Here is a post I just made on my ministry blog. I’ll only add to it that on my day off I enjoyed a great lunch with Joy and tasted my very first Irish pint. Contrary to popular belief… most Irish can’t stand Guiness. I had the house beer and it was awesome and well deserved.

Today is our teams day off. So far I’ve shopped for a few hours in Enniskillen, NI and have now shopped some more in a town called Omagh.

Where have you been? My last update was Saturday afternoon. About the time I was typing another team member, Rebecca was leading 4 young people in a prayer as they received Christ. It was an exciting day for our team as we saw some results. As can be expected, something like that really gives the team a shot in the arm.

Sunday…. I got up pretty early and worked on my talk some more. Both of the church services went pretty well. Apparently churches here resond differently than in the States. I got almost no response whatsoever to either message. Even with the facial feedback, they seemed disinterested. It is easy to see why the young people don’t like the local churches and call them dead… because they largely are. The people here say “the church is dying” and I think that may be giving the churches in our area more credit than they deserve. There are few vital signs and strikingly little connection to the life giving power of the Bible. OK, time to get off that soapbox.
Later Sunday evening we decided to fulfill Val’s wish and try to get her baptized. We left the Methodist Church at about 5:00 PM and started to walk over towards the lakes. It took us about 2 hours to find a suitable location and get everyone together. As Val, Becca, and I entered the lake we realized quite quickly that this was going to be very, very cold. But it was a beautiful time for Val and all of our team. As we got out of the water we all sang a praise song, “Beautiful One” and prayed with her. To our suprise a family stopped to talk to us and encourage us. (They were Chrisitans visiting 5mile on holiday.)

Monday… My day began very early as I signed up to man our 24/7 prayer room at 5:00 AM. I spent most of my hour cleaning up the nasty mess others had left but managed also to pray. At 8:30 I got picked up by David Schultz and his wife Dawn for my visits to the different sites with Romeo people. We first dropped off Dawn and I got to meet a man named John who is the director of YFC Europe and Middle East. He was a cool guy and very hospitable. From there we went to Killileah to see Autumn and Katie. When I got there we had a great reunion and tried out best to catch up. I took some pictures, encouraged them, and then I was off to Monkstown. All I really have to say about Katie and Autumn is it looked like things were going very well. They were their normal bubbly selves and I wouldn’t worry about them at all.

From there we drove through the country, through Belfast’s city center [David ran a red light and nearly killed us! Turns out the middle finger is pretty universally applied worldwide when you run red lights… good to know.]

On the north end of Belfast is an area they call Monkstown. I would be a liar if I said Monkstown was a nice place. It’s not. It’s pretty rough and tumble. They’ve had a couple of break in and I was expecting them to be really defensive. I found the team to be quite happy and completely resolved to finish their task despite anything that was tossed their way. LisaB is doing great. She found out that I talked to this massive guy, Jackson, from Regina, Saskatchewon about keeping her safe and clear of boys! She said, “is it true that you are paying Jackson £20 to keep me safe?” I said, “Well, your mom must have kicked in some money since I only offered him £10!” We had a great time there and I enjoyed a simple but nice lunch with the team. Good things in Monkstown! It may not be the nicest place in the world, but God is moving in Monkstown… and the team really is safe. Please just pray that the work would get done there.

From there, we drove about 20 minutes up to Ballyclare. Dawn and her team are VERY VERY close. She is doing great and I was amused that she had taught her team all kinds of Romeo-isms. I walked in and an Irish lady asked me “Am I in the right church? Alleluh!” We had a short but good visit there. All is well. That team is really, really tight and I fully expect lots of tears at the BBQ Saturday as they say goodbye.

Onward to my last stop, Portadown. Andrea and her team are also doing quite well… even though they are battling the cold. What stuck out to me in Portadown was that the team really liked each other. They are even in the process of writing songs for each team member. I can’t wait to hear Andrea’s. Andrea is doing quite well and it seems like her team is getting the job done.

At each site I reminded them “It doesn’t matter how well you start the race, all that you will be remembered for is how you finish… finish strong and with no regrets.”

What about 5mile? Honestly, I am tired of team life. I like my team, they are great people… but I think it’s a combination of the constant chaos, lack of leadership, and me missing my family that has just got me “faking it” a lot. I miss my partner and best friend Kristen and this experience would be a lot more fun with her here. Besides that bit, I am also tired physically. Late nights, too much food, too much stress, living on the set of “Real World: Fivemiletown” and not getting adequate sleep is starting to wear on me. I plan on going to bed nice and early tonight so that I can get refreshed for the sprint to the finish!

This has been such an incredible experience and I know my part of the post made it seem like I am really down on myself and my team… let’s just say I need a bit of a break and I am getting that today. All will be better in the morning.

Here are some updates I’ve gotten today from our different teams here in Northern Ireland.

Lisa writes….keep us in ur prayers. we had kids break into the church where we are staying at last nite when we went out (it was our nite off otherwise we would have been there) 2 kids broke in thru an already cracked skylite and stole $ from 3 ppl and hid it sumwhere. it was scary and some other kids found it in the estate but still… it was a definite violation of our stuff and they had to call the cops and file a report and we were up till 2 am and had to get up at 8 for kids klub. tuff. one kid won’t admit to it. the other one readily gives up the info. the other kids that were there are admitting to everyone that they knew the 2 did it. and ya that’s the current low down. ttyl ilysm miss u guys!lisa bee

Jon also checks in… I’m over here in Ballymena. Were doin great over here, Were running a holiday club club for the kids in a church and their friends. Our job is to get the youth in the church group excited so that after we leave they are still working. We set up a room so that it looks really cool. we got an army cargo net to hang from the ceiling. DJ equipment a stage and a video projector for visual stuff. and tables and a coffebar and a tuck shop for where the kids sit. I got to go so I’ll look forward to hearing from you guys and how you’re all doin. We’ve been really successful in what we’ve been trying to do.

Dawn posted on the LF site… Still having fun here in N.I. We had only our 3rd rainy day today. We’ve been here for 11 days and it’s been warm. Yay!
Anyway – God has been working in the young people here in Ballyclare. Today we were supposed to go to a different estate, Rashee, to hang out with some kids. However, last night at the youth drop in, there were two girls there from the other estate, Grange, that were seeking and questioning us about God. They were asking so many questions and over and over again. I asked the one girl if she was ready to make a decision and she wasnt. So, today it rained and so we didn’t have the club at Rashee, but we invited those kids and the Grange kids to the church to hang out, play video games, pool, ping pong and football. So, the two girls ended up coming from the Grange estate. They wouldn’t have been there if we went to Rashee. They both made decisions to become Christians. They poured out their hearts and broke down with Jess and Lyns. It was an awesome day – definately an encouragement. Also, David has been hanging out with us. He is the one who got saved on Tues. You can totally already see a change in him. He is happy and doesn’t have that angry, tough guy attitude. Praise God! He is pretty influencial with his friends too.
We are really excited! Please keep praying. Love and miss you!
Cheerio-

Let’s start with the good news, this is an exert of a message I received from “wee Autumn.”

I will agree with Autumn on the cussing thing. It’s pretty strange to hear the leaders say those words… I have to try not to cringe! Praise God for the good news, our students are being stretched and shaped. This fills me with happiness!

Last night we had a lot of kids at our drop in center. Basically, since there is nothing to do in town at night we just fling the doors open and they come since there isn’t much else to do. Of course, there is a sad component to it and a happy component to it. It is really sweet because we’ve created and opened a prayer room for them to go to. There are about 4-5 stations where they can guide themselves through some prayers and it has a lot of instructions. It’s incredible to see them dwell in there. There is a station called confession where they write out their confessions and ask for forgiveness of those sins, and then burn them to demonstrate that sins can be washed away. Of course, theologically speaking this isn’t 100% true since most of them don’t know Christ yet… but they do recognize they are sinners and need to be forgiven. God is good for showing them that. There are many kids asking deep spiritual questions here in 5mile… praise God for that. I am hoping that we are adequately showing these students that Jesus is real and he will meet you right where you are at. But it isn’t all a bed of roses. Last night I invited myself into a cluster of young teens, 11-14, who were outside on the park bench smoking in front of the church. While we made small talk and I told them about Michigan my little antenna went up at some of the stuff going on in the group. As I observed it some more I realized that they were pairing up sexual partners for the night. My head began spinning at this reality. In many ways 5miletown is Romans 1:18-32 in action.

Team news While the ministry and team times have been going fantastic, the informal times have been, at times, disastorous. Meals especially. It all came to a head when, after a great drop in time followed by fantastic pray within the team meeting, the leadership disolved and utter chaos ensued. One of the team leaders was trying to keep it under control and get the others into their nightly meeting… but the other 2 were sooooo into their water fight [running around the outside of the building at 11:00 PM with glass water jugs and screaming] that they just ignored her. For the first time, I had to step in and scold them. I didn’t want to but there was little choice left. They had made complete idiots of themselves again… and this time had jumped into dangerous territory. Feelings were being hurt, risks were being taken, neighbors were probably being annoyed…

So, despite everything I’ve tried to do to quietly influence and “just serve” but not lead, I dragged them into a heart to heart meeting. [Richie had earlier encouraged me to do this if I felt like they were screwing up.] I let them know that where they stood. The rest of the team wants to follow them, but they aren’t leading. They are a distration to our ministry. They are not delegating. On and on. My heart was ripped open since I didn’t want to do this. I want to be a follower here and learn from them! I know they were shocked at what I told them and I know that they continued to meet for quite some time, bringing in others to talk to them as the night went on. I hope I haven’t overstepped my boundries. I was just torn between the reality that they are in charge weighing versus they are leading us away from our goals and the potential long-term good we can do for 5mile. I was nearly sick after this meeting. Please pray for my team. We all want to follow these 3 leaders… it’s my prayer that they would embrace that role before it’s too late.

Today is more games and drop-in stuff. The Americans on our team are excited about David and Dawn [the US ProjectServe leaders] dropping in on us today or tommorow. I will definitely be going with them on Monday or Tuesday to see the rest of our group in their locations. I am hoping to do this on Monday so I can still have the day off with my team on Tuesday. I want to do some shopping, see a movie, and play like idiots too!

I was asked to write a small article for the local paper in Fivemiletown.

Fivemiletown-You may have noticed some unfamiliar faces around the streets of Fivemiletown lately. Four area churches welcomed a Youth for Christ Summerserve team to work with area youth and teenagers. The team arrived at the Fivemiltown Methodist Church’s Wesley Hall on Saturday, July 25th and will work here until August 5th.

All area students aged 11-19 are invited to participate in the activities that the Summerserve team has offered. Anyone having questions or needing directions is invited to contact Rev. Daphne Twinem of the Methodist Church in Fivemiletown. (028) 8952 1264. Summerserve is a ministry of Youth for Christ Northern Ireland. www.yfcni.org

Written by Adam McLane adam@fbcromeo.org

I am absolutely loving it here in Northern Ireland. It is gorgeous here! I am in Ballyclare now with my team and they are awesome. So far we have done two afternoon clubs in the Grange Estates (projects) and one evening youth club. We have a lot planned and it’s really exciting to be here. Today, one of the boys became a Christian. Jess, my leader, has a pretty good relationship with him and she talked to him last night at club about why we do this. He said he went home and was thinking about it and talked to Billy in our group today and accepted Christ. It was such an encouragement to us! Praise God!
So many things to tell already, but we are at someone’s office and have to go and get showers at someone’s house.

If I can write more later- I definately will. Thanks for your prayers. Please keep praying because as we saw today, God definately answers them!

Love you all-

This is the news from Dawn’s team “in the hood.” Awesome things seem to be happening all over the countryside. God’s love is being shared and young people are coming to Christ. Does it get any better than that? Speaking for myself, I have never seen such a people who are so friendly and also so open to talking about Jesus. Last nights drop in center went incredible! We had 25-30 students there for our first “real night.” Not only were there lots of people there, many were asking questions about Christianity and even asking for prayer. I spent a lot of time with the same types of students I hang out @LF. I tend to talk to those who are “good kids, lots of problems.” [Translate: Adam really likes them because they talk a lot and can take a joke well.] We played a soccer game that involved kicking the ball against the wall. I have no idea how it really works, but I always lost! The game ended when Dale lit his ball on fire after soaking it in hairspray. [Don’t tell Jon D that this happens!]

Team troubles and celebrations. Yesterday was a good day for our leadership team… if you forget that they led a food fight during dinner and insulted the cooking of a church member. I was royally made about their stupidity and… so I wouldn’t scream at them… volunteered to do all of the dishes! That calmed me down, then I went and sat under a tree for a while, and finally calmed all the way down when I talked to Kristen for a little bit. Megan apparently likes to rip my heart out when I talk to her when she tells me, “Daddy, I really really really want to play with you.” Ugh.

Over the weekend as I got to know some of my teammates. In the course of talking to them two of them told me that they felt “held back” in their walk with the Lord since they haven’t yet been baptized. I told them, “If that’s what’s holding you back… let’s go do it now!” They just looked at me, completely shocked at the offer. I let both of them know that if they wanted to that I would baptize them in the lake near where we shower. Well, this morning at breakfast they seem ready to take the plunge. We are tentatively planning on taking this step of obedience on Sunday. In other news of similar celebration, a few people expressed to me that they’d like to fast before beginning our final week of outreach. So beginning this Sunday after lunch through Monday at lunch our team will fast. None of the 10 other teammates have fasted that long but they are very excited about it. Will you consider joining us as we pray and fast for the work here in 5mile?

A few times my Irish brothers have gotten up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to do our quiet times together. [For the Northern Irish, 6:30 is a good time to go to bed, not wake up!] We’ve been waking up and reading a passage of scripture. Then, as a reminder, we write the word or phrase on our arms that we want to meditate on all day and take off for a walk. This morning Dave wrote on his arm “teach me” since the passage he read from Dueteronomy didn’t make much sense to him and the passage included the remark, “if you don’t understand this, ask me and I will teach you.” So we walked and just chatted a little as we explored some neighborhoods. We saw that there were some woods that needed to be explored and started over that way. As we got into the last yard before the woods we started across the lawn. Out of the corner of my eye I could see an old man hobbling towards us. I figured he was going to yell at us since we had just gotten finished with a huge round of screaming “hey, cow!” at the ladies in the field enjoying some morning hay. But instead he was just stopping us to tell us that we shouldn’t do in the woods since it has a huge swamp. This guy, later described by Richie as “a wee old man with a crazy lazy eye” was actually pretty nice about the whole thing.

As we were saying our goodbye’s the old man stopped us. He said, “So, why are ya’s here in 5miletown anyway?” We told him who we were and what we were doing… this got him really excited. Then, this man in his late 70s proceeded to talk to us about Jesus and his relationship with him. He talked to us about the urgent need for evangelism here and about the Lord’s immenent return to set up his Kingdom. As he went on and on I couldn’t help thinking about Dave’s arm. God was using the wee little man to teach him powerfully. I wish I could say stuff like this was rare, but there must be something in the water here… good stuff happens all the time.

Last night Daphne, our host pastor, asked if I wouldn’t mind filling in for the Crogher church on Sunday in addition to her church. I said, “Why not?” I will be adapting my message from late June called Shaping our Kids. Of course, I’ll have to cut out all the good stuff since I’ve only got 20 minutes. [Did you hear that Bob, 20 minutes? Just think of it as a really, really long introduction!]

Yes, people are still laughing about my sheep faux pas. Still funny… won’t do that again.

Something very humbling happened today. We went over to Maime’s [Me-Me] house to do our laundry. I was totally running on empty when it came to clothes, so today I had to get this done. Richie and I went over there about lunch time and couldn’t come back until after 11-14 club. So when we got over there I started looking around in the garage for my clothes.

That’s when Maime piped in… “Oh, I moved it inside, I’ve been doing a bit of ironing too.” [Insert deep gulp.] So I go over into the house and she follows me in. She is really polite and nice and it is clear that she has not only washed everything I have but also ironed everything but my socks. I took a quick glance over to my boxers… yep, she ironed them too. [The Irish call your drawers “pants.”] Yeah, so for the first time in my life I will have properly ironed drawers to wear in the morning. Just thought that was worth sharing.

We had about 20 or so kids at 11-14 club today. It went pretty well. The leadership thing seems to be getting better. Hopefully, it isn’t too little too late as I can sense the pastor who is hosting us isn’t impressed with the YFC leadership team.

In other news… I made my first major faux paus of the American vs. Irish language. In playing Moose Moose today I was messing around with the motions and suggested that the kids doing sheep should use the motions for riding a sheep. Much to my embarrassment this is highly suggestive of bestiality. Oops! Put that on the most embarrassing moments list.

Here is a note I got from LisaB today

so i’ve been checking me email thru my team leaders laptop and the computer at
the “green hut” (aka the yfc monkstown center) my mom almost made me cry the
other day when i read an email from her. but it’s going good here. kinda bizee
but im not sleeping on the floor so that’s good. having lots of fun with the
kids here. most of them are older than me but they love to hear about michigan
and my life. it’s also very surprising that 90% of all the kids from ages 11 and
up here smoke and/or drink. and the ppl sell it to them directly or they get it
from their friends. so ya. but we’re having lots of fun learning new words, and
coming together as a team. altho some ppl on my team are.. well… interesting
and kind of like whoa… what r u doing? type of ppl. so ya. that’s the news
from monkstown. kinda homesick sumtimes when sumthing reminds me of home. i went
to a baptist church on sunday but it was really traditional and really long. so
ya. but i think that’s all for now. i’ll ttyl i miss u all! see you all in about
um i think it’s 11 days but im not sure. so yaLisa Bee!p.s. i keep flicking ppl
off on accident trying to say 2. argh. stupid irish lol jk

As I’ve mentioned a few times I’ve been reading Lou Giglio’s book I AM NOT but I know I AM. It seems I have read this at just the right time. That phrase, I AM NOT is extremely powerful in my role on the 5mile team.

Last night was our first drop in center. [centre for the NI team… they need a spell checker!] We had about 20 or so young teens drop by over the 2 hours. Just to give you a picture of their life… 5mile is a tiny town. No stop lights, 1 stop sign, and two traffic circles. Life for them is equally small. They hang out because their parents don’t know what to do with them all summer.

Mostly they just go to the park as their is nothing for them otherwise. No camps. No summer leagues. No reading program. [programme for NI folks!] No jobs, no movies, no malls, nothing. Just alcohol, smoking, sex, and paramilitary wannabe’s. [Just think of them as gangs in the States, same deal… they tag everything.] So they hang out in the park all day every day. Actually, you won’t see them until 4-5 PM and they are there all night. Last night a big glob of them slept in the park so they could smoke and drink and do God knows what else in the peace and quiet of the playpark. Then they go home at 4-5 and sleep it off. As we talked to them last night we didn’t just sense a hunger for God… they want to know what it’s like to be a Christian, to have hope is something better, to see outside of tiny 5mile. As we’ve gotten to know some of them they have asked us questions about God and told us a little about them. Not that this is a shock, but it was tough to hear that most of the 13-14 year olds are sexually active and find it odd that we have 19 year olds that are not. These are the students you are praying for. In Monkstown, Kilileah, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Moira… and the others… it is mostly the same. Life without Jesus is, well, pretty stereotypically Irish… no happy endings to their stories.
Here is a little update from Autumn, enjoy!

Hey I’m in Northern Ireland and its beautiful. I am really excited about
my team, they are awesome, and I am in Killyleagh right now, its a small town,
kinda like romeo, but prettier and more colorful, and full of Irish
people. My team is doing community clean ups in the morning this week and
kids club in the morning next week and drops ins at night both weeks. Its
gonna be really exciting, I’m so pumped, but I have to go, its time for Tea (aka
dinner for all you crazy americans)
~Autumn

Kristen has mostly convinced me that I need to go visit everyone else next Tuesday. As usual, I think she is right.

Oh yeah, about the weird title to this post. Last night the 3 leaders [Becca, Richie, and Val] had a good sit down to talk about their inability to lead. It really came to a head and I had a good talk with Richie about it. Please pray that these 3 would step up to their positions. I’ve said over and over again to them that I am here to support them and be the scum of the team. Give me the jobs and I’ll do them… I want to free them to lead. Saying to them over and over again that I AM NOT the leader is all I can do. Like I said, please pray that they would take on their role. They are afraid of it… but our success in these 2 weeks and their future success in 5mile depends on them stepping up. I told Richie last night, if I were Daphne [our host church] this would be a very short lived experiment. They scare me… but I know they can do it. They have to because I AM NOT the leader. I’ll only slide into that role as a last resort and if the YFCNI asks me to. Pray that this won’t happen.

If you are really keen on your NI news, you’ll know that there was a bombing of a building in Ballymena [Either Dawn or Jon is there] last night. No one was hurt and the damage was minimal. I doubt the SummerServe team will even know about it. When you hear stuff like that just remember that the paramilitary stuff is a lot like gangs in the States.

I know this won’t be that fun to read…. but there just isn’t a lot going on today. So here I am, back to write a bit more and check my e-mail. We just finished passing out leaflets about our ministry… we’ve called it NO2.

Since I’m bored I’ll share the funny part about this. We decided that it would be fun to call our drop in center something that was cold. Someone had put up flyers last week in town that said “What’s colder than ice? Wait and see.” So we figured… what is colder than ice? Nitrose oxide. Duh. Only problem… NO2 [which we printed on all of our leaflets and signs around town] isn’t the chemical equation for that. Bible major. Oops.

In other news, my team has taken up a strange hobby. [I swear, I didn’t start this!] We’ve been taking pictures of Val’s Jesus action figure all over the place. I’ll have to post some of those pics later. Then, as we handed out stuff today Richie kept Jesus in his back pocket. You never know when you’ll have to pull out Jesus on someone.

Fun things: My team eats too well for a mission trip. While it is true that food isn’t really spiced well, it is made up for by the abundance of offerings and the fact that they eat 4-5 meals a day. There is breakfast, coffee hour, lunch, more coffee, tea [supper], and a dinner snack.

More fun things: My talking to livestock seems to be catching on. Next goal, milk a cow.
Still more fun: The showers we have are at a public park about 1/2 a mile from the church. While the walk isn’t bad, the showers are… um…. missions worthy.

Last bit of fun: Rev. Daphne [no relation to Daphne from Scooby Doo] is a lot of fun. She has a great sense of humor. Although I thought I had given her a heart attack this morning when I scared her as she came into the building. I thought it was one of the girls… she jumped about 3 feet.

Good morning from Fivemiletown, Northern Ireland.

Sorry I couldn’t update yesterday as the internet cafe` here is closed on Sunday . OK, EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday’s in NI. The only thing I saw open yesterday was the gas [petrol] station and a chinese resteraunt.

From this point forward my updates will only be about my team and what is going on here in 5mile. I will send an e-mail to all the others and ask them to send updates to me so I can post them here, but I don’t know who has access and I won’t see any of them for 8 days unless there is an emergency.

First off, let me say that the events in Egypt and London are terrible. It is both a reminder of the very dangerous world we live in now as well as the urgent need for evangelism. Though I don’t know much since I don’t have great access to news, my heart breaks for the families who have lost loved ones as well as the general sense of terror folks must be feeling as they commute this morning.

This morning I took Richie and Dave with me for my morning devotions. I got them up very early, practically the middle of the night for NI folks. At 6:15 we met in the church kitchen for a quick read of Scripture and then we were off for a walk. Actually, we all chose a word from what we were reading and wrote it on our bodies. Since I am currently stuck in the first part of Luke 3 I wrote “prepare” on my forearm. Why? Well, I wrote it on my arm as a reminder… I’ll see it all day and it will keep me thinking about John the Baptist. It really has hit me hard as I’ve studies Jesus’ story. John entire existence was for that one word… prepare. He was not conceived by a silent father and old mother for greatness… but to merely prepare people for Jesus. His ministry was always secondary to God’s story. In fact, he was once asked “are you the Messiah?” In that moment he had the chance to say… I am a very important person and you should lift me up. Instead he simply said “I am not him.” This hits me hard as I work here in 5Mile. Here’s what I mean.

Why this ministry works here is not that complex. We crazy Americans are a novelty to the Irish. They think we are worth talking to because we come from where they want to go sometime and we talk like people they see on TV. So if we say “wanna come over tonight and talk to us at our coffee bar?” they’ll think to themselves… “Hey, why not? How often can I talk to someone from America?” In a small town, this is exciting… more exciting than hanging out at the park and smoking on the swings. This simple little thing is all the opportunity we need to start building relationships with the kids and talking to them about Jesus. That word “prepare” is a perfect reminder to me as I serve here…. my job isn’t to do anything else but prepare them to meet Jesus. Coming to know the Savior is a God-sized thing. I may play a role in it, but it is only because God wants to involve me. He doesn’t need me to reveal Himself to these lost kids… He just allows me the priveledge of doing so. I am here to prepare. [I can’t help thinking of seasoning meat when I think of this… maybe I should call myself the tenderizer?]

So, on our read.walk.think.pray excursion today we ventured off to the edge of town. We hopped a couple of fences into a farmers field and explored the ruins of an old house. We spent about 30 minutes trying to imagine what the building was used for… then when we got back to the main road we laughed at ourselves for not reading the massive sign that read “Calvery Family House.” Yep, same old Adam!

In other news. The church we are staying at is pretty cool. The Wesley Hall, where we stay, is only 7 years old. It has a large gym and a nice coffe bar o nthe 2nd floor. There are a few classrooms and a really nice kitchen. What is really sad is that the church really only has a small handful of Christian kids. It’s funny because even though the building is 7 years old you can tell that there is no youth ministry. I brand new and dusty pool table. A foosball table that’s never been used. The gym has no scuff marks on the wall from hockey or mysterious stains from youth events. There simply is no youth ministry. What difference does that make? Well, it is seen in the churches on Sunday mornings. The churches aren’t alive. There is fellowship there and I’m sure good things happen. But the parking lot clears instantly. There is little or no Sunday school hour. There are few Bible studies. The church is dying. What does that have to to do with youth ministry? Just ask the kids of 5mile.

Last night about 9:30 we headed over to the local park. There were about 15 kids there hanging out as the sun went down. Bored… their eyes filled with something I experienced a lot in Germany… boredom leading to depression and loneliness. This is a loneliness only Christ can fill but they try to backfill with alcohol, cigarettes, and relationships. [What they call their fun!] As we talk to them, it is clear that they are looking for something more in their lives. They can’t articulate it, but they just look bound by something and they are looking for the chains to come off. They wan to be free but just don’t know how.

Our plan is simply to take these bored kids and invite them to our two outreaches each day. At 2-4 PM we have a meeting for 11-15 year olds and play games with them, etc. From 8-10 we have a coffebar at the church. In both instances the gospel is there… not an altercall or anything like that… but as we build relationships we share our story, they tell us theirs, and we try to weave in God’s story.

Team news I kind of like my team. There aren’t a lot of experienced people here but they have tons of enthusiasm. Right now, we are rocking this tiny village with our noise level. My personal goal is to invest what I can into Richie, Val, and Becca while I am here. They are a part of YFCs internship program called Y1. They are in way, way over their heads… exactly where God likes us to be! So far I’ve been very disappointed with their ability to lead the team. In fact, the team feels like they are leading the leaders right now. They are in a common stage of leadership development where they think being seen as cool will earn them respect. It isn’t working. They are going to learn soon that in order to lead you have to get out front and show us the way. Pushing from behind isn’t a very good way to lead.

Like I said before, if I hear anything from the rest of our Romeo team, I’ll post it here. If nothing else, I will see them next Tuesday when I get to tour around.

Thank you for praying for us. Please continue to pray for the many kids we will invite in tonight.