Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I just recently went to City on a Hill in Milwaukee for a short term missions trip. It was amazing. I definitely got out of my comfort zone, and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a mission trip to go on. For more info go to http://www.cityonahillmilwaukee.org/missions/trips/default.asp.

We worked on service projects at city on a hill. We unpacked boxes of canned and boxed goods, sorted them, then stocked them on to shelves in the "food hallway" It was a lot of hard work, but we made it fun by singing random song REALLY loud. :)

Another one of the events we did was serving dinner at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. MRM is a homeless shelter that provides housing, meals, and support for the poor of inner city Milwaukee. It was amazing how grateful the people were when we were serving them a simple cafeteria meal. For more info on the MRM go to
http://www.milmission.org/.

Street witnessing was a big part of the trip. It was really scary at first, but the more we did it the easier it became. The culture in inner city Milwaukee is a lot different then most of us are used to. There are people everywhere. there are tons of people who just relax on their porches. I don't know if it like that in your neighborhood, but its not in mine. We handed out a ton of tracks and talked to a good number of people about Jesus.

We attended a church service, at a church called Holy Redeemer, where it was predominantly attended by African American people. It was so much different then what I'm used to. The form of worship was very different. They really got into the service, many of them danced, and shouted to Jesus. It was so cool to see how different people lift up God's name.

The biggest event of the whole week was a thing called Super Saturday. It's a kids event where they play game, have puppets, and learn about Jesus. The week i went wasn't a normal Super Saturday though, it was the huge back to school bash. Any of the kids that had been to this event before received a backpack that we stuffed with school supplies. I helped do these awesome puppet songs. I also helped in some skits. I was SO fun!!!

The whole trip was VERY eye opening. I always knew that poverty existed, but i had never seen it for myself, on this trip i did. The biggest this i learned was that SERVING JESUS CAN BE FUN AND EXCITING!!!!!!!

Friday, August 10, 2007

I LOVE CAMP!!!!! I was just at Spencer Lake christian camp. One of my favorite places in the world. It was awesome! I met a lot of people. The games were insanely crazy, but my favorite part was the services.

During one of the services the speaker, Wayne nordstrum, read the bible story about Judas, the disciple that betrayed Jesus. After Judas betrayed Him, he just gave up on life and hung himself. Then at the alter call he had us take a noose, and hold it in the air and yell "Jesus I will never give up on you!!!" Now it may seem a little creepy, but it made me think about how valuable life is. It has also reminded me to never give up, now matter how hard life gets.

The worship team was amazing. they were from southeastern christian college. Whenerver I'm singing worship songs, I feel closer to God, so the band played a big part in my camp experience.

When I ask people what id the worst part about leaving camp is most people dont say leaving all their new friends, its the struggles with the "spiritual high." The reason we have a spiritual high is when we spend a lot of concentrated time with God are emotions go crazy. Its perfectly normal to have that high. We just need to pray that God continues to reveal himself to us in amazing ways. Pastor Aaron Broberg said something really interesting, after your greatest moments with God, come your greatest trials.