Summer Link India-Week 3

Our concept of time has officially been skewed. Myrtle Beach felt like last year, but it seemed like we were just getting settled into Indore. That being said, I’m writing this in Jaipur as we’re already on our midsummer excursion.

Monday was the last day at the hotel; when we go back to Indore we’ll be staying at the M’s houses. It was quite a scene transporting all of our luggage with rikshaws. Carly wasn’t feeling well all day, so she stayed in with Heath and Rachel (don’t worry, she bounced back the next day beautifully). The rest of us went to Rajwada with the main goal of riding an elephant; Nathan, Alecia, and Mary Emily were able to do so when they spotted one on their way back.

The 3-tier red-eye train to Jaipur from 10:30 Monday night til 8:30 Tuesday morning went well for some, not so much for others. Rachel, Rebekah, and I sang hymns, Nathan got stepped on by an Indian; Kelsey had the best night of sleep so far in India, Heath had one of the worst nights of his life, spending a large portion of it in the bathroom (AKA hole in the bottom of the train).

We got settled in on Tuesday to our hotel; went swimming and ate an expensive hotel lunch. Jenna arrived safely right as we were having our bible study on 2 Peter. All but Heath and Rebekah (also didn’t feel well, but just Tuesday afternoon) went to some markets. The pushy shopowners were frustrating, but some were able to buy art or textiles. Dinner was at a rooftop brick-oven Italian restaurant.

Heath still feeling bad and staying in on Wednesday. Busy, exhausting day. We went to City Palace; the guys were pretty awed by the weapons and the girls were able to have people draw some weird designs on their hands with bad-smelling brown liquid that leaves an orange residue for 10 days (henna tattoos). We took pictures in front of the water palace. Everyone was able to ride elephants, parading around a village with children running in our wake yelling hello. The group went to the restaurant Anokhi for lunch and the girls got some stuff at the adjoining store. Just as Heath started feeling better Wednesday night, Kelsey started feeling really sick with similar symptoms. She picked a better place to get sick, though; luxurious hotel sure beats an Indian train.

Please pr@y for continued intentional, missional living through the rest of the trip and after. Pr@y for health as well. 

Posted by Travis. 

Summer LINK Clemson: Week 8

Well, another week has come and gone here in Clemson. It seems surreal that we only have a handful of days left as members of CLINK. But, I digress…this week we had the opportunity to have our Equipping Night at the Freeman’s home on Lake Keowee. They were kind enough to open up their home for the entire afternoon for us to spend time out on the water. We swam, skied, kayaked, wakeboarded, and watched Carson do all kinds of crazy jumps into the water. Needless to say, we all enjoyed each other’s company, as usual. Hearing the Freeman’s testimony of faithfulness to go where the Lord calls them was extremely encouraging and an excellent reminder that the Lord has prosperous plans for all of us as we leave college and beyond.

This week was another week filled with birthdays as we celebrated Krystal’s with a party after CP group and BT Chub’s birthday the following day with trick candles and rocket balloons! We had an epic camping trip planned, akin to the characters in the Sandlot sleeping in the tree house, but unfortunately some nasty weather rolled in on Friday and we had to go to plan B, which was hanging out at the G LINK guys house and cooking all of the food we had already bought. Side note, we have been watching Lord of the Rings as a group and Brocktimus Prime was able to find some LOTR Pez dispensers! How wonderful! At the guys house we played cards (a common theme for our group), slack lined, tossed the football around, played corn hole, and of course looked up funny YouTube videos. It wasn’t camping but we were thankful for the time the Lord provided to bring us even closer together.

As others have mentioned before in their posts, it has been amazing to see the community and fellowship that has developed this summer. To see His hand work in all of our lives and bring us all together is truly amazing. We may be loud, crazy, and a whole lot of fun but we all are living for the Lord and seeking to glorify Him through our words, thoughts, and actions. Even hearing how other CLINKers have engaged in Gospel-centered conversations throughout this week and this summer has worked to spur the rest of us on towards fulfilling the Great Commission.

Praying for our brothers and sisters around the world as they too fulfill the Great Commission.

Emilyn

Summer LINK Boston: Week 3 update!

Like last week, we served at the community center and the Boys and Girls club. It’s been awesome to continue relationships made with the staff and kids and to have the opportunity to be constant in ministry to the city.

We also helped with a community event called Circle the Square. Our job was to help local artists unload cars and setup, be available for anything needed during the event, and make connections with the other volunteers helping out. 

Our group has been encouraged to see new people come to Redemption Hill this past Sunday that we have had conversations with during the week. The Lord is so faithful in bringing others closer to Him, and we’re thankful to be a part of it! We hope this will allow more people in the city of Medford to draw near to God by having a solid connection with a local church that has the purpose of proclaiming the one true gospel and seeing others come to Christ.

 Next week, we have Serve Medford, a week in which groups from 6 other churches will be coming to Medford to partner with Redemption Hill in serving the community.  The week will end with Community Fun Night, a night with free food, games, inflatables, face painting, and live entertainment.  Our team has been helping plan this night and we are really looking forward to it!

We definitely ask for your prayers as we plan for Community Fun Night. We want to be effective and prayerful as a team this next week while we gather all of the details and prepare for gospel centered conversations with the people in Medford.

We ended the week with a day trip to Maine!  It was a great day to get away and spend some time hanging out as a team. 

Posted by: Mary Beth Staggs

SummerLink Honduras: VBS at the Dump

Yesterday was our first day of VBS at the dump in La Ceiba.  We will be doing the VBS on Tuesday and Thursday, too while the Strawdermans are here.  The VBS lasted about an hour and a half or two hours.  We split into four different groups, each group with a different activity.  We had a story telling group, a game group, a craft group, and a snack/coloring group.  Each group started out with about 6 kids, and the kids would rotate groups every 20 or so minutes.

This was my group: story telling.  Becca read the story of Adam and Eve from the spanish storybook bible, and JC, Noah Strawderman, and I acted the story out.  Our first time through, the kids were very inattentive and tossed rocks into a nearby puddle the whole time.  With our next three groups, we made sure to have big movements and make silly faces to keep the kids' attention.  In each group there would be a couple people who didn't want to pay attention and would distract the group, but for the most part, I think they got the story.  These kids just aren't used to any form of organization, and they are definitely not used to being told what to do.

After reading the story, we taught them either one or two songs, according to how much time we had left.  The first song was "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart".  Of course it was in spanish, too.  We also taught them "Alelu- Alelu- Alelu- Aleluia".  They clapped along but didn't seem too into it while we were singing.  But apparently they really liked the songs, because when we rotated, they would be singing the songs to themselves in their next group.  We're definitely going to be singing those songs Tuesday and Thursday!

These pictures are from the games group.  All of the games were water games, which of course the kids love in the heat.  They played the game where you line up and pass a wet sponge over one person, under the next, ect.  They also played a game where they raced to see which team could fill up their bucket first by racing with small water cups (second picture).  According to some of the leaders in this group, the games could have gone better.  Like I said before, the kids are very misbehaved, and do not handle direction well.  I think the games were also very foreign to them.  They would really enjoy just playing a game of soccer or throwing the frisbee.  We will definitely be making some adjustments for Tuesday to make things less stressful for the game leaders.

This was our craft for the day.  The children would trace their hand on a piece of paper, and then glue pre-torn pieces of construction paper onto the paper, as fruits on a tree.  The leaders said the kids really enjoyed the craft, and got into their artwork.  Hopefully, this will help them remember what they learned.  If nothing else, it gets them to come, where they'll also hear the bible teaching.

The last group was snacks and coloring.  The Strawderman family made rice crispy treats to bring the kids for snacks.  To keep them busy for the twenty minutes, they also got to color.  For some reason, coloring is very exciting to them! They are always asking if they're going to be able to "pintar".

Overall, the VBS was very successful.  It was definitely difficult because the kids are so undisciplined that they are hard to control, but we expected that.  Nothing like a VBS has every been done there before.  Some of the kids don't even go to school.  While we were having the VBS, a truck came through with a load of trash in the back.  Several kids ran and jumped into the back of the truck to dig through the trash for things they could use.  This is their everyday life, scrounging off of other people's trash.  It was really sad to see.

On the bright side, we got some really good ideas for how we're going to do things differently for the rest of the week.  We're thinking we'll do big group story time, and then have them rotate through the rest of the groups.  That will allow all the other leaders to sit with the kids and keep them from being too disruptive during the story, because that's really the most important part.  During the three days, we're going through the fall of man, the cross, and then how to live.  I'm really excited just to be able to show these things to the kids, probably for the first time in their lives.  And it won't stop when we leave.  There is a missionary here that goes to the dump to play with the kids several times a week.  Pray for the Lord to work in these kids' lives.

Tonight, our group, the Strawdermans, the Pirkles, and a few other missionaries are going to a restaurant!  We gave them our order a few days ago, and they went out and caught the food fresh and will have it ready when we get there.  It's our group social for the week, and we're all looking forward to it!  Continue to pray for our team, and that God would provide opportunities for us to share His love, and the good news of His gospel.

Photo Credits: Elizabeth Pirkle
Written by: Kelsey Gallman

Summer LINK Clemson: Week 7

We went contra dancing again last night at River Falls. Ryan, Kystral, Jon and Savannah all came so we had the whole group together this time. It was a wonder how all of us made it the whole time. Half of us had a lock-in at the church with the youth and my b bro (birthday brother), Brock, managed to not sleep a lick Friday night. Also, this week was Emilyn’s birthday so we celebrated Wednesday night, followed up with some late night knockout in LJC.

We have been trying to focus a lot more on evangelism and living a life that naturally leans towards sharing the love we have found in Christ. Thursday we all went out around campus to the Hendrix Center, the Union, and the library. We would just go up and strike up conversations with people and attempt to share the gospel. We really tried to just to get to know people and hopefully make a contact to follow up with them rather than just preaching the gospel at them and leaving. It has been awesome in multiple ways even when we do get completely rejected sometimes. It has enabled us to grow in boldness in Christ, to learn how to just go up and strike up a gospel conversation with someone. It has also helped us to put words to the gospel, to be able to define and give words to your heart. Lastly, it has grown us together, especially the person you go paired with.

So we have been going through the Lord of the Rings trilogy together because there were a couple of C-linkers with a very deprived life up to this point, they had not seen any of the movies. We are hopefully going to finish up this week with the third movie and really achieve the full life some of us were missing out on. Overall, we have been able to hang out and grow very close to everyone in our Summer Link group. The community we have built has been so great and we have ended up hanging out multiple nights through the week even when have nothing planned or mandatory to attend. Red brought up in CP groups this week about being an Acts 2 church/body of believers: To do life together and keep each other accountable and to show the world the camaraderie of Jesus. They found everything in common just because of the bond of their Lord and Savior and that is something we have learned to do.

All our prayers go out to the rest of the Summer Link teams around the world.

Carson Fields

Summer LINK Clemson

Summer LINK Boston: Update Week 2 #blink

We have just finished our second week in Boston!  We've slowly been able to start having good conversations with the workers at the Boys and Girls club.  We trust that in the next few weeks God will be working in the hearts of some of them. 

Our time working at the community center looks to be fruitfull.  We've managed to share the Gospel with the kids a couple times now, and at least a few of them seem to be soaking it up well. 

Our involvement with the homeless ministry Redemption Hill is hoping to partner with has so far only involved helping them to organize some of their supplies, but our help was appreciated, and we're excited to continue working with them in the coming weeks.

Redemption Hill's Soccer Nights took place this past week, and we had over 200 kids participate!  Every night kids ages 4-12 from all over the community came out and learned basic soccer skills along with 5 values to promote teamwork and good character.  Most of us served as soccer coaches and a few of us helped with hospitality and registration.  It was a joy to be able to serve the community, and although I personally wasn't able to talk much with the parents, I heard from other Redemption Hill volunteers that God was doing much with a number of parents there.

Caroline's team of 6 year olds

Jon (one of the pastors at RHC) speaking to all the kids

Grabbing a quick snack

We've had a few visitors this week, first- a mission group for Open Door, a church from North Carolina that Redemption Hill is partnering with.  Among other things, they helped to serve during soccer nights, and went on an outreach effort with us on Thursday.  We have also had the pleasure of being visited by Jeremy Chasteen and family, who have been a great encouragement in giving us a little piece of home.  Joel's fiancé also dropped by for a couple of days.  As much as we wish our visitors could remain with us, we're nevertheless eager to resume serving Redemption Hill and the community.

Our main prayer requests are continued team unity, protection from discouragement, financial provision for Redemption Hill in their effort to purchase the building they(/we) are using, further success in various evangelism work, and whatever else will ultimately bring God glory.

Thanks for your prayers! Enjoy a few more pictures from our time here:

Enjoying time at a park in the city 

On the duck boat tour

Posted by: Brian Golz

Summer-link Honduras update: week two cont.

Buenas tardes from Balfate, Honduras! We are two weeks into our trip and all of us have really enjoyed our time here.  God has given us many opportunities to build relationships with the people here (locals and other missionaries) and to share the gospel.  The Pirkle family has been very generous to us; we are blessed to be on mission with them here in Honduras. 

At the bilingual school we have been able to share the word of God and teach about the character of God by means of teaching English.  As Ceci mentioned in the previous post, I had the opportunity of talking with a kid named Joni at the school.  After talking with him for a few minutes I found out that he was a follower of Christ.  He talked to me about how he tells other people about the love of God, but many of them do not want to have anything to do with God.  I read to him the passage in John 15 where Jesus tells the disciples that the world will hate them because of him, and I was able to encourage him through that.   

Wednesday at the school, a group of us were in the 6^th grade classroom and the principal lead the students in singing “This is the Day that the Lord Has Made” in four different languages.  Right after that she used a story quilt to lead the class in a song that essentially outlined the events of redemptive history.  We were very encouraged to know that we were not the only ones trying teach the students about the goodness of God. 

Yesterday we went to a nearby community soccer field and had around a hundred people show up.  Some of us played soccer with the locals, while a couple people from our team were able to share the gospel with some bystanders.  We are really hoping to build relationships with the people and be proactive with the opportunities God gives us to share the gospel.

  This morning we helped the Pirkle family and other missionaries put on a 5K race to raise money for the Hospital.  The idea of a 5k race was clearly foreign to the locals, but God provided and we had a great turn out! Afterwards we headed out for the dump in La Ceiba, but after twenty minutes of driving we got a flat tire and were held up for over an hour.  Because of this, we didn’t have time to continue to the dump, but God is still sovereign.  God has certainly been working in each of our lives and has upheld the spiritual unity of our group.  Please pray that God would continue to give us opportunities to share the gospel, and to encourage the other missionaries here.  Pray that God would give us the strength we need to carry out His plan for us here, and to spur each other on in faith.

This post was written by JC Spearman