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We had a great final night last night at the park with just about 50 in attendance! We played a mix of some of the favorite games throughout the week, some Philadelphia Football, as well as another twisted version of rabbit sticks. We had four teams, then about halfway through they all switched squares with each other, then towards the end we merges to two teams, with about 23 on each team! Praise God that we had no major collisions!
The stories were great - Caleb, Matt and Allison shared. They all related to different students in their own way. Way to go guys!
Afterwards we all went to the clubhouse for pizza and more games. We downed 20 Little Caesar's pizzas! Cannon alone had 11 slices, nicely done! I only had 6. We then played some goofy games and then I got up and shared a gospel presentation.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for this night, we really appreciate it. By the time I got up there I only had about 12 minutes left till we were supposed to end! The Lord provided and we only ended a couple minutes late. We had two young men commit their lives to Christ and one recommitment! Praise God!!!
Stay tuned over the next several weeks of summer as I will continue to update here. We will be doing some other special events as well as more park nights. I will also keep everyone updated on the ministry going on in Tonto Basin, AZ.
Thanks and stay tuned!!!!
We had another 45 at the park on Thursday night and I can truly say it was a blessed night. During our family time on Wednesday night, we discussed and prayed over some of the issues involved with having such a large group. We were rejoicing last night because God handled all of them!! The night went very smooth and Kylie and Lea's stories were very powerful and impacting to the kids. We know because some of them told some of us!
It seems like every night the stories are getting more intentional. In other words, the gospel is being clearly shared and challenges are also presented. Thank you all who have shared and the three sharing tonight (Caleb, Allison, Matt).
Please keep tonight in your prayers. We are expecting a large group, and we'll be going to the clubhouse afterwards for pizza, games, and a gospel presentation. Pray for open and responsive hearts.
Also please pray as we continue to follow up with these kids. There are many other opportunities that we will have this summer to reach them. Pray that we are diligent in staying connected and following up.
Thanks!!!
What an awesome day Wednesday was. We started out with 20 at our morning discipleship, with some new faces! We had a great time being challenged to live out our faith, and to share it.
At the park, we had 45! It made for an interesting time of adjustments, trying to get games going that would allow for that big of a group. We split up at first, those who wanted to play basketball and those who wanted soccer. Then we all came together and Kelly shared her story.
After that, we played rabbit sticks, a capture the flag type game that Brian showed us a few years ago. But because we had 40 that participated, we played it with four teams of 10. We split the field into quarters and the game was awesome and challenging. Each team had a flag, and the winning team was the team that had the most flags at the end, or the team to get all the flags first. We were all quite tired.
Again we got together and Katie shared about her missions trip to Pananma that she left for this morning, and Moriah shared her story. Thanks to all who shared! It's great to see you reaching your peers!
By the way, if you don't know what BARF means, it means Bring A Real Friend. So every night we challenge the kids to BARF, and many of them are! So hopefully, we'll continue the BARFing all week!
Keep praying for these nights, we only have two left! Pray for the final night, which will be at the clubhouse. Pray that everyone from the park will come over and hear the Gospel!!
Thank you all for your continued prayers and posts through our Pine Valley Mission Venture! Yesterday was incredible. We started out with a great discipleship time with 20 in attendance! We studied about how to reach out to others in a way that lets them know that we care, and of course that God cares too! We were challenged to continue our life of mission! Some of us cruised the town and passed out some flyers for the park night, and met some new kids. Another really cool thing is that the students decided after our first family time to get together and have special prayer for each day of ministry. They decided to get together at 9 am at the park, 30 minutes before discipleship. This is awesome because it is student led and student initiated! They know that prayer is important as they reach out to their peers. Praise God!
The park night was amazing! We had 40 there! Angie and Josh both shared their stories and we played some great games.
At Frosty Burger and it was pretty cool to see so many people hanging out there. If you happen to drive by this week, feel free to hang out with us, honk, or at least say a prayer as you drive by.
Another cool thing is that while we were at Frosty Burger, many of us received a text from Levii at the Tonto Basin Church. She was so excited and said that they had outreach at the school and 15 kids came! That’s so awesome. When we were there last week, the most we had was 19 local kids, so 15 for their first night is amazing! Praise the Lord!!
By the way, Frosty has been great to allow us to hang out there every night even after their closing time. We want to support them as a local business and they are supporting us as well, thanks!!
Looking forward to seeing what God is going to do tonight!
We had a great day on Monday doing our Mission Venture here at home in Pine Valley. it started with a great discipleship session, with 15 in attendance. We played a cool game that got us thinking about the church's role in reaching out to the community. We had a great discussion and prayed for the week and the night at the park.
The first park night went well. We had over 25 in attendance, which was great. Now that we're home, it's hard to really say how many "new" kids came, because many of us knew most of those who were there. But there were definitely several that I had never met or only met a few times.
Mike shared his testimony, and so did Mikala. We had a good time at Frosty Burger and are looking forward to the rest of the week.
We did family time after Frosty at the Majam's house (thx Majams!). We all mentioned that we were tired and that those of us who were in Tonto Basin last week are sort of coming off a "spiritual high", and are now adjusting to real life and not being together all the time. We came to the conclusion that we all need to be more disciplined in living out our mission, and we should stay connected whenever possible in order to stay accountable and on target. It's different when you aren't on a mission trip!
We had some serious time of prayer and are looking forward to God's work throughout the rest of this week. Please keep it in prayer!!!
Well, here we are, we've returned home to Pine Valley. We had a wonderful church service yesterday sharing about what God did in Tonto Basin. But I wanted to let you all know that the mission is far from over. We are called to a Mission 51 lifestyle as Brian from Youthmark puts it. That means that we are still living a life of mission, even during the 51 weeks out of the year that we aren't on a missions trip.
So, to kick off our return home, we will be doing virtually the same outreach that we did in Tonto Basin, right here in Pine Valley. This is something we've done to kick off the summer ever since Brian brought a team here from Seattle. It has been a powerful week these last three years. We are praying that God will use this week to reach those in our community for Him, but also that our students and families that did not take part in our Mission Venture in Tonto Basin will be able to catch the fire that we have, and live out that life of mission that we are called to.
We will be starting in just about an hour with our first discipleship session at the park at 9:30, and will have our first outreach at the park tonight at 6. We are so excited to see what God will do in our hometown, and we're excited for the weather! In Tonto Basin it was still over 100 degrees most of the nights when we started our outreach. The forecast for this week in Pine Valley shows the upper 70's to low 80's as the high most of the week! Josh, Kelly, Lea and I went for a run this morning and it was in the 40's outside! What a change.
I will continue to use this blog to keep everyone posted on what's going on here, please continue to pray and post!
We have just finished our final family time of the week, Caleb just downed 2 hot dogs next to me, at 12:40 am! We had a long day, and tend to get the munchies this time of night (or…morning). But anyways, this was an absolutely awesome final day! We started out with another great lesson by Pastor Joe about our broken world and the hope we have in Christ. We actually had 17 Tonto Basin kids there! It was a great lesson, with cool drawings that we are planning on posting in our youth room!
We also had a work day at Pastor Robert’s house. We did some yard work and organized some things in the garage. Then some people from the church brought us a pizza dinner that rocked. They ate with us and then we headed to the park.
I can’t even begin to tell you how great the night was! We again had 19 there, and everything was great! At our first break, we gave Tonto Basin people a chance to share with everyone about what they’ve learned this week. A couple kids shared and it was powerful. Clint shared that he loves us and has been impacted by our stories and wants to continue in the Bible and growing in his relationship with God. We have all connected with Clint and have seen fruit in him from the beginning. His dad told me early in the week that he is very grateful to Stephanie, Pastor Robert’s wife, for teaching him in Sunday School ever since he was little.
A girl named Kylie came for the first time this morning and she even stood up and shared. She said that we were the nicest people that she’s ever met and that she had an awesome day with us! Wow! Another one, Miles (pictured), has been a great one to have with us. He’s going into 6th grade and he is just so full of life and smiles. He has had a tough upbringing so far, but when he shared he told us that he loved us all and that this week was the best week of his life! Pastor Robert came up and shared his testimony and took the time to invite everyone to church and to be there to answer any further questions that anyone may have. He has connections with so many of these kids and we pray that it will grow.
I closed out the night with a story from Acts 3 where Peter heals the crippled beggar. I shared that when we don’t have Christ, it’s like we are crippled. We are helpless and hopeless. It’s a powerful event in scripture and many of the kids grasped what I was getting at. I gave a gospel presentation and allowed for kids to make decisions.
It was so awesome! Clint, Colby, Stephanie, and Kylie all raised their hand to recommit their lives to Christ! Chris indicated that he is ready to start following Jesus for the first time! Praise God for that!
Then, after we were cleaning up, Caleb came from another area with Reno. Caleb has had a lot of one on one time with Reno, and Reno seemed to be softening up a lot. He’s not very social at all, and he has some struggles. I ended up being face to face with him and he looked me in the eyes and told me that he has Jesus now!!! He said that he will be forever thankful to Caleb for sharing Christ with him! It was awesome!
So, what a great final night! Seven commitments or recommitments!! We said our goodbyes and headed back for our best family time of the trip. We were all so excited about the things we saw, the stories we heard, and the people that God touched. And we were (and still are) a team! We had a great time of worship, sharing, and prayer.
Again I want to thank you all for visiting this site, for posting, and for praying. You may know that next week in Pine Valley, we will be doing our outreach nights at the park just like we did here this week, as well as our discipleship mornings. It’s going to be another busy week, but we’ll be in our own beds!
I will be keeping this site up and updating it during the week in Pine Valley, so please continue to pray and post as we go home to reach out to “our Jerusalem”. Thanks again and we’ll be home soon!
At our second break, Cannon shared his testimony and it was very powerful. He’s coming off of a very tough freshman year and he has fully committed his life to God. His experience related very strongly with three of the Tonto Basin kids in particular. Also at this time, a guy named Bill from the church, announced that starting next Tuesday he will be heading up nights at the school every week for the kids to stay connected! That is truly an answer to prayer! We prayed from even before the trip that this outreach would be something that would continue, and it will! Clint’s dad, Rick, also feels strong about this and will be taking part. Thanks guys!!!
Greetings, and welcome to a special midday post! As you may know, this is our last full day of ministry here in Tonto Basin. We are definitely excited about the school tonight and are praying that students here would make serious commitments to the Lord! Pray with us! I wanted to take this time to share a little more in depth about some of the deep connections we have made on this trip. There have been some on our team who have come very close with some students and have seen some serious steps closer to God. Here are just a few: A couple nights ago, I walked around in and outside of the gym and saw so many little groups just talking. Mari had a crew of girls, and I heard her talking about some of the principles and terms that we have been learning in our training. One in particular, Stephanie, was very interested. Stephanie was very clear to Mari that she has never fully committed her life to Christ and taken ownership of her faith. Pray for her! Mari had to leave our trip yesterday due to softball commitments, L but got Stephanie’s address and promised to send her a devotional. After Mari left yesterday, Kelly (Mari’s sis if you did’t know) picked up right where Mari left off and I heard her continuing to talk to Steph. Very cool!
Mike spent some time with Mikey. We’ve got three Mikes here so they go by Mike, Mikey, and Michael. Mikey shared of some tough times with his mom, and how he is staying here for most of the summer with his grandma. He mentioned that he didn’t have a Bible and Mike gave him one! It was so cool, the night before he gave it to him, he asked everyone on our team for their favorite scripture and stayed up late highlighting tons of verses in this Bible. Last night he gave it to Mikey and he was very grateful. There’s a photo on the post from last night of Mike and Mikey sitting together, that was just after he gave him the Bible. Awesome! Angie has been working with Autumn on some things. Autumn struggles with some stuff that many teen girls have trouble with - feeling beautiful and having self confidence. It’s something to pray for her about because, honestly, she is a beautiful girl. A couple nights ago Angie was putting together a list of scripture on beauty, particularly on inner beauty. One example - 1 Samuel 16:7 - “……Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.” She gave it to Autumn and we heard that when Autumn showed her grandma her Grandma cried. We went to their house last night for dinner and one of the most awesome things was to see that sheet of paper, with all the scripture about beauty, attached to Autumn’s mirror in her room.
And finally, something very close to my heart, is the way our team has been reaching out to my daughters, Maci and Ellie. We prayed seriously about bringing them on this trip, and I’m so glad we did. They truly have been a part of this team, they hug everyone (all 14 of us) before bed, and they pray for the people of Tonto Basin before bed. They have drawn so close to everyone on this team, and I’m so pleased that they can begin learning these principles at the ages of 6 and 4! So thanks team for including them, for helping out with them, for being goofy with them, and for loving them. I loved watching Josh and Kelly dance with them, seeing the photos that Kylie took of them when they went out by a tree and did a black and white photo shoot. Those are just a couple examples.
We love you all and are looking forward to tonight!!! Pray!!!!
Well, once again, another great day! We are very close to the end of our trip and our day started out with a great devotion from our book Roadgrip. This is a daily devotional by Brian Aaby meant for people on Mission Ventures. Today was a lot about the end of the road, and continuing to press on and have endurance. It was so applicable and we had a great discussion about it as a team.
As for the day, Pastor Joe blessed all of us by sharing at the discipleship time. He gave an impacting message about the state of our world today versus what it was meant to be. He will share again tomorrow, we had a great group this morning! Thanks Pastor!
We also had the opportunity to go to the local market and pick up trash! I know, that’s exactly what you’d like to do in 104 degree weather! We were able to connect with some of the workers in the store, they just couldn’t believe what we were doing! It was a great witnessing opportunity, and we were rewarded with free ice cream!
We then went for dinner to the home of Sandy, a wonderful woman in the church who has been serving with us this whole week. She truly is amazing. She is pretty much raising several of her grandchildren, I say several because the numbers change at times and seasons. She is being a light to her family members, please pray for this great lady. She served us burgers, hot dogs, all the fixins, and cookies and cobbler! I haven’t told you yet in this post that we love to eat!!!
We had another good night at the school. Again we had a few not make it, but we had six new ones! Here they are so you can pray for them: Devin, Chris, Tim, Dillon, Jacob, Nathan..
Josh shared a little more tonight about what God is doing in his life, and Kylie shared her testimony and it was powerful and impacting. She was incredibly open and honest, and we’re all proud of her. Thanks Ky Ky!
Instead of going to the Gym, Pastor Robert turned the field lights on and we played a massive game of four way rabbit sticks. It rocked! Then we hung out and had cake and watermelon (another good combo) and had a great time connecting with the youth of this awesome place.
There was a time during the end of the night where I tapped Caleb on the shoulder and asked him to look around. The ministry going on was so exciting! Literally all over the park, there were groups of two to four scattered throughout, with our team sharing Christ with their new friends. If you look at the photos, you can see other groups far off in the distance, on the playground in one photo and bleachers in the other. I hovered and eavesdropped a bit J , and there were five of these groups at one time and in each one a member of our team was sharing the gospel with someone!!! Praise HIM!!
We had a student get prayed for who had been in a really rough time in his life, another student not understanding what it really means to fully commit to Christ, and yet another going through tough times with his family and has seriously connected to another member in our group. Caleb also had an experience with someone that you’ve all been praying for and felt that he just wasn’t quite going to make a commitment to Christ. Matt is leaving tomorrow for a trip so we won’t see him after the morning. He definitely has been impacted by us and said so, and he will even be coming by super early tomorrow (today - it’s after midnight) morning to say bye to all of us. So while Caleb and the rest of us are disappointed that we won’t have him here tomorrow night, we know that we were obedient in sharing the gospel with him. We are not the ones doing the saving, that is God. We are called to be obedient in sharing with others, and we rejoice that we did that and we pray that the seed we planted will grow. It goes the same with Levii, Autumn, Len, and Mikey. They are also going on a trip and will leave after discipleship tomorrow. Our team has connected with them and will keep in touch thanks to all the various ways people can connect nowadays. As for tomorrow, we are all excited and ready. We will again be turning on the lights at the field, and having some extended game time. But I will also be giving a chance to make a serious commitment to God, and I’m not sure how to go about it yet. Please pray for me. There’s so much to tell, I’m gonna try to get in a midday post. Thanks again for all your prayers and posts!!!
What an awesome Wednesday! We started our day off early with some yard work at 6:45 across the street at Paula’s house. What a wonderful lady! The gals cleaned her house while the guys and Angie worked outside. Then we all sat down for some eggs, potatoes, biscuits and gravy! Did I mention this church loves to cook?? And we love to eat?? Then we had our discipleship session and 13 Tonto Basin kids showed up! We had a great study on the term “Christian” and it was really clicking with so many of them. Afterwards we had lunch and a pool party at the home of one of the students grandma’s. It was a great time and they aren’t exactly a part of the church so there has definitely been some ministry there. Pray for Carmen and her grandma Christine. We were able to get some down time and even some naps (myself included)! Then a family brought us an awesome Mexican themed meal, everything was homemade! Did I mention we love the food here????
At the school, it was interesting. We had zero new kids but 19 total. Pretty much the same as last night. We opened the gym, had rice crispy treats and watermelon (interesting combo) and played some more games. Mike and Kelly shared their testimonies, and again they were powerful. It was again another example of these students being able to hear that Christians are real people with real and similar struggles, but we have God with us all the time!
When we get back from the outreach every night, we have what we call “family time”. That’s when we all get together and sort of a debriefing time for our group to review our experiences and conversations for the night. We close with prayer and worship and tonight that was outside. It was beautiful! The clouds, the moon and the stars were incredible. It is obvious that we are truly making connections. We had some who are so close to turning their lives over to God. It’s getting deeper and more serious. I think our team has realized that our time is limited and we are more intentional than ever with the relationships. Thanks again for the prayers! Here are some to specifically pray for that seem to be very open to what we’re sharing: Matt (yes!), Reno, Stephanie, and Autumn.