...more shots...

I'm heading out the door for more immunizations...not looking forward to them, but they're better than getting Polio or Hepatitis or Meningitis!!!

I found this today...loved it enough to post it here....

"The ability of God is beyond our prayers, beyond our largest prayers! I have been thinking of some of the petitions that have entered into my supplication innumerable times. What have I asked for? I have asked for a cupful, and the ocean remains! I have asked for a sunbeam, and the sun abides! My best asking falls immeasurably short of my Father's giving: it is beyond that we can ask." --J. H. Jowett

Working, resting and celebrating...

The calendar says we have 5 1/2 weeks til our departure date! After months and months of planning and preparing, the end is in sight!

While we wait...

We're working. The adults and students are working hard to reach our goal of $54,000! This week we have more painters, mulchers and mowers out there! As a team we are somewhere around $44,000...which is quite staggering if you consider the time in which the amount has been raised! We were blessed with quite a bit in last Sunday's offering...even though the focus was on the Great Commission Fund. What an unexpected blessing!

"Put God in charge of your work, then what you've planned will take place."

Proverbs 16:3

While we work...

We're resting. Resting in the promise that He who began a good work will see it to completion. While the $10,000 still to be raised seems like a daunting task, we choose to believe the desires of our hearts will be accomplished. So while our bodies work, our spirits rest.

"Let be,and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth!"

Psalm 46:10

While we rest...

We celebrate. Between now and the 27th of June there is so much celebrating to be done! There are 12 seniors among our youth group who are ending their high school careers and graduating in the next few weeks! Many of those seniors will be traveling to Gabon with us, so in many ways, the month of June will be one big, long month of celebration! We celebrate the lives of these kids we've come to love almost like our own! We've been blessed to walk along side many of them all the way through their middle school and high school years. I may be biased, but I would say we have some of the best kids Lancaster County has to offer! In my own celebrating there will be a few tears, too...graduating not only these great young people, but one of my own, too!

It is a bittersweet time for us all...but celebrate we will!

"Look at what's happened! This is our God! We waited for him and he showed up and saved us!This God, the one we waited for! Let's celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation.

God's hand rests on this mountain!"

Isaiah 25:9

The countdown...

We're about 6 1/2 weeks from our departure date and there is a great amount of excitement among the team members. There is still so much to do...so much money still to be raised...so many details to be taken care of.

Fundraising is one of the hardest things about a big trip like this one. Raising $3,ooo a person is overwhelming at times. But, I'm impressed by the work that's being done by the students and adults. This week alone there were several people selling flowers, several painting and several doing yardwork. Our last meeting really rallied us and made us take a good look at the reality of how far we still have to go to reach our goal. The kids have taken up the challenge and are working harder than ever to meet their $3,ooo goal. I believe the trip will mean all the more to them because of the sweat they've put in to making it happen.

We're preparing in other ways, too. We've recently received a list of items we are to take with us to Gabon, we're waiting on our Visa's, and working on some personal goals, too. This week we are to write out our testimonies and be prepared to share them with the group. This seems to be a harder task than any of us anticipated! I can see the kids are nervous and a little anxious about completing them...

but I believe each one of them has something worth sharing and will connect with at least one person in Gabon who needed to hear it.

A prayer request for this week:

I've been told that by the end of this week we are to send a large sum of money ahead of us to Gabon for some of the preparations for our coming. It is an overwhelming figure since our airfare tickets are also to be purchased in the next few days. God knows how impossible it looks from my vantage point...but He also knows that He's got it all under control and will work it out according to His plan.

And so, we work, we wait and we trust...all in His time.

A weekend well spent...

It's taken me all week to update...not sure why, but here's just a glimpse of some of the great times we had last weekend at the retreat...from my point of view...

Two very beautiful mornings on the dock preparing for the day ahead....

Sunshine, water, beach, birds singing, and my favorite book....

heavenly....

Friendships were formed and strengthened...

Male bonding...

Times of sweet worship...

Sillyness and laughter among friends...

An afternoon of wild and crazy basketball!

The longest game of dodgeball EVER!

Girl's photoshoot!

One last retreat group shot with the SENIORS!

Instructions: "Last picture, just be yourself!"

Another great time together.

Great speaker...great music....great memories...

I think the theme of the weekend that the students took home with them is "being real" before God. Not just SAYING we believe, but ACTING like we believe. Not just following the rules because we're supposed to...but because we WANT to. We talked about the way we spend our time...the things that take our attention from God....
My prayer is that this weekend was the beginning of a NEW BEGINNING for some of the students who are struggling to understand what they believe in. The word the Lord set on my heart for the students during my quiet time was TRANSFORMATION.

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." IICorinthians 3:18