'MaD' in Las Vegas (Makin' a Difference...)

Summer in Vegas…
This summer Mission Adventures trained over 150 young people in inner city mission. We saw about 30 people come to Christ and many of the young people really had a life changing experience.

Fun in the Summer
In August we partnered with the school district and gave out free lunches to kids from the neighborhood. Of course that wasn’t all: With the help of STARS and other volunteers we ran a kids program including education, crafts, dancing and of course we had a water day!

Most of the 20+ kids each day were between the age of 4 and 10 and lived in our neighborhood. Getting to know these kids was a huge blessing and I would like to pass that on…

So let me introduce you to Jamarian and Draezhon.

These 2 little boys were a blast.

Jamarian is very mellow and over the 3 weeks he never had a bad day. He is a very happy child… Unfortunately he didn’t like underwear and his jeans were slightly bigger than they needed to be. So for a few days the most used phrase during the afternoon was ‘Mari, pull up your pants!!’... Until we were able to give him a belt and some Incredible Hulk undies! :)

Draezhon is his brother and is not as mellow, but as much fun. One day Draezhon had a really bad day and was spending half his time in time out.
During one of those times I walked over to him and let him know that we really liked having him around and we were sad that he was in time out so much that day.
After that conversation his attitude for the rest of the week completely changed. He was still a kid with attitude, but he knew he was loved and accepted when he walked through the door.

At the end of the 3 weeks STARS put on an amazing showcase for all kids and all the parents/guardians came to watch the kids dance and to admire the artwork! It was a great night and such a great finish to 3 weeks of hard work!

STARS
STARS is a youth development movement. I met these guys about 3 months ago and they happened to be looking for a place to meet at, as they were busting at the seams at their old place.
We were able to partner with them and now they meet 3 times a week at the Pier helping young people to excel in whatever gifts they have. That includes writing, speaking, dancing and much more.

I am very excited about the possibility of STARS and the Pier hosting Open Mic nights for the community!!! This would include showcasing local talent, encouraging young people to host the night and inviting people from all different churches to participate and volunteer!

Some discouragement:
These past couple months have been very encouraging in many ways ministry wise. On the other side of things I have had my laptop’s hard drive crash… My laptop has difficulties turning on now and really, seeing it’s 4 years old I fear I might need a new one soon.
I also would still like to actually have my own car again, instead of borrowing someone else’s…

Financial stress has been huge as my cost of living has gone up a bit since returning and my support has dropped a little due to the bad economy.

Would you please pray with me for these specific things:

• my own car to come through ASAP (waiting on a duplicate title)
• more people to give towards my ministry on a monthly basis. (I need another 10 people to give $25 each month)
• $400 to go to the Go!Conference (Missions Conference) that I help staff in October.
• A new laptop in the near future...

Thank you so much for being part of this team! I really appreciate it and love that you're on the team with me!

It's really been an exciting time this summer with many people finding Christ, being able to serve around 200 families each month with our grocery assistance partner, feeding more than 90 meals to the kids in August, getting some new and key volunteers to help out in the building and start a job readiness program.

Now we are talking about starting After School Homework Help, Open Mics and would love to look back into ESL classes. Please pray that The Pier (our community resource center) really would be a tool of God to start transforming this neighborhood (one of the poorest and most crime ridden in Las Vegas)

Exciting stuff ahead!

Frauke

If you would like to support this ministry check out http://helpfrauke.blogspot.com/

Last night I was explaining to a friend of mine the complexity of my life. We had been talking about being honest with people. I told her that people sometimes tell me that they really appreciate my honesty and me being upfront with people.

The sad thing in my head is, that I'm thinking 'crap, I thought my filter was on... I thought I wasn't being all honest and upfront'.

So there's a huge difference in perception. I'm thinking I'm all holding back and not really telling it as it is AT ALL. And they are getting that heck, she's upfront and honest with me...

So the real scary thought is..... What would happen if I wouldn't even try to hold back my opinion...........................

Yeah, scary alright!

Online church

I just wrote this reply to a blog about online church being compared to fast food (http://blog.ourchurch.com/2009/07/09/online-church-spiritual-fast-food/) and thought I might post my thoughts on online church here.

I generally agree with his comparison to fast food.... Let me know what you think!

I really like online church, as last year I had to spend a year in Europe (sounds like punishment, doesn't it) and I had a hard time finding a church that I connected with. My church then started online church and I really had a great time staying in touch with my own church back home. So online church is a great alternative. It also provides some fun little things that real church doesn't...

• Globalisation: you are chatting live with a bunch of people about God from all different continents...
• Questions: The last few years have proven that people are far more open to ask hard questions when the speaker is not live in front of them! Some of us are more bold when it's online and will ask questions of others and/or the speaker that we would not ask in person (it's the age old mask thing) I would probably not make this comment if it weren't for being online!
• Dress Code: I LOVED being at church in my PJ's, slurping a coffee and dancing through the house to the worship being played! I would never do that at my church and honestly, people thank me for that! :)

Online church is fantastic, but we need real people in our life! We need real friends who see us, who can speak into our life and that will point out to us that we should not apply to America's got talent!
But every now and then, just like fast food, online church is so fun and fantastic!

I strongly suggest to someone who ONLY does online church, to try and get a group of friends together that are committed Christians that would do life with them. Not everything has to happen inside a church building....

Of course there need to be some sort of a boundary. Like accountability to someone other than yourself!

squares...

Squares are an annoying shape when you realise most of life is rectangular...

A square blanket is not very helpful when you're taller than wider (the basic shape of a rectangle and also a pretty good situation when it's about your body shape)

A square looking trash liner is of no help when you're trying to find where it opens.

A square T shirt means you're only half covered.

So what is so exciting about squares??? Nothing! That's what it is! Each side of the square is the same... There's no change, nothing exciting coming up, except a corner and then exactly the same amount of way til the next corner...

Life should be more than square! I will try and make it that! :)

The talking head up front

The more I think about it, the more I think that the talking head up front concept is coming to an end. I see it in my own life... And I am old...

Seriously though... In times of google and wikipedia and all sorts of other resources on the internet, why would I voluntarily sit down and listen to someone who's only got a very limited amount of knowledge? And by now the internet is not only at home, but it's with a lot of us wherever we go via the phone.

So even sitting in church on a Sunday morning is sometimes a bit of a drag, because I actually LIKE thinking for myself. We sometimes think that the internet is taking away from independent thinking, but I think it might be adding to it! Suddenly you have so many different ideas and things and you will have to figure out for yourlself on how to actually find the truth!

So what about the talking head up front? If the talking head up front manages to keep my attention for more than 20 minutes, then it's usually because he's using visual aids like videos etc or he's presenting it in a way that makes sense. I certainly do not like it if information is just dumped on me! I mean, who these days does?

The dumping of information assumes that a) I'm actually interested (which half the time I am not... So you got to work on getting me there) and b) I can retain that information (I am blonde, so that is a challenge at times) and c) I will use that information (usually the dumping of information means it's far too much information to remember and to use!)

I like Andy Stanley's approach to speaking! He answers these kind of questions:

What does my audience need to know?

Why do they need to know it?

What do they need to do?

Why do they need to do it?

How can I help them remember?

(that's from his book "Communicate for a change")

I would love to figure out the next generation's 'talking head'. How is this next generation going to learn?

At YWAM we do a lot of teaching and often times produce blank stares... So in YWAM we also need to think about how we can reach this generation in a way that makes sense to them.

Any ideas?