Acts 15:4 Declaring What God Has Done

We are here this morning to hear what God has done.

And there's a biblical precedent for that.

In Acts chapter 15, beginning in verse 4, we read when they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

We have a privilege this morning and as a church to hear from many different ministry opportunities that we've had to participate in this year.

Yes, some of you are slow and coming up.

Come on up.

We we talked about this and we we decided, you know what?

All of the ministry things that our church has been involved in this summer deserve a little more than a two, three, four-minute introduction on a Sunday morning just saying, hey, we did this.

So we decided that we would take an entire morning service time to review with you what God has done.

Because we want you to get excited about what God has done.

So I've invited up here some representatives from you guys can have a seat, that's okay.

From four different groups who went out to do ministry work this year.

And we're going to hear from each of them this morning.

That one's for you, sir.

Right behind you, Marcelo.

So we have to be able to see everybody here.

I need to keep tabs on these people, you know.

First, we want to uh hear from our team that went to the Czech Republic.

For those of you who don't know, like me, um, I'm still learning, we have a very long history with a a group, a church in the Czech Republic.

And we've been sending teams over for at least 20-some years, I think.

And so this year we sent a team over to do.

Well, I won't tell you what they did, I'll let them tell you what they did.

So, Paul?

Okay, are we on?

Okay.

I do my best work standing up, and I have a watch.

Paul, Paul, can I interrupt you?

I'm sorry.

Before you begin, I have asked them to do three things.

I've asked them to describe to you what they did, and most importantly, to let you know what God did.

What is the spiritual impact of this ministry?

And to help you have some excitement about that.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Paul.

Start my clock over.

That's right.

Because we will use every second.

Uh thank you.

We had a wonderful team.

This was my fifth time over.

Uh, we just had a fabulous team.

It was a small team, but uh I was on it, my wife was on it.

Uh the amazing Shirley Kiefer.

Is Shirley here?

No.

Uh Derek Carlson, whom I call Derek Carlsonova, because he was a big hit with the young Czech women.

Uh there was uh someone had to do it, it was hard work.

Uh there was the amazing Rebecca Brewer and uh Alyssa Johnson.

I don't know if Alyssa's folks are here, uh, but she did a wonderful job as well.

So a very positive group, uh interacted really well with the campers.

And uh what we do basically is we're there for two weeks.

We uh flat on a Tuesday, we're spending day or two getting recovered from the trip, meeting our Czech team that we're gonna work with, uh seeing Olomotes.

And then on Friday we go to camp.

And uh Saturday through Friday we have a camp.

Each day is the same.

It consists of meals at a uh kind of a camp resort type of, not a resort, but a camp place.

Uh there's three parts to our program every day.

We have a Bible reading and and questions.

This year we used a Christianity explored curriculum, which was very clear in presenting uh the gospel.

And we have a conversation class where we just talk with people and they work on their English skills.

And we have a English lesson time where uh again we work on things.

We break it up by their level of of English skills.

We have some free time because a lot of families come to this, so they use it as a time for uh family time.

Uh then there's an evening program uh every night where there's uh some uh some songs that we sing and we have a coffee time for social interaction.

We had about 70 campers uh this year, and the campus changed as the I I've been doing this for over a 12-year period.

The English skills of the Czech people have improved so much that uh the teaching English component of it is is much less important, and the relationship conversational aspects are much more important.

Uh and uh it's it's been uh and then we have some downtime.

We on the next Sunday after camp we go to the church uh service uh at the church, and then we have a day or so in Prague.

Uh what God did.

Well, you know, when I went to my first camp years ago, I asked uh Pavel Sofal, who was the pastor of the church at that time.

I asked him, uh Pavel, how many of these people at church uh, you know, grew up in a Christian family, and how many of them came to faith, you know, afterwards through different things?

Well, he said, Well, we were a communist country, it was just my brother and sisters who grew up in a Christian family, and Ahonka, one other woman.

Everybody else in the church came to Christ afterwards because it was a communist country, and uh Christianity and all religion was put down.

And so it was a communist country.

It's a very deliberate form of relational evangelism, where uh first you work on just building trust with people so that they trust Christians because they've never known Christians.

And then we begin to try to draw them to the person of Christ, and then we try to get them to think about uh how they can trust Christ, and then lastly how they can put their faith in Christ.

And that four-step process might take five or ten years for many people, but most of their church came to faith through those different processes.

Sometimes those four steps took place within a year, sometimes within ten years, sometimes it's been fifteen years and we're still on step three or two.

But it's a very slow and deliberate process.

Uh and so it's a great partnership.

Uh we the Americans, we're the rock stars.

Uh I know, it's hard to believe.

But we're the rock stars.

We're the reason people come, we're the excitement, we're the native English speakers.

There's tremendous interest in learning English.

You can never know enough English.

And so there's tremendous interest.

Somebody told me that in it at there's a university there, Polotski University of Olomotz.

He says if you advertise for a Bible study in Czech language, nobody comes.

You advertise for a Bible study in English and you get an audience.

They don't care about the Bible, but they just want to hear and read about English.

And so, you know, you can use that as a tool to draw people in.

And so we provide the energy, we're the rock stars, they do follow-up all the year, and it's uh been a very effective program over the years.

Uh, what did God do?

Uh well, we just got a letter.

I'll just read some of this to you.

This is from Ruth Sofilova, uh uh now Ruth Valentova.

She said, uh, thank you so much for all your hard work, for your time, and especially for sharing your faith and love for the Lord with the campers.

Let me just name a couple of examples of God's work at this year's camp to encourage you, all involved in this wonderful ministry.

And she talks about Ava, who went to camp two years ago by herself.

This summer she came with her husband Viktor and their two children, Editka and Doranek Durenek, Doreneck, went with her and they loved camp.

After camp, they live out in the country where Ruth and her husband Ludwig went for a vacation after camp, and it also happens to be near to where Ruth's brother-in-law pastors a church, and they went and visited the church where uh the sister family lives.

And they invited them to church the next day.

We introduced them to my sister Lydia and her husband Daniel, who is a pastor at the church.

I mentioned that they could come to the worship service on Sunday, and they did.

She told me it was a big struggle in her.

She didn't want to come.

At the same time, she felt that she just had to go.

And she was in tears during the service.

And when I talked to her afterwards, she told me that the sermon touched her.

It was just for her.

It was exactly what she'd been experiencing at camp the week before.

Her husband also really liked the church, uh, the camp, yeah, the church, and joined others.

So pray for that family.

She talked about Jana and her husband Zedeniak and their son Merlin, who came to camp, uh, have been to camp a couple times, and we believe that the Lord is at work in their lives.

Or there is her friend Jana.

Uh, Jana was someone I met six years ago at camp.

She was very frightened about coming to a Christian camp.

He thought she was at vampire camp, I think.

She was just white with fear.

Um, but she learned to trust Christians.

And uh it's been amazing to see her transformation over the years.

She came to camp, uh, took even took part in the communion, went to the church after the service, took part in the communion, and uh Ruth could see a big change in her life.

She's much more open to the gospel.

Pray for her.

This is a woman who has experienced five bouts with cancer, and the people have developed a relationship with her and prayed for her, and she sees the power of God.

And there were also a lot of university students uh at the camp, and they had a wonderful time.

And the youth from the church, she says, were also encouraged.

And then lastly, her colleague Yana, who's an English pedagogy teacher at the university, came to camp with her husband Yirji and their daughter, and they felt very, very comfortable.

So, once more, a big thank you to all of you and praise, thanksgiving, and glory to our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's keep in touch with the campers and encourage them.

May the Lord keep on blessing you abundantly.

Your work in his kingdom is not in vain.

So uh there's a lot going on.

I'm pretty much almost out of time here.

I am out of time, but uh a lot of things going on at uh Olomotes Baptist Church.

Uh the camps continue to be effective.

They have a they max out at 150 uh during the school year.

There's 25,000 students in the city where they go.

They have an international student presence.

There are some Americans that are working there through a Josiah Venture ministry, and as part of their ministry, they have to work through a church.

They really are partnering with the church.

And so Olomotes Baptist Church partners with them.

And as bizarre as it may sound, the church may have more access to schools in the Czech Republic than in America because they don't have money for programs, and so if there are programs that churches sponsor that fit in with goals of the schools, they're open and they're using those uh opportunities all the time.

And I just want to pass the baton to uh Rebecca Brewer, who was uh on her first trip, and uh maybe give her some of her impressions about her first time there.

Hi, everybody.

Um when Paul and Deb Vallen told me to come up here and talk with them, um, they said, well, Paul can talk about kind of you know what God's doing and and you can get people excited.

Uh I'm not 100% sure how good I'm gonna be at hyping you up.

Um but uh I can say I I can't speak highly enough for the people who are over there.

Of course, the they made the biggest impression on my mind, the um Czech Republic itself, Olomots, Prague, those were wonderful places to see.

But I think the the reason that I would consider going back in the future, I think the reason anybody who has already been there, why they go back, has has to be the relationships with the people.

Um the Olomotes Baptist Church, um, Pastor Peter, his wife Jana, Ruth, Petra, um, some of these people are just so wonderful, almost overwhelmingly so.

I remember the first day we got there, we'd just been on, you know, three flights, buses, uh, train ride, and like getting to the train station and having all the people that Deb and Paul already knew coming to welcome us, and you know, people that's just these strangers come up and you know give you big hugs, and I was exhausted out of my mind.

And it's like, well, this is wonderful.

I don't know who you are, but yeah, I do need a hug right now.

So um, so that that made such an impression on my mind, and not only, of course, the people in the church, but the people that we met at camp.

Um, these are people that, yes, they're there to learn English, but most of them will say um mostly they love going to camp because they have friends that they see there every year.

Um, they like meeting the Americans, they like meeting, you know, the the other Czech people from Olomotes, and so they're just there kind of to have fun.

So, yes, we teach English, we have our classes, we have our conversation groups, but mostly we just sit there and talk and laugh and hopefully impart some English knowledge on them in the process.

But it was just such a wonderful experience.

Um, and I know one of my last conversations with Pastor Peter before we left, he did mention, you know, he said, English profession proficiency is is growing in Czech Republic.

Kids are learning younger and younger, um, they're starting to learn English.

So he said, we can't know how many years camps like this are gonna be in such high demand.

But he said, right now, this is this is what we can do.

We're using the ministry avenues that we have available to us.

And he said, and people, people are so much more likely to come to a camp like this than just to walk into a church.

And so I think that is just it's such a cool opportunity um to be able to provide something that these people want and need, but also, of course, um do your best job to present the gospel to them while you're there.

Um and so yeah, I loved the experience.

It was a great two weeks.

I mean, of course, you're jet lagged and tired, and nowhere has ice for their drinks, and you know, so there are all of these things, but our team got along so well.

Um we laughed, we took naps a lot, um, and did as best as we could to get through the couple of weeks, and it was a great experience.

I can't I can't speak highly enough about it.

So I'm done.

If you can go to the uh last slide, we'll just update you on the building.

This is the uh cinema.

Uh many of you are familiar with the Czech Cinema Challenge.

Uh about uh a year or so ago, we uh started a campaign to uh help raise money to renovate this structure.

Uh they have purchased the structure, it's a former cinema, but we raised uh we tried to raise$200,000.

We have$194,000 in pledges, about$161,000 raised already.

And uh they have completed the architectural designs, they have demoed the interior of it, and they've gone as far as they can.

They had some minor renovations, and those architectural plans are being reviewed by the city.

And as soon as those plans are approved or revised and then approved, uh they'll begin working on the uh interior.

We were able to see the interior of it.

It's a mess because it's all been demoed, but they are hoping that in November of 2018 uh they'll be at least able to move into this and have services even if it's not completely renovated.

So if you did make a pledge or you're still interested in participating in that, I think we have through the end of December of this year to do that.

So just to remind you that that is moving forward, and uh if you were part of that or would like to be a part of it, uh that's another great opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we go from the other side of the world to back to home.

So we had an opportunity this year to impact our local community.

Uh, and Mike was uh heading that up.

Hi, I'm Mike Doll, and I'm from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

We're doing a collaborative project with University of Luther and Pastor Tom Clendzel and Josh Hopel over at Freedom Church.

I had the vision of maybe doing uh helping the public churches to get together and maybe help some schools and uh clean up even short for six months.

So we just decided maybe we could help out what we did.

We got about 50, 60 people might have to come over here and help clean up like we helped.

I mean, I've worked with him on another project one time, and I never knew how hard it was to do what he just did.

Thank you, Chuck Crummy, for doing that.

And I want to thank all the other people from our church who helped participate in this event.

It was such a great day.

We had a great sunny day.

We prayed that we could it would work, that we could work outside and get that whole parking lot done.

And um, just a phenomenal day to see the people of God get together to do a big project for our city.

Wow.

Thank you all who helped.

I can't mention all the people who are there to help.

You saw some of their videos in there.

There's about 15 of us there that day from our church, and it was kind of an effort to show the world that once in a while the churches can get together and work together and do it in a great way.

Everybody was smiling on there, everybody was happy to be there working together.

What a great day that was.

And I just need to bring up my pinch hitter here, Jay Anderson, who was there, and he's gonna talk about what he saw happen at that school that day.

Thank you, Jay.

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna embarrass Mike first because uh what an incredible heart he has.

Um I think of the folks in our church that have served over the years.

Lee Reddick comes to mind right away because Lee uh is such a giver that way, any project, and there's so many others, but Mike himself um took this upon himself to organize along with uh other pastors from other churches, uh uh churches that we maybe wouldn't even consider to be evangelical, but we were all working together and and we know that um uh what we did uh made a huge impact both for practical reasons but also for uh reasons where the the whole I think uh educational arena was grateful and and surprised that we would be there.

And what I loved was uh families that came with their young children.

You saw some of that in the pictures.

And those kids were scrubbing walls, and they were just, you know, they were working hard and having a great time.

And you look at the whole the doing that parking lot, that was a hot day.

And those guys were out there working um and just freely giving of their time.

I was um so grateful that I could be a small part of that.

And um, I know we have some other things still perhaps planned in the future, not solid yet, but I would encourage uh more and more of us to get involved with the community like that because I really believe that's where Christ shows his love in a very, very practical way.

So uh look forward to um what might be coming up.

And thank you, Mike, again for um your organization of this whole thing.

Thank you, Jay.

One of my favorite Bible verses is it says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I'm gonna change the Bible today, Pastor Jason.

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

And that's our prayer, and that's what I want to see God do.

How people across the Grand Forks community can all get together and work together.

And um, so we can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

And that's how I'd like to leave this.

We are looking at some future projects.

Uh, the group got together just last Wednesday, and we're the public school goes, Can you work for us during Christmas vacation this year?

And we go, Wow, no, we don't know about that.

But um we we're kind of looking at maybe next summer doing another project, and and um so it's just fun to see the people of God work together.

That's what I love, and that's what I want to see, and I want to have our community work working against Christ or working for Christ instead of Satan wanting divide and conquer.

I want to have us working together, and that's what I see, and that's what I hope, and uh thank you for this time, and thank you to all of you who helped.

Really, what a great day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

So we go from home now back to abroad.

And from the way I understand it, uh, the Ecuador trip was sort of a last minute come together sort of project.

So help us understand more about that.

Okay, my name is Bridget K.

Campo Verde, and this is my husband Marcelo Campo Verde.

And Marcelo's from Cuenca, Ecuador.

And our team consisted of Marcelo, myself, Mark Ramonic, and Lori Carview.

And Nico Campo Verde, our son.

So Marcelo and I had planned to help at Vacation Bible School in Quito, Ecuador.

There's a city named Calderón, about 40 miles from Quito.

And that was our plan all along.

And we started planning in April.

Well, I was at a mission board meeting and there was some funds left for short-term missions.

And I said, hey, we're going.

Do you think we could get a team together to go?

And I think it was maybe a month before or even three weeks before.

And um, you know, Deb looked at me and she said, you know, we plan way in advance.

And I said, Yeah, but if God wants it to happen, it's gonna happen.

That's that's what I said in my mind.

And and I think all along that's what God has been teaching me through this trip is that when he wants something to happen, it will happen.

So we contacted a uh a few people that had been invested in Ecuador, and unfortunately they were not able to come, but God provided the people that he wanted to go.

And so um what it consisted of consisted of is um we were we um had vacation bible school for five days and sorry, four days, and then um, which was it was just an incredible experience.

Um we brought gifts from the church and the the leader of the Calderon Youth Ministry, um, he was just overwhelmed to see all the gifts that you had provided.

Um he was speechless.

And um so we're gonna show a little video of the different things that we did, and then Marcel was going to give you more background on the ministry.

So, okay, fire up everybody.

Here we go.

Buenos días.

As I sit here and have to wait for twenty some minutes before I can say anything, I had a chance to look at most of your faces, not the faces upstairs, but uh most of you, and my heart just uh rejoiced because each one of you came alongside us as we were in Ecuador, making a difference, walking alongside Juan and Lolita Simbaña, who are the leaders of this project in Calderón.

Some of you don't know this, but I was born in Ecuador as a young man.

God blessed me with the opportunity to come to the US to get an education.

1983, August 5th, 1201, I arrived in Minneapolis Airport, totally out of my mind, trying to figure it out why I am here.

Did not speak English, did not know anybody in Minneapolis, did not know that Minneapolis was a big city.

I lost my connection flight, so I was coming all by myself with a little suitcase, a beat-up guitar that uh Eastern Airlines had broken it for me as I came up to Minnesota, and I had a lot of questions.

One of the biggest questions was for the missionary friends that I have befriended in Ecuador as a young man, I always wonder why.

Why would anybody decide to give up their lives, their families, their language, their food, their familiarity with the environment to come to a different place and serve?

I always asked that question in my own mind as a 17, 15, 16-year-old.

And I never got a chance to ask the older missionaries because they did not speak Spanish and I did not speak English.

So forward the calendar of 30 years, and I called all the missionaries that I befriended when I was a young man, and I asked them, Why did you do that?

And I got several answers, but the commonality and the answer is that the God called me to do that ministry.

They all answer it that way.

I answer the call.

I didn't really understand that until 2011 when the call came to us, to Bridget and me at different times.

We ended up going to Quito and work at Alliance Academy International as a volunteers, as educators there.

And that's another conversation, but that's what brings me to the Calderón Youth Center, where I met Juan.

See, Juan is a leader in the maintenance crew at Alliance Academy.

He's served the Lord and worked at that place for 35 years.

He hasn't really missed any days at work because he's such a hard worker.

He's an amazing guy.

And when I met him, I noticed that about him.

His passion about his service with his hands and the work for the Lord, and his passion about honoring God with his talents.

Juan heard me speak at a presentation that I give for homeless kids, homeless boys.

In Quito, there's a problem with homelessness.

And I had a privilege to speak to about 10 or 12 homeless kids that grew up in the streets, they actually sleep at the park.

We don't have those pro those problems in Grand Forks.

But if you go into many developing countries, homelessness is a very serious problem.

So when I got invited to talk to about 10 boys, they were young men, probably 18, 19, 20, I had to share my story with them.

And I started with the same story about why, and I told them, why did I come back?

Because every one of them wanted to know why would I come back to Quito?

Why would I come back from the US?

You see, most people in the world would love to be in the US.

Most people in the world would love to have the job that you have.

Most people in the world will love to speak English the way you do.

Most people in the world will love to have the freedom to speak and come and congregate and learn about the word and learn about God.

A lot of people don't have that privilege.

As I finished my exposition to these young uh men, a couple of them came and asked me, Why would you want to come back?

And I said, Because God called me to.

As Juan and I became friends, I realized his passion for service.

And he and I became friends.

One time when I pulled him out of his busy schedule at Alliance, I got in trouble because I would pull Juan and say, Juan, I need your help.

And he'd come running because we were good friends.

And I say to him, You need to, I need to talk to you about something.

And I take him out and eat breakfast with him.

Sometimes he didn't get breakfast.

And I said, I want you to tell me what your dreams are.

And he goes, What are you talking about?

How about helping these kids?

You see, Juan grew up in a very, very, very sad situation as a young man, and he said, I would like to make a difference in my neighborhood.

What does that look like?

I asked.

He said, I would love to open a youth center, a Christian youth center.

And I said to him, let's do it.

He didn't ask many questions, and I didn't know how that would look like or what that would look like.

But in about two or three months, we started gathering these kids from the neighborhood in Calderón.

And three of them were busted to our house where we lived in Quito.

We started with three kids.

We got together at our house, we we played some games, we fed them, we gave them some clothes, we got to know them, we introduced our family to them, and today Juan regularly has between 20 and 25 kids that he ministers to.

We don't have um an organization behind us, but we have the Lord behind us.

A lot of you have invested with him, a lot of you have invested with us, and now we can see the fruits of the investment.

Some of those leaders that you saw briefly on the video were little kids when we started six years ago.

Now they've taken up on their leadership role.

And we had a chance to bring Mark and Lori and Nico, and I want to thank them personally and publicly.

Mark, you're amazing.

I don't care what they say about you.

Lori Carvo, she's an incredible, incredible uh person when it comes to missions because she's done so many things.

The English camps and the Czech.

And Nico, you did a great job, Nico.

I don't know where you are.

You better be here.

But Nico, I want to tell you how proud I am.

I was really proud.

I'm always really proud, but I I really saw how how uh the Lord used you in that time with the kids.

So this is what we were able to do.

We come in and support, support system for Juan and his family and the leaders down there.

And our roles were varied.

I don't know if you know the Marco.

Mark did very well with uh with uh building things in uh what should we call it?

Uh what did we do with those little projects?

What were they doing?

Glue.

He was using a goo glue gun and and doing uh handcrafts.

I was like, Mark, you're a PhD at UNDI.

And he almost gave his whole testimony in Spanish.

And he almost he gave his testimony in mostly in Spanish.

I only had to come in uh once in a while.

Kids were so interested in them, and kids were so thankful for everything.

And Bridget was right when Juan I did not know what was coming because I was there already.

And Bridget is the organizer, and I want to thank her too because she does all the work and I just take all the credit.

Isn't that how it works?

Um, but when they came down, they had two or three suitcases and a box or two full of uh stuff.

I did not know what came.

And when we opened everything up and Juan was there, he started to cry.

He really it really touched him because we've been praying for that for years now, six years coming, that we need the supplies, that we want these things, that we would love to have this um uh equipment for games and things.

But brothers and sisters, it is a privilege indeed to call you that, that God is using each one of you where you are, with your contributions, with your prayer, with your friendship to us, with your support throughout.

We are so thankful for what God is doing in Quito.

So, what is next?

What comes next?

I gotta tell you about Calderon.

It's about a hundred thousand people, it's a parish outside of Quito.

See, Quito is a 2.2 million uh inhabitant city, it's a big place.

When Bridget and I were headed down to Quito, I told her I would never go to Ecuador and do any type of work if I have to go to Quito.

And that's what the Lord brought us.

But now I understand that the Lord wanted to get us there so that we could have roots in Quito.

We have friends, we have apartments, we have cars, we have food, we have all this network of people that open their doors to us.

I did not get that plan beforehand, is that Quito was the starting point for us.

And the parish of a hundred thousand people in Calderon is 97% Catholic.

You know what that really means in South America?

That means they're very close-knit.

They don't let any gringos in, they don't let any evangelicals in because they are very scared still of uh evangelical Bible based churches.

But this last summer, the community center that we were using to hold the vacation Bible school, the the board of directors gave us a green light anytime that we need to use the community center for any event that we want to host.

Do you know what that means?

The whole community is open to what we're doing.

People are coming, parents want to get involved, the leadership of that little neighborhood is asking questions: who we are, what we do, how we do it, when we do it, and they give us a green light.

In the past, they charge us to use the facility, and this we got a notice, a written notice saying that you can have the facility for free anytime you want to use it.

It's taken six years to be able to hear that.

I wasn't really expecting that, but it is an incredible thing what God is doing in Calderon.

You are part of that, our body is part of that, and I'm so thankful for each one of you.

As you pray about Ecuador, as you pray about Juan, as you pray about Calderón, God is moving things.

And I don't know if you noticed there were two clowns on those slides there.

I have never heard the gospel being shared humor, and those two pastors did an incredible job, better than I could have done it myself, and I like to talk, I like to tell jokes, they did an incredible job.

They talked about Jesus, they talked about sin, they talked about repentance, they talked about accepting Christ, and they did it all through humor.

They've got the attention of every single member of that community center, and God used that time.

It was an incredible blessing.

Again, thank you, Mark, thank you, Lori, thank you, Nico, thank you, Bridget, and thanks every one of you.

I thought for a minute there you were gonna say that Mark was a clown.

I uh sounds though like we've got a new uh Sunday school teacher for the kids uh in in Mark there.

Uh in Spanish, even, yes.

Well, we have one more back at home.

Uh our our youth, one of our youth leaders, Paul, uh our youth group just got back from a trip to Minneapolis to feed my starving children.

Uh and I think we all like to hear more about what that is.

So, Paul, share with us uh what the summer's been like for the for the kids.

If you want to show the pictures.

There we go.

Um it's pretty fun pictures up there.

So again, I'm Paul Snyder, and um my day job is UND uh aviation faculty.

So welcome all new students.

Uh so here's a friendly face for you if you got questions over in the aviation area to help.

Even if you're English, I'll help you out.

So give me a holler.

Um, we had an opportunity just a couple weeks ago.

That's my favorite right there.

Um I gotta get that.

She didn't buy it.

I'm really upset she should have bought it because that if you know my wife, um that would fit her.

Um anyway, so what we did, we went to uh Minneapolis, and our focus is to be on Feed My Starving Children.

But this group is it starts from um the fifth graders get to come in, so the fifth graders are gonna be sixth graders, right?

So they're entering into the junior high, senior high thing, and so this is kind of a culmination of the whole summer for everybody, but they're kind of getting introduced and being this group activity.

Um it's also kind of a kick-em-up, really, for the rest of the year, too.

Um so it's kind of a culmination point.

Um we really in the past it's been called the Valley Fair trip, and we've really tried to focus it back into more being Feed My Starving Children trip.

But during it, we have a lot of fun as well, for sure.

Um and so you know, some of these pictures up here, we did a contest.

We got there the first night, and then a Sunday night, that that'd be a chance to do Mall of America.

Um, would be a little less hectic, and we had a contest to see what kind of crazy pictures they could text me.

And the winners got some ice cream, and and Sadie and Sophie Rigg and Grace Johnson came in with a one minute before the deadline type picture, and they wanted them all.

So they get the free ice cream.

Um like that one.

Um so we did that the first night, and then um Webb started out on the first night, and he gave a um, he talked, we had a devotion right away uh when we got back from the very evening, like nine o'clock at night.

And of course, my phone has this.

I was gonna use a regular Bible, but I couldn't read it, and I didn't want to steal Marcel's glasses.

Um so it's in Peter, uh 1 Peter, I can't read my notes.

1 Peter 2, and it's verse 9.

This is what um Webb uh spoke of.

Webb was gonna be up here with me today, like the pastor said he was sick, though.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that you may so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

And so this is what Webb started out the week with, and just reminding them of that and why we're here, that we're sojourners, that that you are you are loved by God, you your identity is in him, you are capable through him, that you are worthwhile, and we started to build that.

The next day we got to go to Feed My Starving Children for the first time.

We did it twice over the three days, and Feed My Starving Children, they they did an excellent job.

I mean, they really did glorify God and their work that they did.

The second day, um, they um actually mentioned something at the end because there was we made 48 boxes of food.

And if you don't know about Feed My Starving Children, basically they get all the money donated to them, all the labor is donated as well to come in and to basically put food together in packs that have vitamins, that have soy, that have rice, that have one more thing, vegetables, and um put them all together and pack those into boxes that are sent all over the world to feed people.

Um and they what they hope to see is about 49, uh 49 boxes since there was 49 people there for the time that we spent on each day, and we had like 84 boxes, and so they just worked really hard and did a great job and just glorify God through their service.

And so, just with kids, you know, we need to be present with them, and you look for opportunities to talk about Christ, to to encourage them along their walk as as we went through the day.

Then we got to go to Valley Fair.

Um, and I think one place God worked is with my patience.

In at Aviation, I teach safety.

Yes, I teach safety.

So risk, reduce risk, reduce risk.

You're late, where you got?

So I had I had to work through, I didn't realize how impatient I really can be in some of the mighty hit it sometimes, but not always.

Um so God is working on me and that that process.

Um but anyways, we got to go to Vendley Fair, had just a great time, you know, and just and just you know, there was no it was fun because um I hope we don't mind, Juliana you know, Cavernins are here, the our mission family is here, and then and there's another young lady too that was there.

And you would think that they had been part of the youth group for five years.

I mean, because it was just like they were all together and they're just going and they're just doing stuff.

It was so fun to see, and just seeing them being connected, and we hope that community will build throughout the throughout the year as well.

And then um the last day we went to feed my starving children again, had some more fun activities, and we came back.

Um some of the things that I some you know doing in Course Working and my mom like my mentioned, um, seeing how they engage one another and we talk to them about that this walk with the Lord is not something we do alone.

We do it together, that we're not meant to do it alone.

And so it was fun to have those conversations and to encourage the kids in in that way.

Um we had number two many, it was just kind of last minute, um, but they they stepped up.

We had John Palm, we had uh Kalen Camp of Verde, we had Aiden Robbinsted.

Mama come and and leaded the divulction the second.

So our two seniors that are leaving and And a junior who's gonna be a senior this year, they did the speaking, they did the devotion on the second night, which for me, you know, as a parent and as a leader, it's like, oh, I love this because they were all counselors, they were all serving um throughout um the summer in different areas, different counselor positions that they served in.

And so they spoke, and that really kicked into what we are doing for the next year, and just again to get excited for the next year, it's living, being faithful in an unfaithful world.

And that's kind of the focus that we are doing as a youth group this year is being faithful in an unfaithful world.

So here are these three people that were being faithful this summer and serving the Lord and talking about how God was there, how they relied upon the Holy Spirit to do the things that they did, and to realize that you know they that God isn't looking for people that are perfect, but he wants to use you and he's gonna do the work through you, and he's the one who's gonna provide you that strength.

And so the kids were saying this to the younger kids.

And so for me, that's awesome to see that.

And that's what I think I'm starting to see with the youth, and we're excited to see is that growing of those leaders that within the youth, the actual youth being the leaders, where they're stepping up and they're gonna be just being faithful and unfaithful world.

So I would ask that you'd pray for them, help these youth, pray that God would help them to be faithful and unfaithful world, help us as leaders to be able to convey that and to express how that looks, how that can be done through the strength of Christ.

So that's kind of what we do.

Thank you.

I want to thank each and everyone for participating.

Thank you for participating.

As has been said several times, you don't know the full impact of what God will do through your provision and through your prayer.

We've heard of some results already.

It will be interesting to hear when we all reach heaven what God will have done through each of these different areas.

It's exciting.

It's an exciting thing to be a part of, and this is just a glimpse of the many things that we could have brought before you this morning.

And I apologize for those of you who may have wanted to hear other things.

I know, I know you have to cut it off somewhere.

Um we wanted you to get a glimpse of what you have been a part of, either directly or indirectly, what you can be a part of, but most importantly, what we together as a body of believers can glorify God for.

Started out in Acts.

I'd like to finish today in Psalm 75.

We give thanks to you, O God.

We give thanks for your name is near.

We recount your wondrous deeds.

Let's pray together.

Our Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, giving thanks for your name.

Thank you that you would use frail, broken instruments like us.

Lord, sometimes we don't know English very well, much less Spanish.

Or some other foreign language.

Sometimes we feel as though we are insignificant, and yet you can use us to package something up that will make a difference in somebody's life across the world.

Lord, take away our insecurities, take away our feelings of inadequacy, and use us so that we may gather together again, another time, to recount your wondrous deeds.

May you be glorified and honored through all that you've done in us.

Amen.