Life Changing

After a awesome night of Vacation Bible School, I am reminded of of two things: 1.) That the love of Jesus covers all, despite social, economic, racial background. Second, 2.) That most of these kids have had a hard childhood, more than I can imagine and have ever experienced.

I recently made the decision to join the church that I had been going to for the past year off and on in the fall semester and then the Lord laid it on my heart to commit to going to Immanuel Baptist after returning from a trip up to New York for Spring Break. After commiting to IBC, I have since been discipled by the Pastor of the church, meeting with him every tuesday. It has been an awesome part of my week, meeting with him and the other college guys that go to our church. This past summer we dived in to the smaller new testament books. It has overall been an awesome experience, and I'm thankful to have been led to such an awesome body of believers.

Since joining, I have been involved in 2 comminity events that have happened over the course of two weeks. National Night out was a huge success. We orgainzed the event to invite the community that lived around our church to a night out to get to know each other and for their kids to play together. I got stuck doing face painting. It was actually fun. Here's some of the pics of that:

Elizabeth- a artist in the making

Bugs Bunny

Flower.

Me and Kristin after painting.

This past week me and Vincent have been able to volunteer at VBS. This has been a special time for me and him to say the least. We ride the van with our Pastor, Russ. We go down into the neighborhood and pick up the kids, we pick up kids of Florida St. and down in Pearleaf apartments also picking up kids down along the way. It has really made my week reaching out to them, and being able to invest my time and efforts into those kids. Be praying for these kids as they continue to learn just who Jesus is and what He means to them. Pray for unity in Pearleaf, with the kids and families. Pray for Elijah and Ozzy, two kids who live in Pearleaf, they both have trouble situations going on and all they need is for someone to love on them and tell them that what they are doing is right. Pray these kids follow their dreams like Elizabeth and get away from that atmosphere and make something of themselves. Most of these kids have been told that they will not do anything with their lives and are just going to get in with the wrong crowd, instead of following their dreams like they want. Help them to know that Jesus loves them.