My Day Helping Out At The Shelter

Today I helped out at the homeless shelter. It was an amazing experience. When we firdt pulled up I was unsure because it was very intimidating. All these people were standing outside and just sitting there. When we got inside we went upstairs to watch a movie about how the shelter came to be. After that Kyla, Billy, and J.Z. went out to work in the blanket shed since they had been there the day before and knew the routine and they had already seen the tour of the building. So one of the girls in charge Emily took us on a tour of the building and told us about the programs they offered. It as amazing how they helped people get off their feet and get control of thier lives. After the tour the rest of us went out to help out in the blanket shed which is just a huge shed that holds all of the bedding for the shelter. We had to organize it and get it back under control. Let me tell you it's harder then it sounds. When we first got out there and saw the shed it was so overwhelming. We worked on that for the rest of the moring. It got so HOT out there. About 45 min. before lunch we cleaned up and started a craft inside. The craft we did was we made flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners with a hershey kiss middle for all of the people in the day room in the shelter. After that we had lunch. We were so tired after lunch that we just stayed inside and made more flowers and decorated envelopes for the men in the Odyssey program that were going on a retreat. After that we wrote encouraging notes to them. After that we listened to a guy named John that told us his story and how he was doing now. He was interupted by a lady working there saying we needed to go to the back hallway because there was a tornado warning. So we went down there and while we were down there this guy started singing This Little Light of Mine. It was amazing. He was a great singer. After that we went in the day room and played some games. After that we left and came back to the church. The whole day at the shelter was amazing. I can't wait to go back tomorrow.

God Bless,
Anna Miller

Perseverence....It Happens All the Time

Perseverence is a strong word. It means to hold on and stay strong no matter what, to keep going. Today I went to vacation bible school for a group of African refugees. These kids were so happy and excited to have fun but more importantly to learn about God and his son, Jesus Christ. A "Lost Boy" came to VBS and explained what being a "Lost Boy" meant. His name is David Dau. He told us how there was a huge war in Sudan and it forced the children to just...run. In 1983, the "run" started. They ran for a total of 9 years and it was not just an everyonce and a while jog, it was every day. They needed to hold on just that much longer. These boys had and absolutely had to love each other and pick each other up. He told us about how tough the road was. These boys parents were mostly slaughtered and just taken away from the kids. Children were literally falling by the second at some times. When the group came to a river or even on land, they were eaten and torn apart by alligators and lions. David told us about hope and perseverence. He said hope is so so so needed to live. He explained that when you lost hope, you just gave up died. In this way he was conveying to us that without perseverence none of them would live. A lot of people were wondering...what about the girls? David answered that question and told us there was also a "Lost Girls". He did not go through with all the details but im sure it was just as bad or possibly worse. There are still people in refugee camps in Kenya that need to be taken to America or where ever they are headed to. So pretty much without perseverence and the support of each other, NO ONE would be able to endure.
-Ryan Crawford-

Love

During my experiences on this mission trip I have seen Love in many places. Whether it was from the hospitality of this church for letting us stay here to devotion before and after our mission work. Today I worked with the adults with special needs program. It was a great experience. Two of the people there are madly in Love and have been dating for almost three years. It was so cool to see how they interacted with each other. They always have a smile on their faces no matter what.
Josh Pennington

Love the Little Moments

Good morning to everyone -

This computer does not have a 'period' key - thus the reason for the fragments

Today is the second day of our work sites

Our theme word for today is "love" from our phrase, "My theme song is God's love and justice and I'm singing it back to you God"

Today our challenge is to love the little moments - but given our experience yesterday, that will not be hard

Some little moments we loved yesterday were:

Meeting refugees from Rwanda, Sudan and Somalia Seeing their joy Their spirit of forgiveness and God's grace was a blessing to all

The beauty of Nashville - magnolias, oleander, mimosa trees

Seeing two of our FriendsLife friends - Molly and Brian - and their love for each other Brian is a hugger and encouraged us all

Meeting Alan, from the Campus for Human Development, who is seven months into his recovery process He was an engineer with a master's degree who fell into the cycle of addiction He was so honest with us

Greeting Nick George who has biked through a couple of states already

Welcoming Pam McNeely and Carly - as Carly moves to Nashville

Having Henry Reed work along with us

Seeing a group of young college grads who had the vision for FriendsLife while serving at YoungLife Capernaum which is a summer camp for kids with disabilities

Those are some of the little moments!

Tonight we are looking forward to an 'entertainment' night - The Country Music Awards, here in Nashville, will be one ve

nue The other will be 'Walk the Line' - the story of Johnny Cash - whose sister we met at the Cowboy Church

Tonight Mark Dobish and his girlfriend Julia will join us for dinner

Last night there were tornado warnings through TN - here in Nashville we were fine

Thanks for your prayers I should have ended every sentence with an exclamation mark (since no periods are available) because we are having an exclamation mark kind of week

peace, Lisa

Cowboys Gone Christian

{We're excited to note that Nick George has made a stop to Nashville and will join us for breakfast in the morning! Were also really grateful that Henry Reed has been helping us on our worksites} Nothing seemed better than starting off our Sunday morning in Nashville with a visit to the Cowboy Church. Starring there were a few well-known country stars including Johnny Cash's youngest sister! After the country-gospel music, the church we almost recognized from home started. It was the kind of environment where "Amen" and "Hallelujah" were a natural shout from the crowd. Overall, the church was something different for all of us and hopefully something none of us will forget.


Posted By: Sarah Arena

Cowboy Church

This morning we went to church, which is probably expected on a mission trip but it was a Cowboy Church. Joanne Cash (Johnny Cash's sister) was the founder. What I liked about it was as the Pastor said there were so many denominations there but we managed to not fight.It was cool because we worshiped in a way which was different than normal but we learned that as long as you are worshiping it does not matter.

dinner

tonight i had dinner with William a man who works with refuges from Burundy a country in africa and he told stories of some of the people he helped and of their lifes in refugee camps and also how they got here to Nashville. one thing that i thought was amazing was that a family of 5 in a refugee camp would usually only get 1 gallon of water for a day witch just boggles my mind, i cant even think how many i use a day. he told many amazing stories.
with peace owen sherwod

Morning With Steve Siler

This morning a man came and talked to SHYG. We weren't exactly expecting him to be so inspiring. He told us all of his feelings towards life and what things the church doesn't seem to mention. He was very confident in himelf, and had no humility. He left the pop music industry from L.A to pursue the path God wanted him to travel. That path led him to Nashville, TN. When he arrived in Nashville he was expecting to wait at least 3 years before anyone would take an interview with him. He was surprised when there was a big banner that said " We're All In This Together Month." The first interview he was in led him to join their music industry. For years he worked on more of the Christian side of music. One day he played at an event for women that had been sexually abused. The song he performed was "Innocent Child." Throughout his performance he felt the emotion from the women in the room, and tried hard to get through the song. When the song was over he weaped and broke down, which was the only time he broke down in public. After that happened he told us that all of the women lined up to give him hugs. One particular woman said to him, " My mother always told me that I was an innocent child, but I never believed that until I heard you sing that song." He knew that the woman had told him that for a reason, but he didn't know what that reason was yet. From there he came up with the idea to send packages of music about the suxually abused to churches, but his company said he couldn't do that because the churches wouldn't be interested. He quit his job and came up with a ministry " Music for the Soul. " He was at a song writing seminar and had a table there selling his CD's. A 65 year old woman came up to him and asked for one of everything. She called him and asked him what his next project was. He was making a music video for a song he had written, but he didn't have the money to proceed. The woman said okay I will donate $20,000 and they faxed it back and forth to see if someone could match her offer. Forty-eight hours later someone matched her offer and she said, " Oh that's nothing I will give you $10,000 more." Within 48 hours they gathered $50,000. Now he is working and writing songs that continue to inpire many people. We can definitley say he left an impression in all of our lives to go to God for help, because he will lead us on our path to his righteousness.
God Bless,
Anna Miller & Allie Green.

Music for the Soul

To check out Steve's ministry go to: www.musicforthesoul.org

Steve Siler

So, this morning as part of our mission trip, we were scheduled to have a "song writing workshop." I wasn't nescessarily thrilled with this idea at first. I've never really had the desire to write my own lyrics to a song and I could only think of two or three memebers of our group who I thought would be really interested in such an activity and you know how it is if no one wants to be there. There's a lot of staring and everything is long, painful and awkward.
This morning ended up being entirely different than I expected, however. We had a chance to listen to Steve Siler, whose life is, I believe, a true example of God at work in the world, tell us about his journey as a Christian and his standards for himself and his faith or, as he called it, his personal "mission statement."
Mr. Siler helped found and works with a nonprofit Christian music organization called Music for the Soul, which uses music (the most effective way to portray any type of information to people) to tell people about the topics that "the church doesn't want to talk about."
He'd been on quite a soul searching journey before he settled down to work with this organization and it seems that ever since, his life has been a constant stream of one miracle after another. In his own words, as he was sharing a story, he said, "here's another miracle - I've got tons."
As he was talking, he told us about receiving $40,000 in a period of two days from two people he didn't even know, all to put out a Christian music video; he told us about a boy in one of his song-writing workshops who happend to have the exact song he had been trying to write and about girls who had bonded together while conquering issues such as eating disorders who had bonded together over his song "Circle of Friends."
By the end of the morning, I had a much brighter outlook on the day and I had taken so much away from what Steve Siler had said and, finally, I'll be brief: I encourage everyone to learn more about Mr. Siler, a truly inspiring person and also to do their best to give their life entirely up to God. Steve Siler is living proof that God works has a specific purpose for you on earth and does his work through you and that if you can manage to give your life to him and his message, it will be more full and more fantastic than you could ever imagine otherwise.

Twiggie the Jet Skiing Squirrel

Today we went to the Nashville Shores Waterpark. We left the church at about 11:00 AM and got there at about 11:30. The Park was pretty cool because it was on a lake and there was a lagoon and a beach to hang out on. There wasn't a lot of water slides but the ones they had were awesome. However the coolest and most memorable part of the day for me was getting to see Twiggie the Jet Skiing Squirrel show off in her own personal pool. Alot of us already knew Twiggie because of the many movies such as Dodgeball and commercials and shows she has been in. Lisa and myself took a pictures of Twigge and we will post them later but if you simply have to see Twigge in action just look here up on youtube.
-Posted By Morgan L

Let's Begin

First of all, this title is a bit misleading. Yes, we are in Nashville. Yes, it is day one. Time to work? Well, not quite yet. Let's go over what has happened so far.

Yesterday, our trip began with our van motorcade from New Wilmington. Goodbyes were said, hugs were initiated, and our trip was off to its slow start. From what I hear, my van must have been the quiet one, for at the first rest stop I heard nothing but stories of funny sunglasses, epic card games, and heated debates from our other friends. My van? Besides our periodic naps, we quite enjoyed dreaming of attending cave world, petting the creatures at Dinosaur world, and of course making friends with all of the Pens fans on the road (they won, you know).

Anyway, around 10 hours later, we arrived in Nashville. I havn't seen much of the city yet, but from what I have gathered it is pretty nice. There are no skyscrapers here, but no shortage of cars and smaller buildings either. Our church? One of the nicest buildings I've ever been in. Everything about the place is perfect, from its lavish sanctuary to its fantastic multi-story youth center. The youth center is where we will be staying, and it is extremely nice. I write this blog from inside of its new and glowing cafe area, where we watched the Pens game from last night on a big screen TV. Besides a few cases of illness, most people slept through the night fairly well and a small group, including myself, woke up early to take a run through town. It was a calm, relaxing morning and it really woke me up, giving me a fresh perspective for the rest of the day.

What will today bring us? Everyone is now awake and walking around, leaving me time to write this blog before we head out. First we will be attending a songwriting workshop, and then comes our trip to the Nashville Shores Water Park, most likely for some waterslide baptisms or other mission work. To be honest, we will be having a little fun this weekend and beginning our true mission work next week. I hope everyone can use this tiome to get to know each other better, and really enjoy what life has to offer through fellowship, and lazy rivers. Either way, I hope everyone has a good time, and that I don't get burned too bad.

Peace out for now,
Tim Kaminske

Where We'll Be Serving in Nashville...

Thanks for praying for our team while we were are serving Nashville. We will be working with four ministries during our stay: The Barefoot Republic, The Center for African Leadership, FriendsLife and The Campus for Human Development. Their websites are listed below:

http://www.barefootrepublic.org/

http://www.africanleadership.org/

http://www.friendslife.org/

http://www.roomintheinn.org/

The Barefoot Republic is a faith-based summer camp, run out of treehouses, for inner city kids. The Center for African Leadership supports refugee families from Africa. We'll be running a soccer camp and a Vacation Bible School program. FriendsLife is a ministry that works with adults with disabilities. The Campus for Human Development works with the Room in the Inn program to serve Nashville's homeless population.

While we are in Nashville we'll be staying at Second Presbyterian Church.

http://www.secondpresbyterian.net/

Second Presbyterian exprienced a real tragedy about five years ago when their church burned down shortly after their newly called Senior Pastor arrived. What was tragic became blessing when the church was able to rebuild a church that had space for all of the ministries it hoped to provide. If you look at their website you can see how this church welcomes in groups like ours, welcomes in the homeless, works with young adults through the "Epiphany Project" to determine vocational callings, and much, much more. Our new member Katie Mohr is an affiliate member Second Presbyterian.