A recipe for blessing

Well it was quite the scenario. A bunch of middle school students from northwest Indiana were to come on their very first mission trip. Their destination was inner city St. Louis, and everything that possibly could go wrong before the trip was going wrong. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, and it could have been, but...... God had a different dish He was cooking up.
We arrived safely with a van load of excited, but admittedly nervous, middle school students on Sunday eager to be a part of something but they had very little idea what, then God started adding the ingredients to His dish. First we met the amazing team from BUMP and some of the staff from Jubilee Church and we started finding out about the dynamics of the community that we would be serving. This information added to both the excitement and the fear that they had but they pressed on.

Second, God added the "block party" into the mix. This gave the students their first interaction with people from the community and it went great! They jumped in with both feet. They did everything from playing with kids to praying with adults who were struggling. They were shaking off some of the rookie jitters.

Third, God added our first pinch of a work project. We worked with a ministry that does so much in this community to meet needs both practically and spiritually. Our project was to clean-up two apartments that had recently been condemned and cleared of the squatters that were living in it. To say this was something that got them out of their comfort zone would be an understatement. They were so far from their comfort zone they could not see it with binoculars. But they came through again and cleaned like champs! Only two of them threw-up (If you could have seen this place you would be shocked it was only two).

Fourth, God added our first taste of VBS. The kids had been working hard on learning lines, songs and decorating but now it was time to put it into play. Did things go perfect? No. Did God still move? YES! The students loved those kids with Gods love and by the end of the night the kids that were unsure of us from the neighborhood and our kids that were unsure of the kids from the neighborhood were hugging, laughing and playing like old friends. It was great to watch.

What could have been a recipe for disaster, though it is not done cooking, is staring to smell like Gods blessing being poored out here in St. Lois. Keep praying!