Mission Teams and Movie Nights and Messy Schedules, OH MY!

      I just 💜 summertime! Really I like most of the seasons (winter is my least favorite) but I totally enjoy summer. The heat doesn't really bother me either. Sure I'll have days where I complain about how hot it gets, but for the most part summer is my favorite. To be completely honest, I don't mind being all sweaty....weird I know. But it just makes me feel like alive and functioning, and I could wear mesh shorts and t-shirts and my hair up every day and be just fine with it. Anyway, school starts here in 3 weeks (ugh) and I have a total of 1 whole outfit for Maria to wear. This is our first year doing uniforms so for all you uniform people out there help me out! Really how many shirts, skirts, pants, etc do you think we need?? I'll take all the help I can get. That's a whole other story though. Summer is quickly coming to a close. Our last mission team just left this week. We are getting ready for a new school and routines and fall and all that good stuff. But I just have to stop and say how grateful we are for the summer. Even with long days full of Jordan gone with the mission teams and me with the kids, late nights, missed naps and just plain chaos (like most recently truckloads of bacon!), it's such a blessing and encouragement when groups come. We have quite a few individual families who give to us which we need and are so incredibly grateful for. It would not be possible to do what God has called us to do without each one of these families. However, when a church comes on board with this vision that God has given us and says yes our church believes in you, prays for you, supports you, and we are going to send workers to labor alongside you it is just a whole new dynamic. Seriously, it gives us a breath of fresh air and lifts up our spirits and just reminds us that we are not alone but to keep pressing on in this God-given mission. I apologize if I miss anything, but I know if I wrote down everything that happened this summer it would be a 500-page blog post, so I'll try and give a quick recap of what we've done this summer and a big, giant THANK YOU to all who are supporting us here in the Bronx.

 

     We started the summer with Parkview Baptist Church.  This was their second year to come and what a genuine, excited, willing group!  They jumped in bravely and boldly and were so ready to get out and do surveys and have face to face conversations with our community. Summer officially began while they were here and they hosted an awesome ice cream party in our park. They engaged our community and made a ton of good contacts. Immediately after them we had First Baptist Church Okarche. This was their first visit to work with us and we are so grateful they came! We hope to see more of them in the future. They also got out in our community to have conversations and share testimonies and make connections for our church with our neighbors. One thing we have learned about this area is that people are looking for activities for their kids. Our community is filled with families who like to do things together. So Okarche helped us host a movie night. It is just a fun few hours with games, activities, prizes, and of course a movie for kids in our neighborhood. Between Parkview and Okarche we started seeing some familiar faces and have had some of those people come to a Sunday service! Arrow Heights Baptist Church immediately followed Okarche. This was their second summer to come and since they were here right after school was out they helped host our first ever Vacation Bible School in the park for Everlasting Church! We had no idea what to expect because it was one of the hottest weeks of the summer for NYC but we had 40+ kids come through during our 3-day VBS and it was awesome! Kids that we know have not been exposed to the gospel got to hear the good news.  The people of Arrow Heights have such servant hearts and their love for our neighbors and community was so evident.

     We then had a little break in the mission teams which gave our family the opportunity to travel back to Oklahoma, thanks to First Baptist Church Owasso. FBCO wanted us to come to their VBS to teach about our ministry and what church-planting looks like here in NYC. So they flew us to Oklahoma and we got a week "at home" with our family. We had the opportunity to see many familiar faces, eat our favorite familiar foods, and do many familiar things. FBCO loved on us, prayed for us, celebrated with us what God is doing in the Bronx, and even gave Jordan and I a night to ourselves in Tulsa (with help from the grandparents for the kiddos). Being a part of VBS at First Baptist was such an encouragement to my mommy heart. Maria got to participate in all the activities for the week with the kindergarten class. To see her with hundreds of other kids, worshiping the Lord, memorizing scripture, and learning so many truths about God was just huge. To be honest I had a hard transition back to NYC after that. We just don't have that environment here as a church plant, and I miss it. I long for my kids to have community with other kids as they follow after Jesus and strive to be different from the world, but for the 2 years we've been here it's pretty much been just them at church on Sundays. Now that is slowly changing (shout out to Gabe, Lexi, and baby Jael!) and I know that God has a plan for Everlasting Church and that He is working things out in His timing. Sometimes it's just so hard to be patient. I'm so grateful for the Sunday School teachers I had growing up who knew God's word, loved His church, and taught Biblical truths faithfully. They invested in me and I often find myself longing for that for my kids. I question if I've really done the right thing by yanking them out of that environment. But one truth God has already had to beat into my head on this church planting journey multiple times is that He has plans, His plans are different from mine, His timing is different than mine, and I just need to trust and obey. He clearly has called us here, I cannot deny that.  He clearly has called my husband to be a church planting pastor, I am 100% sure of that. So even in the midst of my worry, doubts, and fears, my heart knows and my head knows that He will take care of my kids and in His will is the best place for them.

          

        

   

        

     So, back to the Bronx we went and finished up the summer with Arlington Baptist Church from North Carolina, Woodland Acres Baptist Church from Tulsa, and Cherokee Hills Baptist Church from OKC. We were paired up with Arlington Baptist Church through World Changers and were somewhat shocked to find out they brought a group of almost 40 people just to work with us in our neighborhood! That was our biggest group by far (which threw the interns for a loop) but isn't it just like God to use our insecurities and doubts and fears to show off. They did some trash pick-up and street evangelism for us. During one of those days God set up a divine appointment with a man named Jose who prayed to receive Christ right there on the street! We hope to share more about him in the near future. But clearly God had this all worked out in advance. Woodland Acres Baptist Church arrived soon after on their first trip to the Bronx. Again they just jumped in to engaging our neighbors in gospel conversations and they also hosted a movie night. Their willingness to serve was a blessing. Finally, Cherokee Hills Baptist Church just left this week. As their second time here in the neighborhood, with several people returning from last summer, they had an idea of what to expect. Due to all the rain we've been getting recently we had to cancel/re-think some of the days activities and this group was more than willing to be flexible and just go with the plan a day at a time. They truly love the people here, love our neighbors, and boldly shared testimonies and talked to people as they came in contact with them.

     And I want to give a big shout out to our GenSend group of college students who came from around the country to serve in our community. They did a great job getting involved in our church events and did a great job in connecting us to the employees at the local library where they often volunteered. We had Anna, Isaac, Hannah, Shannon, Sarah and Jarran who came this summer and our community and church are better off because of their willingness to go and serve.

     When we left Burleson and walked away from our jobs, home, all the familiar things, we had Bethesda Baptist Church committed to give monthly to us and that was it. We had some individual families jump on board pretty quick, and we knew we would get some kind of help from NAMB, but we also knew it would not be enough for our family of 3 (that would soon become 4) to live on. God has faithfully provided for us each month though, and that has mainly been through His church. The family of God is truly an incredible thing! I've got to give a shout out to the churches in Oklahoma though. Oklahoma has really stepped up to the plate to have a presence here in the Bronx and we are so grateful and very encouraged by all the support. We are blessed to be Okie's! From prayers and financial support to letters from children's Sunday School and care packages to all the groups who have come to work beside us in the Bronx, we are forever blessed and encouraged to press on in this calling that God has laid out before us. So to all our churches and people, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you have done and continue to do for us here in NYC as we labor to share the gospel and establish His church in our neighborhood. And if by chance you happen to see this post and you are a church or know a church looking to partner in a new missions endeavor (or an individual family, we won't discriminate), let us know! We are waiting on God to open the door for us to move in to a new facility and once He does there will be plenty of new opportunities for partnerships! 😉 If you made it to the end you deserve a video....here's our sweet Maria still going strong reciting the verse she learned at VBS.