Greetings dearest family and loved ones all over the world!! Listen to this great story from one of the youth leaders this past week! God is working in some really great ways!
The listening prayer time with just one other person was wonderful. It's truly amazing what God can put on someone's heart to pray for. Our team had a great prayer walk that lead us to a daycare facility. Their volunteers didn't show up to unload playground equipment. Our team of 7 showed up and told Pearlie we had been praying and were lead to them. She too had been praying. It was an awesome GOD THING! Our ATL(Ask The Lord) lead us back to the daycare where we and another team helped them prepare for their volunteers on Saturday to build the playground. This has been a great trip. My first missions trip and not at all the last. Thanks for the blessings! - Marsha Dollar
I am finding it hard to explain living here. There is a sadness in not being home, at times we miss it a lot, but there is such peace and joy knowing we are where God wants us for now. We see His hand everyday working in people's lives, the opportunities and the openness to share about God's grace and His love for them is amazing. I am writing specifically to ask you to pray diligently for the city of New Orleans. We are in a battle. This last week New Orleans has been in the National News. There was a murder last week and a masacre this week end. The National Guard has been called in to help. These are the neighborhoods we are working and living in. What you are not hearing is how the churches in these communities are rebuilding and restoring. We, with AIM, are partnering with churches that are in some of the hardest hit communities. Yes by Katrina, but even before that with drugs, and gangs, and break down of the family. We are a mostly white group in mostly black and hispanic neighborhoods, but there is a unity that comes only from being in Christ! I Praise Him for this blessing! The church buildings have been badly damaged, most of their members are not back, but they are courageously fighting this battle. The cost is great for many families here. Please pray for spiritual and physical protection for us warriors here in New Orleans. Pray with scripture that you know to do battle with. I am pleading with tears as I write this that you will understand the urgency. The battle is real, we have no fear, the battle belongs to the Lord!
We love you all so much, we praise God for the strength that comes from knowing you are there and with us. Please continue to pray for wise decisions concerning our children and marriage. God is still teaching us how to do this. God has specifically laid on my heart that I need to be more of a Mary and less of a Martha ,(at His feet, not on my on strength)please pray for me in this. Pray that God will continue to give Brett wisdom and discernment as he is carrying a major load in this ministry. Please let us know how we can pray for you!
The end of the week is now here and all the youth groups leave tomorrow morning. It was a wonderful week and we had some great stories.
We have a prayer room at one of the ministry sites here called Good News. The objective of the prayer room is to have prayers circulating all ministry hours of the day. So 8 hours a day there are people praying for all kinds of things: The participants, the staff, New Orleans, praying on the armor of God and their own personal prayer requests. I was sitting in the prayer room a couple of days ago and a kid came into pray. 15 minutes into his 30 minute shift he comes up to me and says: "Can I tell you a cool story?" I said, "Yes! Please do!" And he told me about an awesome experience he and his teammates had while gutting out a house the previous day. It went something like this:
"Well, the other day while we were gutting out this house I saw a big 'ole Bible lying on the floor. I picked it up and pretty much the only visible page was Isaiah 44 beginning at verse 26." I began flipping through my Bible as soon as he said Isaiah and was filled with joy at the following verses. They read:
"who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,' of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,' and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,' who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,' who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."'
I thought that was pretty amazing.
God has done awesome things in these peoples lives and I am confident they will go home changed people.
Please pray that we will all have clear communication between all the leaders and teams. That is something you can pray for throughout the whole summer.
Pray for healing for several people on team are sick.
Pray for Steve Black's quick healing in his arm.
Our worship leaders for this week found out last night that a 14 year old girl, Kayla, from their youth group died last night. Please keep them in your prayers and the loved ones of Kayla and her family.
Pray for a refreshing sleep each night and that when we wake in the morning we will feel revived and ready to go!
We love and appreciate you all! Grace and peace be with you.
Dearest friends, family, and fellow believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Messiah,
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Things are going very well down here in Louisianna, the Lord has unified our team in such and awesome way. The participants got here Sunday and after a week of training it was time for our wonderful project leaders to put into practice all they had been learning and studying. Today is Wednesday and so far they have done great!
The first group is relatively smaller than the groups we will be having for the rest of the summer, thus all 11 project leaders haven't been needed leaving 2 project managers per 1 project leader(and 1 project leader with 1 projet manager) per youth group. They have been working so diligently these past 3 days , and although I think next week will be different when they are leading on their own, I think they are more than ready for it.
Some immediate prayer requests we have for now are:
Gabbi had a family tragedy and her father passed away very recently, she's not with her family back home and we need to be praying for all of them.
Eli got engaged right before he came here to New Orleans, and from what I've heard Beth and he are soul mates, but he requests that we continue to pray for both of them to grow closer to God over the summer away from each other and that they will be solely dependent on Him.
Jeremy stepped on some nails while working on a house today and needs a tetanus shot and I'm sure he's in a lot of pain.
Please pray, also, that we will have strength to lead, physically, emotional, spiritually, and that we will hear from God each day. May God bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you and give you peace.
