July 31 update

It has been a wild summer for Mission Adventures. We had a really great staff for the summer with lots of passion, energy and faith; which really helps to have a good summer, it just makes everything run smoother. We had about 9 teams come through and 101 students; teams from Colorado, California, Washington and Nevada.

One of the verses on my heart this summer has been Matthew 7:7 which says: seek and you will find, ask and you will receive, knock and the door will be open to you. As this was my fifth season doing Mission Adventures I had to really make sure I wasn't just skating along.

We have been writing the names of the people that have accepted Christ this summer on a chalk board in our building. In just a few short weeks, there are about 25 names on that board, praise God! We have seen so many people repentant of the lives they have been living and wanting so much for Jesus to come into their hearts and bring them true life and true meaning. We met a guy on the streets that was in a drug rehabilitation program, he had left a few days before. One of the staff got a word for him that he was running away from God and he broke down and gave his life to Christ right there on the strip. Another guy we met was struggling with alcoholism, after talking to some students he repented to God, accepted Jesus into his heart and called his mom to Apologize for the way he has treated her. God is moving!

I prayed at the beginning of the summer that God would open my eyes and use this summer in ways he hasn't before. I prayed that God would lead me to someone that was ready to accept Him into their heart and use me to bring them to Him. I have seen people come to Christ all around me, and God has used me to bring people to know Him, but I have never asked someone " do you want Jesus today and they said yes."

So...a few days ago I was in a mall doing evangelism with some students and I started talking to a 17 year old boy named Harlen who was with his mom' the conversation started because he was wearing a t-shirt of a painter that I like. I asked his mom if they had went to church and she said not really but she wanted them to go more. Then I asked Harlen what he thought of Jesus and the bible. He said he knew that Jesus died for him, he really liked him, but he didn't know much more. He told me that he had been going to a Christian ministry that has an indoor skate park that they let the kids skate in for free for an hour after an hour of bible study each Wednesday. So he said he has been going for the free skating, not really to learn about God. I felt God really press on my heart to ask Him if he wanted to accept Jesus into his heart today and he said yes! Praise God! He said the prayer with me to accept Jesus into his heart, then he let me tell him some more about Jesus and give him some bible verses to look up. We exchanged phone numbers and have kept in contact the last few days. I told him to find someone who he respects as a Christian leader to become a mentor in his life to help him grow in his relationship with God.

I tell you these stories to to gloat about myself or Youth With A Mission, but to brag on God. God is so so faithful, His power is limitless but the biggest thing that stands in the way of God doing great things through us is actually ourselves; our doubt our fear and our unbelief. I just wanted to encourage you all that God will answer your prayers, no matter what they are as long as it is on God's hear to happen.

God wants to move and do great things in your life, so the question is...will you let Him?

As of Tomorrow...Monday...I will be DTS staff. We will do staff training all week, then the students will start arriving on Saturday, please pray for the students to come that God wants to come and that they all arrive safely!


Thank you all for reading and God bless you all!!

Brett

July update

I just wanted to update you on what has been happening in Vegas this summer. We have had three weeks so far of mission teams with Mission Adventures...about 70 students so far. This next week we were supposed to have a team, but they dropped out so we will be doing some team building and some ministry ( at a smaller scale) in the city.

We have seen about 20 people come to know Jesus in these three weeks!!! Praise God! Which I always love to see...there is something amazing about seeing someone accept Jesus as their Lord and savior for the first time. We have also seen lots of young people come alive with passion for serving Jesus and becoming world changers.


One guy we met on the streets last week said that he was an alcoholic but he wanted to change because he was hurting his family. After talking to a few of our students, he accepted Jesus into his life and decided he wasn't going to drink anymore, he left to go call his mom and told her that he was sorry for the way he has acted and that we was going to enroll himself in a rehab program.

We have also seen so many of these students break through so many obstacles in their lives. At the end of the week we challenge them to look at themselves and see if there are any idols in their lives that are more important than Jesus..God reveals to so many students that there are more stuff in their lives that they need to give him. The very last thing they do in the week is the commitment service, where we have a couple hours of wosrhip and prayer and a little message about going to the next step with Jesus. This Thursday I was praying with a student and she started crying. There had been a lot of anger against God in her and in her family for the last 7 years...she felt God leading her to ask for forgiveness. And she did right there, she said she was sorry she has been blaming Him for the death, it's not God's fault. It was really cool seeing her overcome that and give it up to God.

A verse that God has led me to recently is Isaiah 49:4 which talks about how hard it is for us that we don't see much results from our work for the Lord...it's cool when we see the fruits from our labor but really 95 percent of the time we never see the fruits, hopefully we will find out in heaven, but really that shouldn't be important. What is important is that we stay faithful to what God is calling us to do and that we keep on trying and not giving up no matter what stands in our way and always having a joyful attitude Philippians 4:4

So our last mission team will be coming on July 23rd - July 29th. Then I will be switching over to the Discipleship Training school staff. I will do a week of training with the DTS then the school will start August 8 and will end in mid January. I will update you more on that later!