Showing posts with label Fuge Camp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fuge Camp. Show all posts

Friday, July 10, 2009

The Thursday Experience

As I write this, it's our last day in Canada. I can say with all honesty, we are sad to leave. The people of Kingston have been great, and while they are far from Christ, they are kind and welcoming. I have another guest blogger with me today, Jordan. You may ask where the girls are at, and well, they never seem to make it to breakfast since they bought a box of Lucky Charms for their rooms.

Here to tell you about yesterday and whats been going on, is Jordan Atnip:

Hello all. First of all, I want to thank you all for your prayers. I know that you all are praying and it's helping us get through. This entire trip has already been a blessing. I am in the social group. From our church, Mr. Jim, Mrs. Lynda, and Andrew are with me. The past couple days we have been working at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We've all had different jobs to do there, some giving more opportunities to witness than others. We're all getting to do God's work, and He is blessing our souls for it. We had a large free time yesterday, so we went to a Tex Mex restaurant. We celebrated Bradley's birthday with our whole church group, plus our church group devotional leader, Dennis. Dennis has been more than a blessing and treats us like he's known us his whole life. He's barely older than me and he has already done incredible things for God. Keep us all in prayer. I look forward to seeing my home church soon.

Love,

Jordan

Canadian Tex Mex? That's right! I'm still amused by it all. They were all highly excited to find out we were from Tennessee. We had an extended free time yesterday, and hang out in Downtown Kingston. Luckily there was a Street Performer Festival downtown. The streets were blocked off, and we saw juggling fire, guys on Pogo sticks, etc. It was rather cool. We all wore our camp shirts, which allowed us to have quite a few conversations with people. We explained we were missionaries from the states, and it was just another chance to tell people about Christ. We had another great time of worship in church group, and took up an offering for Missions. The neat thing is, part of the offering we took is going to Canada, right here, to where we are working, in Kingston. The other part is going to work with the Roma, who I had I chance to work with last year in Romania.

Pray for us today. I challenged our group to look for every moment that God presents to them today. Moments to share their faith, moments to encourage, moment to hear the still small voice of God. This is our last day, and my prayer is we give every ounce of energy and passion to let all these great people know about the name that is above every name, and that is our Lord Jesus.

I know God is going to bless us and is going to work through us. We are praying for you church, and we know you are praying for us.

-Brett

Thursday, July 9, 2009

A Mega Type Day

It's Thursday morning and we are moving slightly slower then normal. God is still moving and changing hearts here. I thought for a treat for the folks back home, I would allow someone else to take a turn at blogging. There were no volunteers... but then Bradley spoke up and here we are at breakfast ready to tell you about our day. So without further ado, I give you Bradley:

Hello everyone, i'll tell you a little about our week in Canada so far. Brett, Jessica, and me are in the pcy group. We are working on the Kingston FBC, painting and fixing anything along the way. Our group leader is a guy named Dennis, who has become part of our church family here. It's just amazing the way God has worked through all of us this week so far. I just want to thank evryone that made our trip possible and we will see you soon.

Thank you Bradley! Dennis has become part of our family, he comes to our Church group devotion time, eats supper with us, and will be hanging out with us tonight during our extended free time. We will be celebrating Bradley's birthday (even though it is technically tomorrow). We will be going to downtown Kingston, getting some good food, and enjoying the local sights. Which the lake is simply beautiful.

Mega relay was yesterday, and war paint was applied to all. Jim had so much that it was running down his by the end of Mega. Shay and Vic's group brought home the Fuge Cup. We were quite proud, and extremely jealous.

We are loving our time here. I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say the time we spend together has been such a great bonding exprience. Our times of worship, pray, and playing games has been some of my favorite times.

You might doubt it, but some of the conversations we are having make me so very proud. We talk about spiritual things, we talk about what God is doing in us. We talk about how what God showed us in our quiet times. We talk about the people we want to pray for here and back home. Not during our church group times, but just hanging out at the dinner table, or as we walk to worship, or while driving to Wal-Mart (yes there are Wal-Marts in Canada). The depth of these students devotion and love of God is such a blessing to me.

We prayed for all of you last night, hope that each of you are running after God, and looking for those moments to serve Him throughout your day.

-Brett (with Bradley)

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

A Good Night

It's morning again, and...we are not morning people. Yet we are up and getting ready for Bible Study at 8am. At 9:15am we have our morning celebration, where we get hyped up and ready to go out and serve.

Here is the varying tracks and groups our crew is part of:

Social Track: Lynda, Jim, Andrew, Jordan
Yesterday this group went to a local food bank. With their track group they managed to box up 18,000 pounds of food for the hungry and in need!

Children Track: Kendra and Lauren
This group is going to the same location all week, the first night they planned out a VBS and are now taking children through the program. Our heart breaks as most of these children have no clue who Jesus is.

Games and Rec Track: Shay and Vic
Somehow Shay has managed to get placed in a track where she can help kids with golf!?! This group is putting on a 'sports camp' for area children. They are using a major draw (sports) to let others know about our Lord.

PCY: Jess, Bradley, and Brett
We three have had the joy of working in downtown Kingston at First Baptist Kingston. The church is beautiful and cathedral like. Yet the church has shrunk to 70 members. We are prayer walking, and repainting just about everything: windows, floors, steps, and doors. Pray for the pastor Kevin, as he attempts to reach the people of Kingston.


We had an amazing night during church group devotion as we lifted each other up in prayer. As I'm typing this it seems to be time for bible study, we love you all, and are so grateful for each of you.

-Brett

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Heart for the North

Hello church friends and family,

we will be updating the church blog with all kinds of information and news about all that is going on while we are in Canada. Here is what has happened so far:

After our slow start, we made good time, and spent the night in Carlisle, PA. The following day we made it to St. Lawrence College by 2:30ish PM. The campus is nice, and within five minutes walk is Lake Ontario. The view simply breathtaking.

While the camp is small, the staff is wonderful and encouraging. It was initially not to have a band leading worship, or a band as we know it. Our worship is led by Larri (who is female by the way) on keyboards and Christina on violin! Sounds strange but the Lord uses it to bless us as we seek to bless him and praise His name.

The youth (and adults) are all having a great time. Our track groups are full of wonderful people, and we all went to site today. I'll be posting more information about the various youth and their escapades.

But I'll leave you with this thought. We are here, far to the north, to see God move in a land that has seemingly forgot Him. In all of Canada the number of evangelical churches has been shrinking. There are around 279 evangelical churches here (Tennessee alone has over 3,300). The youth and college have no clue who God is. The fastest growing religion here is Wicca. Our hearts break for these people. We pray that God will use us in amazing ways to reach these wonderful people, that Christ would be visible in our actions, attitudes, and words. Join with us in praying for Canada, and for the missionaries that God is calling here, for their task is great. But we serve an even greater God, and with God all things are possible.

I'll be attempting to update the blog each morning about the previous day and all the wonderful things God has done.

-Brett