil who was really against christianity. He knew that there was a higher power but refused to call it God. His deal was he had seen so much hipocracy and bad stuff in christianity that it was hard for him to view christianity as a good thing. In his eyes, religion is something that you hide behind when you want to do something but not take responsibility for it because it was done int he name of religion. He was a really friendly guy from scotland...cool accent..but he would hardly let me talk...I tried to explain to him that no matter what people do, that doesn't mean that God isnt still good. People sometimes will do things in the name of God but it isnt actually for God, it is for themselves. Then Lauren stepped in and said that she couldnt explain why God is real or why He loves her or why He is so good to us, but that she knows for a fact that He is and that was enough for her. She is a changed, new person because of Jesus. When she was talking, he seemed to shutup and not butt in..Afterwards I was like, well you guys dont need me..they defenetly could handle themseleves and they did..they had like 5 other great surveys that night. Im a little sad that I didnt get to know these kids as well as I could have due to being busy and trying to figure out my role in MA. I have came to the conclusion that my role is kinda the personable person that gets to know the students and adds an energy to the group. God has gifted me with allot of engery and a personality that allot of people can get close to. They all ended up being my best freinds. I got hugs, not normal hugs, but saying goodbye to your bestfiend hugs from pretty much each student this morning, which makes it all worth it. Our friends from the Church of the Way, whichis a church that a few staff go to, Steph and Deb, led worship like three times this week. It was some great holy spirit worhip...anyhow, Steph is really gifted in the prophetic. I was talking to them about how the Holy Spirit is so needed to lead the week or we are all skrewed and have nothing. When I was done talking she just spits out...Brett everyone loves you!!! and i was like...uh thanks..and she was like...Brett God has given you the ability to relate to allot of people, make them feel comfortable, make them laugh and just have a good time. She said it was because of my child like heart... I like dumb jokes..which apparently most of these kids didnt thing was funny..but they still loved me..and i like plaing with bouncy balls and think farts are funny. I never really thought about it I guess. But that helps allot to figure out who I am and what my role is in MA. Sam is the teacher/ explains God in a very learnable way, Beth is the organized one and I am the korky funny weird one..it works, praise God! We also had help form the disicpleship training school this week...4 staff and 5 staff, great help, it was great to see them ministering to the students. They really helped out allot, lead small groups, and just got to know the kids, I am so thank ful for them. Please pray for more short term staff this spring and summer to partner with us and help us minister to kids and bring them to the next step in their spiritual journey. Well that is enough ranting...k bye