BSM

man… i love jr high students! this past weekend we took a crew of our jr high students to chicago for a weekend conference called Believe.  it was awesome!

we went up last friday, got our hotel rooms, at at this awesome place in chicago called ‘portello’s’, at least i think that was the name of it. o man… the italian beef sandwich was AMAZING! if u haven’t been, its actually worth the drive to chicago for that alone.  so after hittin up some amazing grub, we headed to the conference.  first night was awesome! the whole weekend was centered around ‘Messiah’ and who He is and what He does and what He wants for us in our lives.  it was so awesome.  Kurt was the speaker and he did an amazing job.  and after every session, we broke into smaller groups to talk about what Kurt had just taught about.  so we had two groups and we crammed each group into a hotel room back at our place and hung out and got to know each other and talked about some pretty cool stuff.  the small group questions were hidden inside of fortune cookies, which was really sweet (and delicious).  the questions were really cool and led us into some pretty deep discussions.  and we were able to do that after each session.  so friday night ended and we went to bed late, and then the crazy stuff happened! we have some students with weird night time behaviors.  in the hotel room, there were 2 beds and 2 people sleeping on each bed (so 4 to a room). i woke up in the middle of the night to see Aaron (who was supposed to be sleeping next to me) sitting on the end of the other bed, just starring at Jackson.  when i asked him what he was doing, he said ‘i really like his shirt’.  HAHA!  but Aaron has a history of this sort of thing.  last year in the middle of the night, he sat up and screamed ‘THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!’  so… never a dull moment.

so saturday we get up and continue the conference and it all rocked.  Kurt really did an awesome job teaching about Jesus and calling students to transformed living.  and throughout the whole weekend, our buddy Eric Timm was there too.  and man did Eric rock! we get to see Eric do his thing all the time.  he goes to a couple of the same conference that we do, so sometimes we see him 2 or 3 times a year.  but it was cool to see him and he actually came and ate at lunch with us for a few on Saturday.  we really love Eric and his ministry and what he does has impacted a lot of students in our ministry over the years.   for each session, eric had a different painting that represented the Messiah in a different way, and at the end, he put them all together and it was an awesome moment.

after saturday’s sessions were over, we had an epic SNOWBALL FIGHT in the parking lot.  it was crazy! Ashton got thrown in the mud and Danny took one in the face!  after that was over, we went back to the hotel, had our last small group sessions, and made way to the pool! they had a sweet indoor/outdoor pool, and outside there was snow one the ground, so our snowball fight picked back up, but in the pool this time, until security put an end to that one… ugh!  and then sunday morning we went to church at Willow Creek and then headed back home!

we had a great time! the snowball fights were a blast, but my favorite things about all the weekend was our small group times and the discussions we had there.  we talked about some pretty deep stuff and i know God was working on a lot of our hearts.  i hope that we all remember what God said to us last weekend and that we will live our lives different because of it

today was day 1 of our crew of students serving on a mission trip within our city.  we worked with a couple of different organizations and day 1 was a good start.  for the week we will be operating in 3 groups.  2 groups of 5 people and 1 group of six.

during the week we will be working with Lydia Home.  their ministry is all about providing safe living environments to kids who’s parents are in jail, in a rehab facility, or just unable to provide basic needs for their kids at the time.  the hope is to fill this need to help the parents become stable and secure in a lifestyle where they can then resume a life with their children.

for the Lydia Home, 1 group did some work for a woman down the road named Dorothy.  Dorothy has lived in the Quad Cities for 32 years.  Originally from Alabama, her husband was transferred here to work at the arsenal.  in ‘82, her husband passed away.  she is nearly blind and has a hard time getting around.  she loves having flowers in front of her house, so we helped her by cleaning out her weed & rock polluted flower bed and added some plants for her.  evidently, there’s a snake that makes an appearance every now and then and Dorothy does not like snakes.  one of our students, Katie, doesn’t like worms.  so, Leah, upon finding a worm, threw it in Katie’s face which spurred a shriek from Katie.  Dorothy assumed that we found the snake, so she flipped out too!  i’ve never seen an old blind women move so fast.  once she realized the commotion was aroused because of a worm, she got a good laugh.

the 2 other groups did some work around the property of the Lydia Home by doing some odd end jobs such as yard work and a little bit of painting.  some of the girls also went through allthe board games they had for the kids that attend programs, and check to see if the games had all the necessary pieces to be playable.

during lunch, i had a good conversation with Will who is on staff for the Lydia Home.  he told me how cool it was to have a local group of students from a church to come and do local mission work in their city.  Lydia Home has had part in bringing in groups from across the nation to do mission work here in the Quad Cities.  what bothers me about this is that our churches here in the community should be taking care of our community.  not that the outside help isn’t appreciated, but we need to realize there’s things to be done in our own city.  just like Nehemiah had a heart for his city, Jerusalem, and spent a great portion of his life serving his city, we too must see the needs in our city and work for the best of it.  it’s all about being a city within the city.

1 group left shortly after lunch and went to the Salvation Army shelter in Davenport.  Their they prepped food for the people there and cleaned up after.  normally, the people staying are responsible for prepping and cleaning after and they were excited to not have to bother with it tonight.  a couple of the girls had some gross-out experiences.  evidently the residents clean the dishes after meals, and when getting ready to cook the meal, the girls found some food gunk still clinging to the dishes and cookware that were supposedly “clean”.  the girls also had a fun time hauling garbage bags of waste to the dumpsters.  the thing about these garbage bags was that they leaked some treasured contents onto those who carried them.  so some got a little doused with nasty liquids and who knows what.  and then one of the ladies felt it was necessary to pull a joke on the girls and told them they had to sort through the garbage and separate the glass, plastic, and cardboard.  to which they all enjoyed a good laugh.

the other two groups went to Davenport Central High School.  there we spent about 45 minutes lifting up the school in prayer.  we prayed for the students, the teachers, the faculty.  all that they would know Jesus.  we also prayed for the Aug 8th event, ‘Rock the River’, that will be here in the QC.  it’s going to be a youth rally with the goal of bringing teens to know Jesus.  so we also specifically prayed that teens at Central would be able to go and the now, God would start to work on their hearts and prepare them to be changed when they have that experience on Aug 8th.  during our time praying over the school, we saw a student walk through the area that we were praying in and he was wearing a ‘Rock the River’ tshirt.  that was cool.  and so many people saw us there.  people walking or driving by.  one lady was so distracted by what we were doing, she almost broke into someone else’s car thinking it was her own.  she was trying so hard to figure out what we were doing, that she spent about a minute or so trying to unlock and open a minivan that wasn’t hers, but in fact parked 3 spots away from her vehicle.

after leaving Central, one group went to the ‘Resbit Center’ where they spent some time hanging out with kids with disabilities in an afternoon program.  i’m not sure what all went on, but i saw pictures of little kids beating up the intern, John, with the red plastic whiffle ball bats.

the other group came back and hung out at the church and prepped dinner.

after dinner, we went to the ymca and showered and then came back to the church for some time of worship and teaching.  Jacob led us in a couple of songs and then my friend Derik came over and spoke to our group.  Derik did an awesome job and really challenged our students to be lights that follow Jesus and shine for Jesus with reckless abandonment.  he did an awesome job.  thanks Derik.  after that, we just chilled and hung out for awhile.

right now, all the lights are out, and everyone is getting rested up for tomorrow.  with day 1 checked off, it looks to be a good week.  talk to you tomorrow.

-bryan

also… remember to follow us @ www.twitter.com/bsmstudents.  there we’ll be putting up updates throughout the day and also putting up some pics.