DREAM

Life after DTS is very different from what I expected, both good and bad. I new that coming home back to the real world would be challenging and that more distractions would be all around me. I was faced with  many distractions and things from the past that tried to creep up to haunt me, but I realized  that I had to lean into God even more. I remember our speaker from our last week of lecture phase right before outreach he said to us "you have to lean into God so hard that if he moves you fall". It really shows me how I need to trust in God and spend time with him even though I am not surrounded by 55 other students who are going after the same thing as me, even though there is not a set time to be with Jesus I can still do it!

     God has been so faithful to me he has shown me his character every day and he has provided people in my  life to keep building me up and encourage me. Since being home I have had another awesome ministry time. I have been able to work with a ministry called Coastlands Consultants. It is a relational based ministry that goes into Christian schools and leads the week with worship, games, lessons, and stories from the Bible. it is an awesome ministry that focuses on the kids at the school, they mentor them, listen to them and pray with them. they work with pre-k all the way up to 12th grade. Each week has a theme this weeks word was DREAM each day went with a letter Monday was D which stood for dare to dream, Tuesday was R which stood for repair. I cam in on Tuesday night, the team welcomed me with dinner and an initiation ( I had to blow out a candle stick with nothing but my nose!) needless to say I felt welcomed. The next day was my first day with the team I was so blessed to be welcomed by the kids, we worked with the 6th to 8th grade. Our morning started with introduction, bible reading and an object lesson the kids were so involved and filled with enthusiasm and excitement. We than moved into worship, it was so encouraging watching the kids lift there hands in worship and sing out praises to God. After someone taught a lesson the next letter was E which stood for Equip the kids learned about how God gives us all gifts and he equips us with power some gifts are different from others but they are all as important. they learned that we have the power of prayer and they all prayed for there teachers, the kids were so eager to pray and bless there teachers. The 6th and 7th graders were brought back to class while the 8th graders stayed, we than began to journal that is were the kids are able to write to us there feeling thoughts and questions, whatever they are going through it is only between the student and the team we are able to write a response back with encouragement advice and scriptures. I had a 14 year old 8th grade girl she wrote about the struggles she faces every day in her own school even though she is surrounded by Christians, people can still say things and do things that hurt. Her words were filled with pain of mean words that were said over her and her insecurities of people judging her. I  was able to write back to her about Gods love and the truth that He says over her. The day followed by going into class rooms and doing what is called coffee can questions, this is where the students write an anonymous question about anything and put it in the can, we pick one put and answer it. These students were so curious and had some amazing questions, one question that I got was "If God is the same yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow than should we obey the same laws in the old testament"? that is a pretty good question coming from a 6th grader! Thursday was much of the same thing the lesson was about Gods grace. The letter was....... what a surprise A that stood for Amazing grace  we talked about how God gives us second chances, he forgives us and helps us heal from the past, during the week a big cross was put up in the front of the chapel the students would nail to the cross sins and lies that they heard in there life, nailing it to the cross meant giving it up and letting God take it, it meant that they would believe the truth about them instead of the lie. It was a powerful thing to watch and to take part of. The rest of the day was similar to the one before. On Friday we had a snow day! but even though we didn't go to school our ministry was still going, some of the kids from the neighborhood came over. We started  playing spoons which led to a big snow ball fight( I was taken down numerous times) then we came in for cookie making and board games, we made pizza for dinner and eat a lot of food. We just hung out with the kids and listened to them tell us there stories. Some of the kids even went to church on Sunday!  it is really cool to see that even though you are not on scheduled time of ministry you can always be led by God and let him use you because you never know when there is a kid who need a friend or someone to hang out with. It was an awesome week and I am so excited to see what next week holds, we will be at Concord Christian Academy. Please pray that God will use my team in a great way!