mission to Milo

This past week a group of high school sophomores came from East Liverpool Christian School to do "Mission to Milo". There were 3 girls, 6 boys, and 2 chaperone's. They learned about inner city ministry and did some service projects. Here we are. RXN Monday night we all split up in groups after Aaron taught a lesson.

Aaron with his "sons": Aaron Berry( the tall one), Jonathan, and another Aaron.

Tuesday night Emily made some delicious Chadean stew and rice. We ate in the traditional Chadean manner on the floor with a common plate. The girls served the guys. Us girls first brought around warm water, soap, and a towel for the guys to wash their hands. Then we gave them their platter. The dish was very delicious. Everyone liked it.

Girls table. Great fellowship.

Each day with the kids was full and dynamic. They arrived Monday and left Thursday. I actually rode back with them and am spending this week with Aaron's parents doing an intensive study on John Bunyan's book " The Pilgrim's Progress". On Monday, we had a cook-out before RXN. I know the boys had fun playing basketball. On Tuesday, we went to Victory Mission. It is a food pantry, clothing closet, and has chapel and free counseling. The guys mainly helped with the food aspects and the girls the clothing aspects. One other girl and myself got to help with the people that came. There was a blind lady that I got to help pick out clothes. That evening Aaron and Emily gave a tour of Columbus. Then they dropped us off in two groups in downtown Columbus and we were to find our way home using the bus system. Also, we were to talk to people and show an act of kindness. When we got back we were to have a person's name and a story... I talked to a boy at the bus stop. He actually knew Emily and Aaron. I guess he'd played ball with them. On the bus, one guy from my team and I talked another young man. We were all new to the bus deal ... When we got off at our stop at 2nd. The bus driver got off and asked if we knew where we were going. He was genuinely concerned about us. He said, Don't you talk to people and say you're not from round here"... I guess it's not to common to see a group of white folks getting off in the worst part of town. (I don't feel in danger here though). Wednesday, we picked up garbage and prayer walked in the 'hood. Wednesday night was Young Disciples. Thursday, we got packed up to leave... That's a short version of last weeks going ons.

City walk and houseleader meeting

Paula and myself taking a walk in the city.( A little different from the back country roads ...)

O.K. Now this picture is for the benefit for my good old country friends. This is what you may see on a walk in my parts. This is how it is - our house then alley then a big ugly cement building then a street then the (name slips me -those people that come a pick up your trash) Then this ... It never ceases to amaze me to be walking on a road and to have a highway and train track under me and other bridge roads and downtown in the distance. I told Emily I've gotta take a picture of this!

Aaron and Emily speaking at the RTNI houseleader info. meeting last Saturday.

Guest speaker, James Brown. He's got 16 years of experience with urban ministry and community development. Also, a leader from among his own people.

Last Saturday was the Houseleader info. meeting for RTNI. It was here at the Starrs. We had a few out of town guests and some from Columbus came. Aaron and Emily have a vision to plant more RXN homes in urban/inner city communities. A RXN home is basically like theirs actually theirs is the prototype. So in the next few years we hope to see more ministry houses planted in our cities! It was awesome to hear Mr. James speak. He was a man who was once a drug addict and in jail. Then God rocked his world. A man helped train him in ministry and eventually left him to lead. This is a good thing. Our urban communities have become a oppressed people.(Especially, our black urban.) Many of the best-trained minds, leaders, good examples, have "exodus ed" the inner city - leaving a leadership vacuum. The key to helping people get out of a poverty mentality is developing leaders.Indigenous leaders. Any oppressed people must believe that they can "drink from their own wells".And lead themselves. This is no small commitment in developing leaders.It takes a long term commitment of living amongst the people, modeling a healthy lifestyle. It's a "Incarnational ministry" has John Perkins deemed it. Jesus. How did he love? Did He commute back and forth from heaven? No. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory"(John1:14) Jesus came to the earth and gave/showed us the way to new Life. So also, the most effective messenger of the gospel to the lost is him who lives among the people God has called him to minister. I am kinda hits all over the dart board here. Does it make any sense? One last thing, we can see that government and welfare programs have not worked. They simply perpetuate themselves. One example is the "Aid to Families with Dependent Children program" (something like that). It attempts to stabilize a mother without a father in the house. It assumes no family is in place and give no incentive for leaving the program. Getting this benefit has aloud single parent homes to become the norm... The world has tried its ways ... Simply, it does not work. But the church has the answer in Christ. The Church needs to rise up and give more than charity, which can be given at a distance. It needs to reach and touch "the leper" ... It needs to reach and feel the pain of the poor being willing to offer ourselves (changing the person for we are the church) bringing hope, dignity, transformation, and rest to the people. "Rise up Church with broken wings fill this place with songs again to our God who reigns on high by His grace again we'll fly. Shout to the North and the south sing to the east and the west Jesus is savior to All HE IS LORD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH."Some of you might know this song.

Random

Aaron and Emily Starr ( He doesn't seem to mind)

Emily and Little Bear

Trinity playing twister

Ivon and Trinity on the Drums. How much noise can we make?

Play me a tune... on the guitar without strings.

It's about time I write about what's been the going on around these parts ... I've been here for about a month and a half now. It's hard to believe it's already the middle of March. The feeling of spring is felt in the air. The park across the road is teaming with more life. There seems to be children out there everyday now - Big boys playing ball and little ones swinging. When walking in the 'hood, we see people out on there porches now ... We even opened the windows one day. Even, the shoots of Emmy's flowers are poking out there heads.

What is the School of Servanthood like? I hear the questions. It's like playing parcheesi with a neighbor girl; it's smelling like cigerette smoke; it's playing ball in the court with kids; it's swinging with them and given under-dog pushes; it's giving a hug; it's studying too. Most of the "study" part of my internship is reading books and writing papers. As of now, I'm reading, "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster and "Compassion,Justice, and the Christain Life:rethinking ministry to the poor" by Robert Lupton. I've been learning quiet a bit about urban ministry, community development ... and charactar development. It's a good thing. The hands on part of the internship is stuff like: RXN on Monday nights ( Youth group for ages 12-18), Young Disciples, playing with the kids who stop by, Thursday nights helping another lady with her bible study for kids in a different neighborhood ...All of my being here is "learning". An important thing I remember that Emmy told me is: I am here to learn from God and serve Him. So whatever I'm doing and through whoever I'm with to be open to learn what God may teach me through them or that situation. And whenever I serve to be doing it for Jesus.Sometimes people won't appricate or notice what you do for them and that could let you down but if you're doing it for Him you won't have that let down. Because of your motive. I'm having trouble knowing what else to write...hum. I know. A few people have asked what the most challenging things has been thus far.

1. Understanding the youth and trying to communicate with them. A lot of times I don't really understand what the teens are talking about. It's not because they mummble it's just because they have a differnet set of vocabulary per say. And sometimes it's hard to know how to initate a conversation. God's teaching me though. I do ask for your prayers in that line... I'm learning all sorts of new stuff from them. Example two boys came to RXN with "fronts". For your knowlege, they are teeth jewerly for men. To me it looks like tin retainers.It's a statius thing for some people. Anyhow I was prying them is it a retainer? Did the dentist give it to you? Orthodonist? Did you make them out of tin foil? ...

2. scheduling. Another challange for me. But I'm to tired keep writing.

I will leave on this note though. I am very grateful to God to be here. I have peace in my heart and soul. " Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion which cannot be moved but abides forever" Pslam 125:1 I challenge you to be trust the Lord in all things for in Him you will be like Mount Zion!!!

Guess what I'm going to Haiti May 22nd - Aug. 13th. I've applied for my passport ... Now all I have to do is learn how to swallow pills :) No actually, there is more preparation then that. ( Swallowing pills I refer to the Malaria and/or garlic pills ).

Happy Birthday Aaron!!

Aaron with Joshea. She just made him this "Happy Birthday" card.

We're playing "signs". It's a really cool group game. (I'm sitting behind the guy in the middle so you cannot see me :)

Joshea and I were playing connect-four

Emily playing Manacala with Mrs. LajeanaMs. Joetta playing Manacala with Willie.

Aaron and Joshua playing chess.


Emily and I had a "surprise" birthday party for Aaron. It was a surprise not so surprise because 1. Emmy has a surprise party every year for him and 2. the night before we ended up telling him about it. It was real fun . At first we were all playing different games and then some of the Starrs boys came over and we played group games. More later.

Nija and cupcakes

Nija and Anna

Nija , Shanique , and Anna

Emily and Shanique mixing up cupcakes

Nija melting chocalateHere sister try the chocolate. It is good!

Here are a few pictures of making cupcakes with Nija and Shanique for Nija's birthday.

Young Disicples

girls painting

Unique

Forget how to spell her name?

More, Girls painting

Nija building with blocks

Emily helping Trinity put together a Bible verse at Young Disciples

Brianna on the other side putting the same verse together - it's a race.

Young Disciples is one of my favorite parts of being here. Young Disciples is a Bible Study for children ages 6-12 from kids from here in the 'hood.

Last week , twelve kids came. I'm not talking about 12 "homeschool " kids but 12 hurting, needing attention kids. This last week I could see a clear connection between the kids behavior and home life. The ones with relativly "stable" homes vs. not at all.
Children are easy to reach out to because all they want to attention. So they are easier to connect with but I'ld say that is generally true anywhere.

The last few weeks Emily has been teaching them about ways of praising God. So far they have learned about : lifting hands, shouting, kneeing, singing, instruments ... I love Emily's Kids. ( I noticed I have pictures of only girls - it makes it look like we only have girls come. But we do have boys to.)

Dare 2 Share

Here is the theme of the conference.
Jonathan practicing witnessing with Aaron.

Milton looking on.

Carica and myself (my "first" friend here)

6,000 teenagers and youth pastors

The first weekend here RXN went to this huge D2S conference. This conference was geared to encouraging youth to share their faith.The theme was "InVinsible" about putting on the full armor of God as written in Eph. 6 . About 6,000 attended ( youth and leaders) ... We had 13 tickets. The first night we had 1o teens come from RXN. The next day on 3 came. The kids around here just go with whatever is going on at the time , never mind the planning ahead. Emily didn't know how many were coming until she went to pick-up kids ...2 of the 3 that did come the second day were ones that did have to plan because they were spending the night. I learned a lot about the kids hanging out with them.

A lot of stuff at this conference was culture shock to me and wasn't something I would choose for myself. For instance, the music was so LOUD I couldn't even hear myself ; there was lights flashing all sorts of colors all over ; and what gets me the most was the head singer ( a man ) looked like a woman ... I think a man should look like a MAN and a women like a women. ( Well, I'm sure you agree too)

Anyhow, to look on the bright side, I did like how they made people get out of their "comfort zone" ... One time the speaker asked everyone that had a cell phone to lift it up. Lots of people did. Then on the spot everyone who could was asked to call a friend who wasn't a Christian and talk with them about God. The night before we had all thought of a person we would commit to sharing our faith with - that was the person we were supposed to call.

All the different group were also assigned to neighborhoods to collect cans for Salvation Army and most importantly witness. We kinda cheated and went to our own 'hood. It was a great opportunity to talk with and pray for the neighbors. Emily and Aaron were pleased with the opportunities we had.

Milo- Grogan

We have made it to Columbus. The first day or so there was kinda a snow/ice "storm?".We got about 12 inches of snow and a bunch of ice. Some of us went on a walk, as seen in the picture. Mama, Ethan, Daddy,Jonathan and Susanna

Hay there Jonathan. Kinda cold ride...hu?

Snow in the city

Playing catch-phrase. Here's the it-er trying to describe a phrase to...

...yelling guess-ers.

Milo-Grogan, here at last. I posted some pictures first of the beautiful snow up here. There isn't that much all the time but at least it's more than Kentucky. The second were a couple shots from last night's playing games. Emmy turned 26 yesterday. A few of "her" boys came over for supper and we played fun games.

Monday night was RXN ( youth bible study). Four kids came ... It was ... can't think of a good describing word. Here's how it goes. Play games - eat junk food. Then Daddy shared about wisdom . In talking about wisdom, he mentioned how cheating is wrong. For cheating is lying and lying a sin. Explaining to one boy that just didn't get how cheating was a sin. Later when asked to share what he(different boy) had learned 12 years old, Jonathan said, "I learned that lying is a sin" Emmy told us later that he wasn't joking. His only exposure to church has been Emmy and Aaron's. Which has been about the last 6 months or so. They hadn't gotten around to telling him that lying is a sin ... These kids don't know some stuff we would consider basic knowledge. Aaron shared that they had one girl here that thought God was dead. "God's dead. Right? I thought He died on the cross.?" Then they could share "NO, He's Alive and will be forevermore." But how can they know unless someone teaches them?

I love the kids around here ... and the Starrs.

Just a country girl

Just a country girl - that's exactly what I am. What's this country girl doing ? Planning to do ? Moving to the city for 5 months that's what she's doing ... Well kinda. God has opened up an incredible opportunity for me. Our friends Aaron and Emily Starr are starting a missionary training school, The School of Servanthood. They invited me and another girl to be the first interns for this school. I have accepted this invitation. Aaron and Emily live in Columbus, Ohio inner-city. They have a ministry (http://www.reachingthenationsinternational.org/ )reaching to the youth in their neighborhood, they have a couple Bible studies at their house, they're missionary by the way they live...Anyhow, as an Intern for SOS I will be living with Aaron and Emily for 5 months. During those 5 months I will receive ministry and leadership training and will gain hands-on experience with their ministry. I will hopefully also learn how to be a better servant. That's just the beginning, the next 3 months I will be interning in a forgein country. Most likely Haiti. They have connections with a ministry called Living Hope Haiti (http://www.livinghopehaiti.org/ ) I'm really not sure what these 3 months entail. Emily told me this is definitely an "open door" but God may have a different plan that He hasn't showed us yet. I figure I'll get excited about going to Haiti and if God has a different plan then - GOOD, because God knows best.

So when does this start? January 29th is our starting date. The potential travel date to leave for Haiti is July 4th . And I will return home around the end of September.

This upcoming year is going to be one marked with an growing in the Lord and learning stuff that I will remember the rest of my life. I am going to be facing many challenges. First the obvious one, Different cultures. I figure I'll be going through 4 cultures next year; 1. The Starr's home 2. right outside their door is another world 3. Haiti and 4. readjusting to Kentucky life . And many other challenges too. But I choose to embrace them knowing that underneath are The Almighty's hands leading me on. I feel I'm definitely leaving my comfort zone. Please I ask for your prayers.

You may wonder what my family thinks about this. My parents are very excited for me. They knew about this opportunity before I did.They prayed about it a week or two before they asked if I wanted to do it. Someone asked Mommy what she'd ever do without me . She said I've got other girls. Jonathan says he's going with me. Sveta says she's going to miss me a lot...I've got my family's blessing.

I'll end this post with a little thought I have written in a little pink book I write down cool stuff I read in: "We are the clay , He is the potter. Humans have a fascination with the future. For centuries we have consulted astrologers and other claiming to know our futures. We've written books and made movies based on the concept of time travel. We want to know what lies ahead of us on our journeys through life. Just as the clay cannot ask the potter what it will be, so we cannot ask our Maker what we will be. But we can trust that God will create something beautiful and holy with our lives. We know by faith that we are the products of God's hands. In what ways do you need to trust that GOD, the Master Potter , is making you into a work of art? " Author unknown

Remember the only time is the present so embrace it