I am absolutely loving everything the Lord has placed before me here in Memphis! We have been very busy in the community. Last week, all of us went to the community center to volunteer to help out with the Summer Camp. I hung out with elementary school aged kids for about 3 hours straight doing all kinds of fun stuff! I taught some kids to jump rope doing double dutch, carried kids on my back, had a dance party and played duck duck goose. Man, it's been a long time since I've done those things and honestly I was a little intimidated at first with these kids. But the Lord showed me alot about how He has made small children to be full of faith...so trusting, and willing to listen and be able to understand more than I ever gave them credit for. I am actually praying with an open hand about what age group and what school to target here in the community. More than ever, I am open to doing ministry with younger kids. The younger the kids, the more time I will have to disciple and mentor before they graduate high school. We will see, but please be in prayer for me in this.
From Thursday until late last night, I was out of town. Soup and Mrs. Linda invited Molly, Anteelah and me to a discipleship training conference in Dayton, TN. We recieved training so that we could be equipped to train other leaders (nationally and internationally). We met some other urban leaders and just networking with everyone was valuable. We even got to meet Usher's (R&B artist) Uncle/former road manager. His story was pretty cool because he gave it all up to be a disciple of Christ and to go back to his neighborhood to make disciples there! We got a taste of what I may have any opportunity to do when we have groups come in to Memphis and when we go on a mission trip overseas to train church leaders about discipleship making. Soup already told me to get ready and get my passport!
Then today, for about 2 hours we went out into the "hood" and got to share Christ with people. It was one of the greatest experiences I've had sharing my faith because we went into the most dangerous areas of the "hood" in Binghampton. This area is where one of the high school interns that actually lives in the community was afraid to go. It is common for there to be drugs, prostitution, and even lost lives in this area...and we were there! The reality is that if someone didn't like us or our message, we could have gotten hurt, or run off with fear. There were some people that told us to go away, and sometimes in not a so nice way. But we got to share with alot of people, prayed with some people, encouraged others with scripture, and even cried with some. I pray that we are faithful to follow up with people we met today. Please pray for us as we take the gosple to the streets.
Acts 20:24
