Summer LINK Seattle

Greetings from the Seattleites!!!

 Our first week in Seattle has ended and we have seen God work in some mighty ways already. Brock and Ben picked us (Katelin, Jamie, Crystal, Jordan, and Christina) up at the airport on Thursday, June 26, to go meet with Pastor Warren and Sarah Schuster from Essential Church for dinner in Factoria. We talked about the coming summer and ministry opportunities that each of us will have in our 6 week stay. We had a time of sweet fellowship and prayer before heading to our home- the Purple Door.

            Let me start by saying the Purple Door is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It is a mix of camp goes to college with a little hominess thrown in. The PD serves as a home for some on missions and even a few who attend the University of Washington for school. The community and Christian living here are so refreshing as Seattle is an otherwise very spiritually dark place. We all share responsibilities with the other missions teams like cooking, cleaning, and leading worship in a group together on Tuesdays. One of the “mottos” hanging up on a bulletin board says, “Doing life together”. Praise the Lord that we have the opportunity to experience this throughout the summer!

                    Purple Door arrival! Ben, Brock, Jordan, Jamie, Katelin, Christina, and Crystal.

The Lord has allowed us to move two families this week. First, we helped move the Mainards into their new home, which is now closer to where Essential Church meets for worship. Our second move was rather spontaneous. Jenny, a 17 year-old, who the Seattle team met last year, was moving out of her apartment on Monday and asked if we could help she and her mother pack things into their storage unit. The Lord allowed us to demonstrate love of Christ towards them by helping for about 3 hours. Jenny attends one of the local high schools in Bellevue and her mother works at Jubilee Reach. We are unsure about her and her mother’s spiritual state but, they agreed to come with us to the fireworks show in downtown Bellevue as well as church Sunday! Our team is so excited to be able to reach out to this family.

Essential Church meets at the local Boys and Girls Club in Bellevue. This past Sunday was the launch of having 2 services! This is such a blessing to those who serve in the church and have varying work schedules so they too can worship our Savior and hear the Word of God. Brock and Ben both played in the worship service-Brock on the cajon and Ben on the banjo. We girls helped teach the 1^st through 6^th grade and took care of the nursery babies. Our team was totally immersed into full ministry the very first service! Praise the Lord for His provision and allowance for each of us to be used at Essential Church.

The rest of the week we planned for the upcoming Love Bellevue events. Everyone on our team has been assigned different leadership roles from sports camps to block parties. This summer will be a time of growing and learning as a whole and individually as we serve the community of Seattle, WA.

Special thanks to Josh Davis driving some team members to the airport and thank you to everyone who has financially and prayerfully supported us thus far. We are looking forward to what the Lord is going to do through us and Essential Church!

By: Christina Gibson

            

SummerLink Honduras: Gracias a Dios

We've been here in Honduras for 5 days now. After a few days of getting acclimated to all that this beautiful country has to offer, we've begun to settle down into our roles and see what it is the Lord has in store for us this summer.

Our backyard

It's been a tremendous learning experience for us all. We are teaching two English classes to students at a school at the base of our hilltop Casita. In addition, we are working at a Bilingual school in an adjacent town (twenty minutes on a school bus and two river crossings away). After school, we have started leading an adult english class held at the Hospital Loma de Luz --did I mention that only one of us speaks reliable Spanish?  This has pushed us all out of our comfort zones for sure, but has ultimately helped us connect in a way that will foster Gospel conversations.

Amid the many English classes, we are rotating through days spent in the Hospital. Despite the fact that I have not yet had my first chance to spend the day with patients, I have heard many great things from our friends who have had that opportunity already. Surely there will be riveting stories to come in future posts...

Though much of the linguistic work we are doing is a very practical and useful skill, I am sure we would all agree that the most impactful aspect of our trip so far has been in seeing the relationships we have built --both within our team, and amongst the kids staying at the Children's Home run by the hospital or at the bilingual school. To paraphrase the words of a fellow teammate here, seeing the children and their needs has deepened our understanding of the Father's love for us all as we have been given this opportunity to share in providing that love with them all. We've already developed incredible bonds with countless Hondurans here and I pray that these continue to be points of much growth and fruit for us all.

Hanging out under the mango trees

Continue to pray for our time here and the work to be accomplished.

Gracias a Dios
Thanks be to God

By Eric Holberton

Summer LINK Columbus: The True Joy in Ministry

Summer LINK Columbus has been very different than expected, but I am thankful that it has been. I have had “wander lust” for a while now. The Lord has been growing my desire to minister in a place where the Gospel is desperately needed and the Church is not fully established. At first, I thought this would surely lead me overseas. It may one day, but this summer, he has led me here: Columbus, Ohio.

                                                                       Getting ready to talk to students at The Ohio State University 

My rose-colored vision of ministry and church planting has radically changed in the past three weeks. I have always seen the established side of it. Growing up in the Bible-belt means that I am well acquainted with organized programs, mission teams, etc. However, I was always on the other side—the worker who did whatever she was told. This summer, God has allowed me to be on the planning side.

God has stretched my team this summer and He has stretched me. I have seen that plan A may not always work. But we have to learn that God’s plan is different than our man-made ones. He molded them before any idea of them ever popped into our minds. He is sovereign in the messy planning and execution of ministry. He will work through and in it for His glory.

Columbus, and specifically the area we are working in—Bexley—is in desperate need of the Gospel. It doesn’t look the same as our rosy visions of ministry usually lead us to think—people in poverty, reaching out on street corners, etc. These people are wealthy but empty of the truth of Christ. They need Him.

In order to reach them, we have to throw our assumptions of what ministry looks like away. We have to trust the Lord to help us be “all things to all people so that by all means [we] may win some”.  And this means we will not always have everything together.

Summer LINK has challenged me to why I do ministry: Am I doing it for instant results or to be obedient to the Lord out of my love for Him and his Gospel? It challenged how I see people: Are they only lost if they are (from the world’s perspective) below me or should even these wealthy people be seen as “sheep without a shepherd”? It has opened my eyes to the good and the tough parts of ministry, the exciting and the mundane. I am thankful for the experience so far and that every day when I ask myself “do you still desire to be involved in long-term ministry?” I always say yes—this is growing even more as the beat of my heart here in Columbus.

  Spending a day at the Columbus Zoo with some church family

By: Kayla Sweeney

SummerLINK Honduras: Nosotros estamos en Honduras!

Bailey, Shannon, Steven, Eric, Chad, Katy, Olivia, and we met up with Audrey and Johnny in the Airport

First picture of Honduras!

The whole group!

Overlook of Balfate

After a 3 hour plane ride and a 4 hour car ride through the rough roads of Honduras we finally arrived in Balfate, Honduras. For the next five weeks we will be teaching english to children on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and we will volunteer in a bilingual school and teach english to adults on Tuesday and Thursday. We will also rotate through shadowing different doctors at the Hospital Loma del Luz. Also the girls will have the opportunity to watch deliveries, and the boys will be able to watch c-sections. So far we have all loved getting to play with the kids, trying new foods, and taking in all of God's beautiful creation, and we can't wait to see what all God is going to do in Honduras this summer!

SummerLINK Raleigh: The Power of the Gospel

By: Chris Garnett

I have been thinking long and hard about what to write about for this SummerLINK blog post. We are just over a month in to the work we've been doing with SummerLINK Raleigh, and it has been amazing to see the work that God is doing in our community, and even outside our community:

• We have participated in Equip Nights at the houses of different pastors and leaders at Open Door, learning more about their ministries and what they do for our church family
• We have had a weekend soccer camp in a nearby neighborhood, sharing the gospel and running around with a bunch of kids
• We have had our VBS camp called Power Camp for our elementary school kids, teaching them about God and His overflowing love and power
• We just returned from our youth camp called Creed where we went through Acts and learned what it means to live a missional lifestyle for the Kingdom of God
• We are getting ready to send a small team up to Boston to spend time with Redemption Hill ministering to their area

And we're only half way through the summer!! I can't wait to see what else God does through us...ALL of us SummerLINK interns at our different locations.
Something that I have become so much more aware of this summer is the power of the gospel in everyday life. I took a moment to think about what the gospel really is and how influential it is to Christians, and you can't simply take one moment to think about the magnitude of the gospel. Pastors spend anywhere between forty-five minutes to an hour teaching their congregation small portions of the gospel on a weekly basis, and it takes them hours upon hours to get all of the information together!

Yet the gospel is so much more than just reading and understanding the Bible, and hearing a sermon on a weekly basis. The gospel is actually living out the teachings that are in the Bible. It is so easy for us to pick up the Bible and read an incredible parable of Jesus, or read about Paul laying down some spiritual conviction on the church of Corinth, or read about what it takes to be leader in a church and say to ourselves, "That's so great, we totally need to do more of that!" and then do absolutely nothing. We have too many lazy Christians in our church. Unfortunately, I am one of them.

I don't write this blog with the mindset that I'm the greatest Christian. I write this blog with conviction on my heart because I have done a horrible job of sharing the gospel. I have not fully submitted to the awesome power of the gospel. I just read Thom Rainer's article, "Seven Characteristics of Highly Evangelical Christians," and as I read through the article I caught myself thinking, "Amen! That's good stuff," yet most of those characteristics are greatly lacking in my own spiritual life. I could turn this blog post into me analyzing how bad my spiritual life is, and as great as that could be for my own sanctification, it would quickly make this blog post all the more less entertaining. But here is where the beauty is...here is where the power of the gospel comes into play: we serve a merciful, gracious God.

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am that we serve a merciful, gracious God, who loves us unconditionally. If that weren't the case, I would have my one-way ticket to a very horrible place. Yet God still chooses to forgive even after every mistake I make.

I have learned a lot of things over the past month or so. All have been encouraging, challenging, and even convicting in some way or another, and that's what I love about the power of the gospel. That's what I love of discipleship. We as Christians are constantly learning more about the gospel and about who God is. We will never stop learning. Even when we think we have it all figured out, God will come and pull the carpet out from under us and knock on our backside.

I pray that whoever reads this post, or this blog as a whole, is encouraged. The gospel is a powerful, beautiful thing that can radically change your life if you're willing to take the necessary steps to follow Jesus Christ.

Summer LINK: Raleigh- Trusting Him Even with the Small Things!

            This is my first year to serve as a Summer Link intern and it has been a wonderful experience! I am primarily working with the Women’s Ministry and the Student Ministry at Open Door. The Lord is teaching me so many things this summer as He is growing, stretching, and molding me as I serve Him.

            While working with the Women’s Ministry I was able to help plan and facilitate the women’s event for June. This event’s theme was “Smiling at the future.” Women gathered to fellowship, worship, hear from a speaker, and pray with one another. As the event approached I became a little anxious and stressed about all the little details, but the Lord showed me through this event that I need to always trust Him even in the small things.

            Also, I have had the opportunity to serve with the Women’s Bible study leader and attend the weekly women’s Bible studies. We have been studying Psalm 119 for the month of June. I have loved being able to learn from other women at our church as we study and pray through Scripture together. I have also been able to meet many new ladies at our church, which has been a blessing. As I have studied Psalm 119 the Lord is teaching me to always be meditating on His word and truths found in Scripture.

            This summer I will be apart of the team going to Boston. I am thrilled about the chance to go and serve our church plants and the people of Boston. We had our first trip meeting this week. It was encouraging to hear each of our team members share their burden to proclaim the Gospel message while in Boston. At the meeting we walked through Colossians 4:2-6, and discussed what it means to “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving” (v. 2).  I pray that the Lord will allow me to have a watchful heart and mind, being in prayer for the trip and aware of the needs of those around me.

            Please be praying for our students and interns this week as they head to Creed Camp!

By Anna Slay

Summer LINK: Raleigh-The Power of Community

 

            After several weeks of being a part of Summerlink at Open Door Church, I have been involved with activities such as, soccer camps, children’s camps, planning, group bible studies, equip dinners, small group discipleship time, etc. I have learned so many things from these people that I have been learning from and serving with.  

            But what I have experienced is the power of community. The church is dependant upon deep and intimate bond between its people. I have experienced a different kind of community lately in doing summer link, a community where I have experienced mentorship. This is something I have not really had before. The leaders that I get to sit under are amazing. I have learned so much from them in the past couple weeks. I have seen their example in how to do ministry, how to love the church, how to lead your family and your church, among other things.

            During one of our Equip dinners at Zach Nelson’s house he talked about this kind of relationship. He talked about how before a church planter is sent out that person is assessed and given opportunities to serve, and that summer link is one of those opportunities. I see this opportunity as a privilege to be refined and taught and to build relationships with people who I consider friends.

            Zach talked about how the church is supposed to be the entity that evaluates, equips, and prepares the men and women to plant churches and do ministry. This concept was kind of different to me because being in Bible College you expect that once you graduate you are supposed to be “ready” to go out and plant churches. Through Zach’s talk I realized that for this method to work the community within the church must be deep, and it must be able to correct and instruct. It is this kind of community that I have seen and experienced, that pushes me to want to be more like Christ.

            From the few short weeks I have been a part of SummerLink I have grown closer with the leaders of my church as well as other members and I know that they are equipping me to be the best servant of Christ and His church that I can be. This community, this bond I am developing with the people of my local church gives me a new and deeper love for the church, and causes me to want to serve it with a new fire.

            By: Steven Kramb