Last Day

Hello one last time,

Sorry for missing yesterdays post, busy/long day.

Today was awesome. We had the picnic day at the park with the kids. We picked up about 25 kids from the apartment complex where we performed our Bible club and brought them to the park to play games/eat lunch/talk more about Jesus/and play in the fountains with them. Our kids did such a good job playing with the kids, being good role models to them, and talking to them about Christ.
After picnic day, we had a wonderful time debriefing with Paul Green (HFIC Coordinator). The kids were challenged to share the ways they saw God working in their lives, and after learning about the true definition of poverty, to share the ways that they too are poor.
Finally, to celebrate a good week, we went out for pizza in downtown Chattanooga and then took a fun walk all around downtown and across the walking bridge. We invited the interns and some of the junior interns (inner-city boys) to join us and had a great time with them!

It has been a wonderful trip, we are excited to share the many ways we saw God at work amongst our group and in Chattanooga!

 Talking with the kids at picnic day

 The kids were given free shaved ice at the park

Out to eat for pizza on our last night

Singing in the Rain!

Happy hump day everybody!

I write today's post as laughter echos from the room next door.  The team blows off steam after a long day with a game of "Empire" with friends from ChesPres and our favorite local teen Kaelan Lamar Duckett.  This is an example of what we have seen this week...not playing games (though our team can make pulling up roots in the hot summer day fun) but building connections.

We have been encouraged (and pushed) to make new connections even if it is uncomfortable.  For example, during morning worship, we are instructed to step down from the bleachers and go back up when we are standing besides people we do not know.  At dinner we are told to sit next to someone not from our own team. Each day we have had a local middle school youth (or two) join our team for the work day.  Then during the evening Bible club we build connections with the children who come and hear the gospel message.  As we get more outside of ourselves, and invest more into others, we find that those connections grow or new ones are more easily made.

The work team at JoAnne Byrum's house (Ashleigh, Ben, David, Jewell, Jordan, Julia, Malachi and Olivia) invest in Ms. JoAnne.  Each day this week they spend the work day with her installing drywall, repainting her porch and other tasks on her home.  The other work team (Avery, Baxter, Charlene, Elise, Ian, Lauren, Nathan and Ross) invest in the community (HFIC or New City Fellowship) and the local youth who work alongside us.

Tonight by God's grace we were able to continue to build connections with the children at Woodlawn apartment complex.  The rain and thunder threatened to cancel our bible club and we sat in the vans for over 30 minutes waiting for the shower to pass.  We prayed for God's grace and he answered our prayers...Bible club must go on!  We canvassed for children in the rain, held up a tarp sheet to keep the kids dry, and performed the club in the rain.  Even with the rain, 17 kids came out.  Please pray for the connections from this week, particularly on Friday's picnic, to continue to grow and for Christ's love to be felt through our words and actions.  

- Charlene

Helping paint HFIC

 Rainy Bible club

 Malachi and Davids epic (for fun) towel whipping match - lots of red welts;) 

After Bible club playing with the kids

Tuesday

Hello again!

What a day. I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking on this blog. However, one highlight from today was our Bible Club. We had about 27 kids show up and our youth did an awesome job running the club! We are so proud of them!
Tiredness and exhaustion are setting in and we'd really appreciate prayer for energy and determination in our team! We are having an awesome trip though!

 Lauren running the craft time

 Baxter found a snake;)

The Dignity of all People

Hey all!
Today was an amazing day! Unfortunately, I'm getting to this late so I need to be brief. Our day began today with an awesome time of worship with the New City worship team. It was fun to see our kids worshipping with the inner city kids who attend camp at HFIC. We also had a fun day at the job site. We split up into two teams for the work time and both sites went really well. At one of our sites, 2 jr. high age inner city boys who are working with HFIC helped out. It was encouraging to see the way our kids interacted with them and made them feel welcomed (haha, one kid even called Ian his "white brother.")
After worksites we canvassed at the Woodlawn Apartments for Bible club. We were all a bit nervous for this, but it ended up going really well - we had a lot of positive responses from the kids - Praise God!
Tonight we went up to Covenant College and had dinner, took a brief tour, and had a stimulating session about poverty alleviation. After this we went to a lookout area on top of lookout mountain and watched hang-gliders. It was beautiful.
Finally, we ended our evening by debriefing our day. Our discussion went really well and we talked a lot about (amongst other things) the importance of restoring dignity in poor people - helping deal with the shame that they often feel.

(sooo frustrating - having trouble uploading pics - I'm sooo sorry! :(   )

Its Your Turn

          "I see a generation/ rising up to take their place/ with selfless faith/ with selfless faith./ Hosanna/ Hosanna/ Hosanna in the Highest."   I sang these lyrics today surrounded by the youth from our church in the packed out multi-racial inner city church "New City Fellowship."  And I will tell you, because you might not always see it in your home or in your child, but I see this generation rising up.  And it makes my heart spill over with Hosannas.
          Today has been a day of preparation.   We worshiped together; the St. Louis folks here serving for a week and the church members who live and serve it year round.  We learned about the ministry of the church and their mercy ministry "Hope for the Inner City."  We were briefed on food and the community center and work sights and Bible clubs and safety. And we had a meeting of spiritual preparation with Mr. Green.
         Mr. Green is exactly the kind of man you would expect to be leading an outreach in the hood.  He is a big black preacher man who sees into hearts and loves the rough neighborhood kids and our shiney church kids with the same passion and attention.   Mr Green looked at the youth and said, "It's your turn.  You church and parents and leaders have been pouring into you for a long time, but now is the time for you to step out.  Walk forward.  It's your turn to pour into someone else."
       Together in that room the students shared their fears and joys and hopes before God and in front of everyone.  They asked prayer for compassion and peace, safety and unity.   They confessed struggles with devotions and prayer, doubts about God, stress and anxiety.  They praised God for his care for their safety, families, friends.   And they voiced their hope that God will use them this week, that God would work in those they meet this week, that they would feel God's presence in their life again.
       Please pray with us this week, and pray with confidence because God promises that if we seek Him we will find Him.  Rejoice with us because these students are seeking God, rising up, and taking their turn.       

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause

As I walk from earth into eternity 

                                                       (Hillsong United, "Hosanna")

S. Jewell S. McGhee 7-6-2014

A video of David teaching AJ a Hawaiian chant

Learning from New City's lead Deacon about Mercy Ministry 

 Outside New City

 Ashleigh, Elise, and Ben practicing the song part of our Bible Club

Julia, Jordan, Ashleigh, Ian, and Sierra practicing the Bible Club skit

We surprised the kids with ice cream treats to thank them for their hard work on the Bible Club

Here Safe

Hey all! We're here at HFIC safely! We had a fun and smooth trip down! THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU WHO CONTRIBUTED TO OUR FOOD STASH!! What a blessing, we ate a lot of it for lunch. Thank you thank you!
We arrived at HFIC around 8pm est and were shown around the premises by one of the interns here. There is another team serving with us this week and sharing bunk houses, there actually from St Louis - Chesterfield PCA's youth group! We should have a lot of fun with them this week.

Tomorrow is a training day.

Please pray for us:
1. For sleep
2. For confidence and passion to share the gospel
3. That God would work in our hearts and in the hearts of those we serve
4. That we would stay alert amidst all the training tomorrow.

Good night!

 The team before we left today

Devos from Pastor Dave

Eating the food that was given us by many Crossroadians

Boys being boys at HFIC

Playing some soccer with Chesterfield Pres folk

2014 Chattanooga Mission Team!

Hey Crossroads!

We're excited to bring a team of 17 this year from Crossroads to Chattanooga! We'll be assisting Hope For the Inner City again with their work in inner city Chattanooga. We'll help them out in a variety of ways: we'll do some physical labor (we dont know exactly what yet), we'll run an evangelistic Bible club, and have a picnic day on Friday with some of the kids from the Bible club to more intentionally speak to them about Christ. We hope to learn a lot about God, ourselves, poverty alleviation, and about cross-cultural ministry on this trip!

Please pray for us...

1. For safe travels

2. For flexibility amongst the team as there will most likely be many hurdles thrown our way during the weak

3. For team unity

4. For hearts that are open to what God will teach us during the weak

5. For the Bible club, that kids would come, that the gospel would be communicated clearly in word and deed, and that kids' would come to believe in Jesus

Thanks all! See you again Sunday July 13 Lord willing!