El primer dia de nuestra mision

Today was our first full day of ministry and it started well.  We spent the morning at the Montessori School teaching English classes.  It was a bit frustrating at first because the teachers didn't even seem to be prepared for our time there.  After a few minutes of figuring things out, though, the group was off and running.  The most notable thing about our time at the school this morning was how the Peruvian students viewed American culture, particularly teen culture.  They imagine that all American teens do is party and eat at McDonalds; apparently they learned everything they needed to from a movie called Project X.  Hopefully in the next several days we can break free from these stereotypes and show these students the love of Christ.   

In the afternoon we went to La Plaza de Armas were we spent two hours sharing the gospel and making balloon animals for children.  We were like rock stars by the end of our time in the plaza.  Everyone was coming out to see the crazy Americanos and their balloon animals (especially Jackson).  We hope that when we return tomorrow we will have more opportunity to share.    

Things to pray for in the coming days:  

1.  To break the American stereotypes with the students at the Montessori School. 

2.  For energy to push forward.  

3.  For the group to be able to step out of their comfort zone and muster up the courage to share the gospel message.  

4.  Specifically pray for Gabe Agostini who is very sick and has not been able to be with the group.  

5.  That we don't get beaten to bad when we play the Peruvians in futbol or at least that we don't take ourselves to seriously.  

Thanks all for the continued prayer and I hope to have some video up soon.  

   

Johnstown Trip - Ropes Course Pictures

Johnstown Trip - Our first Blog!

Hey everyone!

I apologize that it has taken so long to get this up and running.  Hopefully we will have a good connection from here on out.  

DAY 1
We arrived at Geneva College on Saturday at 3:30 and had just enough time to get our rooms, drop off our stuff and jump back into the car to go to the Ropes Course!  What an awesome night for our group.  We did a few different types of warmup games to get us warmed up (and sweaty).  Our first initiative was to get our group in birthday order on a series of 9 slightly unstable logs.  the only catch was that if anyone fell off of the log while we were doing this, we had to start all over.  
It was a fantastic time of seeing our students work together, listen to and encourage each other.  After a few falls, we were successful!  We did a few more similar initiatives and ended our night back at our rooms with pizza and a time of worship.  What a great way to begin our week!  I have heard a lot of positive feedback from our team who feel a lot closer to one another as we start our week of ministry!

josh

DAY 2  

Today, Sunday, We woke up at Geneva College, and we had a wonderful breakfast of bagels and left over pizza. We packed and headed twords church. The church is called, North Way. It is like a giant version of Browncroft, blue roof and everything. After a great worship service and a sermon on Nehemiah 9, we headed to Johnstown. On our way we stopped at Chipoltle. After a filling lunch, we drove the last 2 hours to Johnstown. In Donna's car we recorded a lip dubed version of  "Jesus Music" and at the same time we went through a toll booth.

At last we pulled into the Crucified Ministries parking lot. The guys are staying in the corner of the basement where we eat and worship. The girls are staying up stairs in the sanctuary (some on pews). The facilities are nice. There are two showers for each gender. and plenty of bathroom space (for the seven guys anyway). The bulding we are in has a service for youth in the community every Sunday at 7. We heard a wonderful testimony of a couple that split up after 19 years of marriage and thanks to Jesus, they are both saved and have had a wonderful last 10 years. After the service, we went down stairs for some more worship and to do devos. The day finished peacefuly after the long car ride and quite a few games of ping-pong ( Robby ruled ).

Alex

Johnstown Trip - We are here!!! update coming soon...when we can get our WiFi working!

Our Journey to Piura

So, at this point we are on our long journey up the coast to Piura.  Everyone is very excited and I know that because the majority of the students keep saying "guess where we're at."  I guess I can get annoyed, but there is no reason to because "guess where we're at!"  Driving down the road looking at the surroundings, I am thankful that God has given these students the opportunity to be apart of such a great missions experience.  Culturally Peru is worlds apart from the United States.  Life is quite a bit different and I hope to convey some of that over the week as I keep everyone updated.  Continue to pray for all of us on this journey.  This is only day two and we haven't even arrived at our destination.  I will continue to post pictures and I will try to put some videos up, as well.   

Getting Ready to Go!

The Peru team had a great time at the Catanzaro's House on Tuesday night and wanted to share a few pictures from that meeting (compliments of Jessie Schnall).


This is a quick post to say that we want you all to get excited for both teams and encourage you to continue to pray for us as we are on this journey.  We leave in two days and each team is very excited about what God is going to do with the students of Browncroft Community Church.  Keep in touch with what the group is doing via this blog spot. We will update it as often as possible.

Kelley McClurg Reflection

My favorite story of New Orleans, was definantly when our team was assigned to be under the bridge giving water to the homeless- but we found ourselves in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. When we left the church that morning to go out to our sites for the day, our team (accompanied by the lovely Kathy Roeters) had expected a day of building relationships and taking the time to sit and talk with the homeless people under one of New Orleans large bridges. But when our huge white van pulled into the parking lot and we all came tumbling out with enthusiasm, the plan quickly changed when we were immediately approached by the police and asked to leave, because they didn't want to homeless to stay under the bridge and giving out the water would just encourage them stay. Then we were really lost as to where to go! But one of the men told us to go over to the mission right across the street and just hand it out there. So thats what we did. Soon after arriving me and about four others from our team ended up in a long conversation with a man named Nathaniel. He was very nice but skeptical of us and the God that we were sharing with him about, he had a hard life and shared a lot of stuff that us teenagers cant even imagine going through, but it was still an awesome conversation. We later found out from the leaders at AIM that almost every group that came had met and spoken to Nathaniel. Which was encouraging to hear that maybe we were just planting another seed. When the conversation died down we joined the rest of the group inside where we got invited into an AA meeting (alcoholics anonymous). There we met a guy name mark who was very young compared to the rest of the crowd, and seemed like he was in his early twenties if that. He had been struggling with alcohol for a few years and was trying to stop drinking but was having a bad withdrawal, getting really shaky and having lots of hallucinations. A couple of the older men in the meeting took him under their wing and were going to get him to a hospital for help. We prayed with him as a group and one of our leaders even gave him their bible. They sent him upstairs for a shower and when he came back in a clean shirt, freshly showered, he look like a new person. His eyes weren't shaking and his hands were steady, he looked so much more peaceful and a tad less scared. The transformation was astonishing. We don't actually know where Mark ended up after the men brought him to the hospital, but he is one person I know I will never forget. I know God had us at that meeting that day for a reason, so many people in our group were touched by that meeting, and in different ways. It was just so obvious God had a lot to teach everyone on our team that day, and we all took home a different lesson.