Stateside Ministry & Final Training

This week was our first week of stateside ministry! It was so fun to get to go out into the community, talk about Jesus, and serve the community! We still had a few sessions and scenarios before ministry each day, so it was kind of a mix between training and doing this week. Here’s what my week looked like… 

Ministry:
– Monday our job was to cook dinner for campus. That was a huge blessing as I was still getting over strep symptoms, so I didn’t have to miss out on our first day of ministry but still got to stay on campus.
– Tuesday, we went out to evangelize! We took 2 teams (So about 15 people) and separated into 2-3 person groups. I went out with my team lead, Kara, and teammate, Ella. We stopped by some local shops and talked to some customers and store owners about Jesus and the mission we were on. We got to hear their stories and then explain where we were going, and what we would be doing, but more importantly took prayer requests for each one of them!
– Wednesday we went to a ministry site called Good Samaritan. We organized lots of boxes with a variety of packaged food and plastic bags with a variety of drinks for people to come to pick up. I think we worked really well as a team this week! It was fun getting to make little assembly lines and work all together. We ended early with the jobs they had for us so we got to stop by Culver’s and have more team time before heading back to campus.
– Thursday we went back to Good Samaritan’s, this time with one of the boys team from the other squad. Elise, Abby, and I made more of the variety drink bags and had a pretty awesome assembly line going if I do say so myself. The rest of my team worked on some more boxes and the boys did some landscaping. Before leaving, the women in charge let us know how grateful their company was and explained a little more about their organization. She prayed over us and we prayed over their team and organization! She also shared some awesome testimonies and they took a picture of our teams to post on their bulletin board, as a reminder for them to pray for us each day before their ministry.


Teachings/ Scenario: 
We had 3 sessions and 2 scenarios this week. We learned how to write a sermon and then actually wrote one. We are asked to have one on hand at all times so we can be prepared, as we don’t know when we will be asked to give one overseas. Then we learned about evangelism a little further and how to go deeper in prayer/ pray for others.  For our first scenario, our team had to come up with a kid’s Sunday school song and mini-lesson. My team went first, so we weren’t aware everyone else on our squad were acting as kids….  Specifically rambunctious kids, so we had to reel them in and try to get them to listen. Then we got to be the kids while the other teams put on their songs and lessons. For our final scenario, we had to do a “house visit”.  Each one of the staff had a role to play and we separated into groups of 3 in our teams. Emma, Arwyn, and I talked to someone who had only known the Muslim religion his whole life.  We told him some of the gospel, and what we believe/ why we believe it.   We learned some key tips about house visits in each culture and had a mini-debrief afterward.



Highlights:
– Friday we got to go to the lake and hang out there, have some 1-1 time with our leaders, play some games, and I learned some guitar chords!
– Some of the girls from both squads put on an event called Beauty for Ashes on campus. All the girls got dressed up, they gave some testimonies, we worshipped, and then had some small group time with a variety of girls from each team/squad. We went through a little list of verses and they helped us pinpoint some of the things we believe to be true about ourselves that are not God’s truth. The goal was to acknowledge those and begin to believe what God says about us over the world, ourselves, or the enemy.
– My team has been working on each of us sharing our testimony over this month and we got to hear the last one this week!
– We got to take our clothes to the laundromat… I’ve never been so grateful for dry clothes in my life haha! 

Overall this week felt super packed but in a super fun way! It was great having a variety of places to go this week, learning new things, and putting what we learned over the last 3 weeks into action. We are currently on our way to Fort Myers, Florida to do some construction!!! ( which I’m SO excited for 🙂 ) We left early this morning (Sunday) and will be putting up some drywall and flooring. The boys are going to Kentucky for the week to do the same kind of work with a different ministry partner. We could all use prayer for health still, safety, and to be a light for the Lord while serving! I would love to hear how we can pray for you, please feel free to comment your prayer request!! Thanks for reading!