Amazing Week

We had a great week serving and playing together as a team in Cheyenne. We have lots of memories and we also saw many more opportunities to serve that we just couldn't meet because of a lack of time. We spent most of Thursday & Friday up at "Papa's Land," my grandfather bought this land back in the early 80's and it is a complete joy to share it with everyone that went on the trip. I have so many fond memories of going to the cabin and now I think we are developing more memories with a great group of teens and adult leaders. Here are a few pics from the cabin.

As I thought about this trip, I also thought about how I often times bypass someone in need because of my busy schedule and the chaos that I let surround me. I have been challenged by this trip for various reasons.

1) I wasn't able to plan everything out like I normally do- I'm a planner, and when things aren't planned a certain way it affects my response and my actions. I like everything to be scheduled so we aren't wandering aimlessly without anything to do.

2) I realized how little I rely upon the leading of the Holy Spirit- Often times when we go on Mission we think we are bringing God to the area, when in actuality God is already in the location we go to and He is already at work in churches and in the lives of people there. What we have to do is be open to the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit, to be obedient to His leadership and to serve those that He lays on our heart. Again, going back to number 1 we are often times so caught up in what we are doing that we don't look for or see the opportunities that God is providing us.

3) Being a Christ follower is FUN!- So many times we miss the joy of seeing Christ work because of the busyness or becasue we aren't obedient. We can be so stuck on planning and doing what we want to do that we may miss God even while we are doing a good thing. Anytime our serving leads us into disobedience we have missed the big picture of following Christ.

I am going to make a more concerted effort to follow these three things in my life. Knowing that Christ is already living and actively involved in the lives of the people I serve and witness to.

Busy but Fun!

We spent Wednesday working around Cheyenne at various schools pulling weeds, cleaning sidewalks and shoveling gravel. The biggest of the projects was Anderson Elementary school where all the gravel had spilled over the basketball court.

On thursday and Friday we went up to "Papa's Land," the land in the Mountains that my grandfather purchased back in the early 0's the kids had a blast. We will be traveling back early tomorrow morning, and I will upload more pictures then. Thanks for all your prayers.

Great things

Yesterday began pretty slow. We were working at Element,but we have 25 people and there were just too many people. So we found a couple of jobs where we could help some other local churches with various things around there church. We replaced ceiling tiles at Element Church, scaped paint to prep for painting at Christ Lutheran Church and celaned out the gym of the church I used to go to when I lived here in Cheyenne, Sunnyside Baptist Church.

What started out slowly turned into a very busy day. Hebrews 3:13 says, "Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today," this was a great example of what we did yesterday. Encouraging other brothers and sisters in Christ as they go after what God has called them to do in reaching their community. Please be praying for these churches, (Sunnyside and Christ Lutheran) they are struggling, but doing what they can to reach out. Cheyenne Frontier Days is in a coupe of weeks, and Sunnyside will be doing a massive outreach to the community and all the visitors to the city of Cheyenne during that ten day period. Hundreds of thousands of people will come through Cheyenne during that brief time.

This morning we did Breakfast on the Go in various locations around Cheyenne. We hit a main thoroughfare right near the Air Force Base here in town, we also to some of these breakfasts to the homeless at the Comea shelter and a local park called Martin Luther King Jr. park. We even prayed with the 5 guys out at the park. It was pretty awesome. Thanks again for your prayers

Element R3 House

Yesterday we spent the day working on the Element R3 House. The R3 house is a project that God laid on the heart of Element Church. It stands for Rebuild, Restore and Redeem. They are going to be using the house to provide short term affordable housing for families in need. This is going to be a great project that will keep giving back to the community here in Cheyenne. Read more about it here.

We spent the day working on paiting and lots of it. You can see the before pictures at the link above. We also did some minor landscape touchups, cleaned up the inside of all the trash and took the trash to the dump and built a playground setup for the future residents. Everyone did a phenomenal job working on the house. We had a great time and are excited to hear about everything that comes about through this home.

Great Sunday

Yesterday was a great time for our group to prepare for this coming week of work. It is going to be an awesome time of serving and we aren't stuck to a schedule so we will be watching for other opportunities to serve that we would normally pass by because of having to be somewhere in particular. We are asking God to open our eyes to the needs of the people as we are serving. Please pray that we are open to and listening for the leading of the Holy Spirit as we are serving here in Cheyenne.

We attended Element Church yesterday and enjoyed a great service. Their current sermon series is called "The Frayed," and I wanted to give you some highlights of what was preached during the sermon I think you'll love it. The Sermon series is on prayer, so here are some highlights.

"Prayer is more communion and less coercion. It is not getting God to move, it's allowing Him to move me."

We have to learn to pray through something until there is an answer.

• We must learn to be persistent in prayer. Jesus showed persistence and desperation in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
• Pray until something Happens- God will change the circumstance or God will change me.
• Too many of us are praying for God's presents and not His presence.
• Why is God not answering my prayers?” may be the wrong question, though a popular one. A better question is “Why am I not submitting to His response?” Seeking God is the key to persistent prayer, not getting an answer.

It was a great service and message especially with all the prayer we must be doing in our lives on a daily basis.

After Church we took everyone out to Vedawoo to climb some mountains and they had a blast. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Here in Cheyenne!

We arrived in Cheyenne last night July 10 and hit the ground running. We got everything set up here in my parents house. Speaking of which be praying for them, they have 25 house guests for the week and have been really accomodating. We will be working with Element Church here in Cheyenne doing various service projects around Cheyenne. It is going to be a great week here serving in the town I grew up in.

The kids are all doing great and resting well. The boys are sleeping outside in tents, and we have already heard that a few of them got cold last night. The temperature drops into the low 50's here at night. We will make sure and get them all taken care of. It's a little different than Missouri. I will post pictures later today. We will be going to a place called Vedawoo (pronounced Veda Voo) to climb rocks and ride 4 wheelers and then coming back to prayer walk the community around the church. We appreciate your prayers and look forward to keeping ya'll informed.

Brian