Summer Rap-Up
August 30, 2004

Team Narrow Road’s first summer out here has been a whirlwind.  We started the summer with our week-long Narrow Road rules trip and ended it with a week-long student camping trip.  It’s been a truly blessed summer where we have seen God working in so many lives.

After the road trip we hired three college students to help run the Crossroad building in Clearfield, each intern was fully supported by their home church.  We were able to run a pretty packed schedule.  Every Tuesday we were open for area students to come in and spend some time being mentored by the leaders.  Wednesday was our day to take the students out of the area to local amusement parks, baseball games or the zoo.  We also spent these days impacting the community.  One particular week we baked 50 loves of banana bread and took them to area business to tell them that we were praying for them, their business and wanted to let them that Jesus loves them.  We then invited them to a prayer time where we would be praying for them and their business.  Later that night, we went out on the hot summer streets and passed out water to all who were thirsty, passed out our entire inventory of Bibles!! The night ended with a worship walk to the Courthouse where we sang our hearts out to Jesus as motorists drove by, ending with Daniel giving a brief message from the Courthouse steps.

Our main night to be open has been Friday.  We start the night off with an under 18 Bible study from 6pm to 7pm.  When that is over we open our doors until 11pm.  The team we have in place are highly relational people that just pour out the love of Christ to these students.  We have had a lot of breakthroughs in student’s lives by being able to just talk to them while sitting on a couch sharing a bag of chips and reading the Bible together. We also had planned nights where we focused on getting the students aware of the persecution and murder of countless Christians around the world and what the students’ roles are in helping to support them.  We also had a night where we focused on voter registration and why it is important, a privilege, and a Christian duty to be voting.

Finally on Tuesday nights we found time to start an over 18 and over Bible study.  One of the neat things about this group is that we decided not to give it a name.  Our hope is that after we’re in the community for a while they will give us a name.  We figure that will be a more honest representation of how authentically we’re living out Jesus than if we just pick out an “edgy” name for ourselves.

Throughout the month of July we were running a Vacation Bible School for three different Churches.  During the first week of July we hosted one at one church from 9am until 12pm, then ate in our cars as we drove a half an hour to do our next V.B.S from 1pm until 4pm.  Everywhere God seemed to bring us He was there changing lives.  During this time we still had to keep up our regular schedule, which meant we had to be organized… praise God for Christi!  Without her we would have been extremely lost and those weeks would not have had near the impact they had.

            The last event we had before camp was a lock-in. It was an amazing night as we had an “open mic” time for students to do or say whatever they wanted. Kind of a scary thought, but student after student came up and told what God was doing in their life.  They did it by song, impression, playing guitar, or reading poetry that they had written that night.  WOW!  We were really moved as a young girl read a poem she had written about us, and how God has used our team in her life.  We were moved as a young man said, fighting tears, how Jesus had saved and forgiven him and how he found love, acceptance and truth while being with us.   The highlight of the night came after hearing the Gospel, the message of Jesus Christ, when a high school girl came up to a staff member and asked “What must I do to be saved”………there was a party in Heaven that night when she became a follower of Jesus!

            Our summer has been filled with many more wonderful stories of how God has been at work.  This summer has been far from easy.  Whenever Jesus is at work so is the evil one.  We Praise God that he has allowed us to bring Glory and honor to His name and for His namesake this summer!