Ethyl?

So as I have previously said, I am completely excited about Camp Ethyl this next week. I am looking forward to lots of things, but I wanted to know what you are looking forward to? FIll me in here by making a comment. Hope to see you tomorrow night at the movie night. We are meeting at our house at 7pm and will be watching National Treasure 2 sometime around 9 I guess.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sister Amanda, who turned 29 today. Man is she ever getting old. We always had a bumpy relationship growing up. Probably because she always wanted to hang out with her cool older brother and his friends. Anyways I just wanted everyone to know it was my lil sis's birthday. Happy Birthday Amanda!

Exciting Things

Matt and I have been getting Ethyl together all week. I can't tell you how much I enjoy having Matt in the office. Being able to talk about ideas and thinking our thoughts through is awesome. He has been a huge help with everything this year. I really appreciate him.

Speaking of Ethyl, I am excited to see God do some amazing things in the lives of everyone there. Here are some of the things I am excited about.

• God is going to show up in ways I believe some of you have never experienced.
• I have been praying that the Springhill Student Ministry would be a catalyst of growth for students on the north side of Springfield, as well as in Willard, Fair Grove and Pleasant Hope. This week could be the beginning of a revival on the school campuses around our area.
• God is going to challenge each one of you to live in Christ on a daily basis.
• God is going to change the life of some students for the first time.
• Ethan is going on the float trip with us this year, and I am completely excited about that.

Wait and see how God works among His people when they are faithful to the call, and obedient to him.

Frogs & Crawdads

Tonight Ethan, Sarah and I went down to the creek at the bottom of the hill. He has been want ing to go and catch a frog and some crawdads. We caught one on thursday last week, and he has been talking about it non stop. So, when I got home tonight we got changed and headed down. As you can see in the pictures we caught one frog and 2 crawdads. Ethan had a blast, and it reminded me of all the time my friends and I would spend doing this when I was a kid. I loved it! oh yeah, so did Ethan.

On a different note. Ethyl is less than a week away, and I am completely excited to see what God is going to do in the life of our students and the student ministry this year. I know that He is already working ahead of us and preparing us for everything He has in store. I can't wait to watch Him work. Our theme this year is ""ONE." One Love, One God, One Way.

WNT Reflections

I know it's Friday, but I wanted to let you know a little bit about what we did on Wednesday night. A large group from Springhill went to Willard Middle School and painted the hallways and bathrooms, we also cleaned all the gym chairs and swept and mopped the Gym floors. It was a great time serving the school janitors and the community of Willard.

I hope and pray that Springhill continues to understand the need of those in our community and attempts to meet those needs. After all that is what the church is about. Looking for the needs of others and attempting to meet those needs.

The reality of the TRUTH of the Gospel comes more alive to others as they begin to see us live out what we claim to believe. Look for a way you can be the church to someone today. Love ya'll.

Casa de Tired!

So we had another great day of work here in the mile high city. We started early this morning at 7:30 and finished all the gravel at High Point. We ate a late breakfast and then pulled some weeds around campus. We then headed to a church planter's house to help unload a small semi-trailor of their belongings after moving from Arkansas. All of the students did a great job again today, even though they were very tired.

Tonight we went to Casa Bonita, and had a great time. The only problem we faced was that we had a 7:30 reservation and didn't get in until 8:40. It turned Casa Bonita into Casa de Tired. The students deserve a much needed break, and will get that tomorrow when we go to Water World. We will have a great time and enjoy more sun. As if we haven't had enough. I am starting to peel on the forehead from the sunburn I got on sunday. So I have plenty of sunscreen for all the students, and a little SPF 70 for myself.

We will begin heading back on Saturday morning at 4 am, 5 am Missouri time. So we should be into town sometime around 5pm. Thank you again for all your prayers, and we ask that you continue to pray for us until we are back at home. Much Love.

Unbelievable

What can I begin to say? I am not sure. I am really too tired to think right now. Each one of the students did a great job today. We started bright and early this morning (5:30 to be exact) and handed on Breakfast on the go to people who were heading to work. We handed out over 800 breakfasts in a matter of two hours. This has been a great thing that the students love to do every year. We also finished the Mulch here at High Point Academy, and then began working on the crushed granite and sand. We got quite a bit done today with just a little bit left for tomorrow.

We also worked at Marrama Elementary school on a pile of mulch, and two large piles of playground gravel. It took us most of the day to get all this done. Tonight we had a BBQ at Korey's (pastor of Hope Valley) house. Then we had a time of worship. It went really well and the kids really loved it.

I continue to be amazed at how hard working each one of them are. They represent Christ well, and there are many people who acknowledge the great things that we are doing in conjunction with Hope Valley. We love you all and look forward to seeing you soon.

I want to leave you with this verse from today. "In Him was life, and thta life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." John 1:4-5

Mountain of Mulch

WOW! Our students are awesome they have continued to work with great attitudes and flexibility. Today we washed cars for local business employees, and cleaned the bathrooms of some of the businesses as well. We had quite an impact as well. If fact we got shut down by a local business person because of our free car wash. It seems that one of the local businesses who allowed us to clean there bathrooms didn;t like that we were taking customers from them and cleaning there cars. The bad thing is that we weren't taking their customers.

We also had to have the fire department come out and pop a lock. We locked the keys in one of the cars that we were cleaning so we had to get that taken care of. It was pretty funny I have included a picture of it here. Anyways, we had a great morning.

This afternoon we worked really hard on one of the mountains of mulch that was dropped off here at High Point Academy. We are helping this school on their grounds and will be moving another mountain of mulch tomorrow as well as two mountains of gravel.

Pray for our team. They have been doing a phenomenal job and continue to show great determination and a willingness to serve others. Between last night and today I feel that God is doing some great things in the hearst of our students. I have been praying for this for the last three years and feel like something is happening. I don;t know what, but I do know that God is working and I am watching Him do great and mighty things. Things I couldn't imagine

Snip, Snip!

We had a great day of ministry in the beautiful city of Denver. Our team worked extremely hard today in the heat without complaining. They represented Christ and Hope Valley Church well. We had a great group of guys who hauled 10 tons of rock into the backyard of a couple who is unchuched. The best part about it is they did it in 41/2 hours. They rocked. We had two groups also clean out and organize a couple of garages in houses of unchurched people as well. One lady lost her nephew to suicide and her son is in prison, so we had a great opportunity to minister to them as well. Over all our group has been phenomenal. They have made everyone of our leaders proud, and they continue to keep positive spirits in tough, conditions of heat and fatigue.

On a lighter note, and the reason for the title of this blog today, we had to cut Garielle out of the van tonight becasue her seatbelt got stuck and we couldn't get it undone. We worked on it for 30 minutes and finally made an executive decision to cut the belt to get her out. It was one of the funniest things I can ever remember happening. I will post a picture of the event when i can get it transferred to the computer. Thank you all for your prayers. We will be serving some local businesses tomorrow, cleaning bathrooms, and cars for the employees of these local businesses. We love ya'll and look forward to seeing you soon. I leave you with this encouraging thought out of Numbers 6:24 "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace." Good Night

Get off the Tundra Grass

Today was an eventful day full of lots of fun and a screaming lady telling me and Ethan to get off the Tundra Grass. We were at 12, 100 feet in the Rocky Mountains and up there the grass is part of a fragile ecosystem. She was a green tree hugging woman with no mercy or compassion. Needless to say we had a lot of fun and took lots of pictures. I am going to show you a great team picture that we took at 12,oo0 feet.

I am completely fried. An hour at 10,000 feet, and an hour at 12,000 feet will cook a german, irish white boy. I was careless an forgot about the importance of sunscreen. So here are the pictures. We are kicking everything off tomorrow, we will be very busy and working hard.

Look Mom no hands!

Today started our mission trip in Denver. It started out good, on the way up to the Church. I saw the cross on 159 just as you exit Ashcroft Estates and it was as if God was saying, "I am with you, and have already gone ahead of you. I will be with you and protect you." So with that I am completely confident that God was with us in the chaos of the travel today.

Let me give you a little idea of what happened. Just outside of Lawrence Kansas I noticed that our left front tire on the trailerwas low. I filled it with air at a gas station. About an hour later I started to notice a bounce in the trailer. As we got close to Salina, Kansas this got worse. In Salina we stopped at a gas station and noticed that the tire had begun to seperate. Anyways, we got into a tire store and found out that the trailer has passenger tires on it not trailer tires and they were all extremely old and had begun to seperate. So we spent an hour in Salina, and got the tires changed out.

Now we are in Denver and everything is going great. We got settled in, and everything is ready for our big trip to Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers, and we look forward to seeing ya'll in a week.

Holding on tight

This morning I was doing my quiet time and was reading through John 15. The whole part about the vine and the branches. This brought atttention to me in my life. As an individual I have to remain in Christ, to abide in Him and rely on His power in order to accomplish anything for Him. If I ever do anything on my own, without God's help, and expect anything to come about becasue of it, I have missed it. However when I remain in Christ, and I rely on His pwer and strength then I am going to bear much fruit.

I am convinced that one of the biggest reasons churches aren't seeing great changes among people lives is because we have tried to do way too much. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing, but with Him we can do things that are completely unimaginable.

So my thought is this. If you are going to Denver on Friday I want to encourage you to remain in Christ. Fight for ime with God, too many of us do just enough to get by, and we don't experience all that Christ offers, and all that we can do with Christ. Read John 14:12. This is something that is completely foreign to many of us, but Jesus said that we would do even greater things than these. I long to see and hear all the great things that God is going to do in and through us in Denver, and in our daily lives.

Less than a week

This time next week we will be in Denver, on our mission trip. I am praying for each one of you as you prepare for this awesome time. REmember a mission trip isn't a once a year thing. Missions is living for Christ on a daily basis in the world He has placed you in.

I added this video we played at VBS for the kids one night. It is a combination of the last two years trips. I hope you enjoy it.

This is also going to be the place for parents to check in and see what has been going on in Denver. I am going to do my best to keep everyone informed daily as to what we are doing. So mookmark this page and encourage your parents to check it daily.

Denver Mission Trip

I hope everyone has taken the challenge seriously on focusing on your holiness the next couple of weeks. The reason this is necessary is to realize how helpless and hopeless we are without Christ. When we go to serve him we do it in the power of the Holy Spirit not in our own power.

The duty of a faithful missionary and I would go even further to say, the duty of a faithful Christian is to be open to the cleansing and calling of the Lord. As God cleanses each of us of the guilt and sins in our lives, and as He reveals the truth of His word in our hearts, we can't help but following Christ's leading and calling in missions.

I want to encourage everyone to be open to the cleansing of God in our lives. This cleansing (sanctification) is what prepares you to do the good works through Christ and for Christ. As you are sanctified or cleansed you begin to see the value of people and the insignificance of many of the things of this world. True Christians are attached to nothing and to no one excet Christ. They identify with the interests of other people who are in need.

I hope and pray you continue to focus on the cleasing of your lives.

Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

Psalm 96:2-3