Women’s Time

Wednesday nights were always one of the highpoints of the week for me since we got to get together with all the girls, and just be women, and see how God values us as a unique part of His creation, and how we can serve him! We would all go to a room that looked like a big living room, and sink into huge comfy couches, and get to hear the Word from amazing women.

Ali Enos, our Assistant Project Director, lead women's time for us. We started each week with a fun icebreaker, and then we had story time.

Now that may sound a little strange for 25 college women, but it was so neat! Ali had the book, The Jesus Storybook Bible, and each week she picked a different story to read to the girls. Actually the Jesus Storybook Bible itself is amazing, even though it is written for children (obviously!), we all loved it! We had great discussion after each story and it was cool to see hearts being changed by something as simple as a children's story from the Bible. The really cool thing about this particular kids Bible is that every single story the author points to  Jesus, and that every story in the Bible is part of God’s plan for saving us by sending Jesus! Before we even went home from project most of the girls had ordered it for themselves, and I actually have a copy sitting on my nightstand! Now I know you want to order one too! But I digress…

After story time one of the staff women would share with us from the Word. The topics ranged from seeing that no one is perfect, but that God has redeemed us all, dealing with unmet longings, facing our fears, committing to purity, understanding God’s definition of beauty,and learning to be content. It was especially neat for the girls to get to hear from these particular staff women because these were the mom’s with kids, and they did not get to participate as much in all the rest of the activities we had. It was so cool to see the girls really responding to them, and to God’s truth they brought! Here is a fun picture of all the staff women, and in it are the mom’s who talked too!!

It was so much fun to get to spend some great quality time being women! It makes me want to go hang out with great Godly women right now!

Everyday life in Branson

Our time in Branson was great, and we've shared a lot, and still have much more to come. I've shared with a lot of friends about some of the things that we've done, but the question still come up about what we actually did everyday. So hopefully this helps.

One thing I love about my job with Crusade is that everyday looks a little different, and that was no different on project.

-Monday would start with a staff meeting that would last until lunch. In this meeting we'd discuss classified project issues, events, and share info with each other from the particular area you were leading in. Then we'd have a devotional lead by one of the most wise, and the most experienced staff persons in our region named David English. This man is a gold mine of spiritual wisdom, and Autumn and I loved being around him and his wife this summer. We would then finish up our time in prayer

After a break for lunch, we spend the next few hours gathering materials, and planning for whatever random stuff was going on, and as the students got off work, we'd begin to meet with them for discipleship.

Monday nights were tons of fun, we had our weekly meeting, MNL (Monday Night Live) followed by hang out time at Steak and Shake. We are going to blame them for the growth in our waistlines...

-Tuesday mornings were great for Autumn and I. We had staff men's and women's time. It was a time where the older staff would pour into the younger staff, and I know that we both grew from this time.

After that we'd each lunch still broken up into our groups and continue our meetings, Then we had an hour to prepare for stuff later on in the week, and then begin meeting with students as they got off work.

Tuesday nights we spent with our Growth Teams, and we will tell you more about those in another post.

- Wednesday morning was a great time. We had a few hours before lunch set aside for our personal time with the Lord, growth and study time. Autumn and I would typically go to a fancy hotel that overlooks Table Rock Lake, and read scripture, pray, and hang out with each other for a while.

Then after lunch Autumn would meet with the married women, and our day would take off preparing for that evening, other stuff going on, and discipling students.

Wednesday night was mens and womens time for the students, which was one of my favorite times of the week.

- Thursday was also one of my favorite days. It was our day off! Though with so much stuff going on we still did a little work, met with a students or two, but overall it was our day to recharge. That evening was also and time of reflections for the students where they would go out to spend some alone time w/ the Lord.

- Friday was Adventure day! We will most definitely write a post all about our adventures on Friday.

- Saturday was busy busy busy. 2 growth teams had kitchen duty for the entire week and orientation was first thing Saturday morning. For everyone else, there wasn't any responsibilities until room cleaning at 10. Even though we were staying at a motel, it was basically like staying in an apartment. We didn't receive any cleaning services from the motel, so we spent an hour on Saturday morning to clean them up. Also, the dirtiest room after cleaning had to get up early the next Saturday morning and paint our picnic tables.

After that, each Servant Team that the students were on met and planned for a few hours for the upcoming weeks, and us as staff sat in on them.

Then starting at 1 we had outreach. It was an incredible time sharing our faith, and we'll write more on this later..

Saturday nights were fun social nights where the students could unwind and hang out as we did random stuff around Branson.

- Sundays were church days. We split our project up into 6 different groups, and they each went to and served at 6 different churches in the area for the entire summer. Our students participated by leading worship, sharing their testimonies, and by lending a helping hand to the local congregations. The rest of Sunday was a day off, i.e., time to plan and prepare for Monday and the upcoming week.

Summer Project Slideshow

Hey friends! I know we are still early in the process of sharing about our summer, but the students put together a great slide show of pictures from the summer if you want to watch it! And in case you are wondering, quite a few of our social events were themed, so that might explain some of the ridiculous outfits you are about to see!
Enjoy!!

Man soul to soul, and growth teams

As my lovely wife mentioned in her previous post, yes I don't like to take pictures. It's actually not out of a dislike of picture as much as it is not liking to stop and actually deal with taking them. So, there aren't picture of my growth teams soul to soul.
It's funny to me to see the differences of how mens and womens ministry works. I think each of Autumns girls was given around an hour to share thier sould to souls and then ask questions. A soul to soul is when you share your story with someone else, I don't mean testimony necessarily, I mean story, everything significant between "i was born" to "thats how i got here today". The girls love all that talking stuff, and really thrive and bond through sharing those stories. As for me and my group, we looked a little different. Most guys arent' exactly the chatty types so we capped each individual soul to soul share time at 25 minutes each, and then opened the door for the other guys to ask ANY questions they want to. We were done right around 3ish and girls went til 9ish
The share times, while shorter than womens share times, were amazing. My growth team shared things about thier life that they've only told one or two people before, and alot of things came out for the first time, as would be a trend for many students this summer. The main thing that I love about the soul to soul time, is that in a manner of less than a day, us 5 guys went from being new acquaintances, to being like a trusted brother. I think it works that way because God created us to live in community, and having 5 people sharing thier entire stories in one day just brings out how God intended us to live together.
That day of soul to souls set a standard of authenticity that we lived out each week in our growth team. We had growth team meeting every Tuesday night for a couple hours. It was my favorite time of the week. I took our group to a small park down by the Taneycomo River, and we'd sit on a picnic table, and talk about what God was teaching us, while the cold air blowing off the river cooled us off.
Each week would sould spent some time just sharing about what God is doing. Whether that be in each others life, through the students at work, or anything. Then we discuss the weekly topic out of our bible study called "Banners of Bonding". This was a study of how we relate to God in a relational way. We looked at things that needed more than a week to ponder; love, respect, holiness, unity, authority, and grace. We had such deep conversations, and I wish you could have been me for just one night to see these young men wrestle with these deep topics as thier hearts were molded to look more like Christs.
A typical night after growth teams usually involved either, wrestling another growth team in the swimming pool, ice cream from mcdonalds, or my guys plotting how they could get a girl to go out with them. My guys made this whole summer special for me, and as a result I feel like we've formed a deep lasting relationship.

Soul to Soul

Does the thought of bearing your life story to a group of complete strangers give you a little anxiety? Well, this summer that was exactly what we did in our small groups. But the heart behind Soul to Souls is not to cause anxiety, but to develop intimacy, create a trusting and open environment, and to really fast forward community.

Before Soul to Soul

Up until our day of Soul to Soul, we had the welcome-move in day, and a 1 day orientation. So really these students are strangers to each other and us! So early the 2nd morning into OLSP I took my girls out to a beautiful hotel, Chateau on the Lake, and we sat in a pavilion overlooking Tablerock lake. Then we began a day long journey of Soul to Souls. It looked like thins: each person got 20 minutes to share their life story. No one interrupts, and you get to share your story. Then the next 20 minutes the group asks questions about what the person shared in their story, or about anything else. The last 20 minutes, we pray together for the person who shared. Everything shared is 100% confidential, and I wont betray any confidence here, but know this day was incredibly significant.

I kicked off our time together by sharing my Soul to Soul, and one by one we each shared everything with each other. Everyone cried, for their story, and each others. People shared things they had never said out loud before. They shared things their families don’t know, they never told their best friend, and things they have tried hard to forget. It was difficult to open up, to be that transparent and vulnerable, but I cannot even begin to tell you how the Lord tore down barriers and dispelled fears that we could be rejected by others. God helped us to see that every single one of us is a broken mess, but fully loved and accepted by the Lord and because we placed our faith in Him, we have a eternal bond as brothers and sisters in Christ.

This was a catalyst for community and growth. We went from being strangers, who felt a lit uncomfortable around each other, to sisters who loved spending time together!

After our Soul to Soul, and our little spot for the day, (can you see the pretty lake in the background?)

After we all finished sharing (with a quick lunch break in between), it was time for dinner! We all went out together, and afterwards were having so much fun together we browsed the shops, and even went out for ice cream!

When my girls and I got back to the Honey, we wanted to mark our bond together. One of the girls brought “burn-on” bracelets that you cut a length, melt the ends and melt them together for a permanent bond. Like the bracelets, each of us had to be melted, heated by fire to come out stronger, and we were bonded together in Christ, and also in trusting each other with the FULL story of who we are, not just the pretty things. Our bracelets now remind us of everything we share, and remind us to pray for each other!

And every small group did their own Soul to Soul, and this will be a running trend in pretty much all future posts, I don’t have pictures of Vince with his guys, and he doesn’t like to take pictures, so you will have to take my word on it that he had a great experience with Soul to Soul too!

Thanks, blessings to you too!!

OLSP video!

Click to check out a video made by Ali with a slideshow of pictures from Branson!

Let me know if you can't watch it and I'll see what I can do!

Thanks!

Glimpse into the Honey

Wonder what it looked like where we actually lived?

This is where we lived!!

We are SO blessed to have a great partnership with a local hotel in Branson, and they welcome us to take over half their hotel for the summer! Every summer we take everything out of the hotels rooms, and put our own summer project housing furniture in! This was our home sweet home away from home for the summer!

 

And how did 96 people eat dinner together every night? This is how! We had a great big area of covered picnic tables set up, and awesome cooks who prepared great (and healthy!! yay!) meals for us! And in case you were wondering if it is cool in Missouri in the summer. The answer is no. Around 97-100 degrees for our eating pleasure! But really, it was great! A gigantic Thanksgiving stlye family meal every night! We loved it! 

What I really wish I had a picture to show you is of the students rooms! There were a 2 sets of bunk beds in each student “suite” and for the guys, it was a tight fit. For the girls, it was an explosion of clothes, shoes, makeup, and towels drying. But it had a way of working out for the best, and the roommates ended up super close because of it!

Hope it helps to give you a mental picture to work with as we share more about what the Lord did this summer!

-Autumn