Greetings from New Orleans! 

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.