Summer Recap

July 30, 2022

Reagan

Our team just officially ended the stretch of summer trips. We are home now and we miss each other, but I have much to tell you about what the Lord did! Our first trip was to Pennsylvania. There we did a four-day VBS. We did our musical, had workshops and services every day. Many kids gave their lives to the Lord and several were filled with the Holy Spirit! One huge highlight of this trip was actually a worship night that we attended at the church. The funny thing is, we weren’t even supposed to be able to go to this service, originally we were supposed to be at camp with the kids, but plans changed. God had a plan! They pretty much just went into the service with a bunch of songs to play. The plan was to let the Spirit lead the service and he did in a mighty way! It was crazy powerful. You could tell there was freedom in that place. Many people found healing and direction. We just stood in God’s presence for a long time! It was so refreshing for me personally. I received a few words that were exactly what I needed! I know from stories I’ve heard that many other team members received many things from the Lord. It’s very cool to take a break from ministering and be ministered to! That night was great, because it prepared our hearts for camp! You’ve heard some about camp, but I’ll tell you some of my favorite things! Our worship was very spirit lead! We always learn a lot from the worship team in Pennsylvania. What we saw the week before at the worship service helped us prepare. Each and every night was a little different, we let the spirit lead us and he did. Because of the space we were in, we were able to minister and lay hands on people while holding a microphone. It was such a cool experience. It’s really awesome when we are able to worship with the kids. We receive things and we minister at the same time! I asked the Lord to use me at camp and he really did. I was able to share my testimony and help people find freedom! That’s what I want, I want to be able to take my experiences and use them to bless others! Camp is always exhausting, but very worth it! At the end of this trip we were so filled with passion and were chasing those little sparks of revival! Missouri was our next adventure! So much happened, so I’ll share some of my personal favorites. It was a long, but fun ride up. We broke the trip up into two days of 8 hours. We arrived and got straight to work! There were workshops to teach, props to set up, things to unload, and a musical to practice. We were ready for whatever this trip was going to throw at us. We knew this was not ordinary trip. The first night we bonded with the kids immediately. I made one friend in particular that liked me, let’s call her Sheep. Sheep was so sweet, she came from a big family and I got to meet her mom too! She was very nice. The church we were at was definitely more of an outreach church. They were involved in their community way more than we had ever imagined. We were given the opportunity to go and see their outreach center and get a better feel for how big this church’s mission actually was. Even though the church was involved in the community, there were several kids who came to our VBS that were unchurched. That’s always an amazing opportunity to be able to speak life into them for the time we are there. This trip in particular opened my eyes to the hurt that could be right next door. America has poverty and people all around us struggling with unimaginable things. It’s crazy! I heard some crazy stories and some crazy testimonies. This trip lit a spark in many people on the team. That is why what we do is so cool, we minister to people mainly around us and there is hurting in our communities that need Jesus. Several days we went and visited the kids at their day camp and played games and did some pretty special workshops. There was a dance workshop, along with acting, puppets, and singing. These are a little different from our usual workshops, so we had a lot of fun. I was so sad to leave Sheep and all the other amazing kids I had met. But it knew we made an impact and left those kids and adults different than we found them. After that we were off to Edenton, North Carolina to put on our final VBS of the summer! A bunch of kids showed up and that is always and encouraging feeling! We were pretty much around these kids all day because they were all at summer day camp at the church. When we would walk through the room they waited all call our names. That definitely helped us get a little closer, even though we only really worked with them at night. The musical went great and so did our prayer times. Many kids gave there hearts to the Lord on this trip! This was a great team building trip, we had lots of time in the afternoons and evenings to spend together. We were able to have some prayer time with just the team to end the summer. It was very sweet and powerful. It was the best way to end such and incredible summer of ministry.

What I learned

This summer, I learned how to seek God’s heart when I’m praying. I learned about how powerful my prayers were. I learned to to be flexible. I learned to trust God’s direction and timing on several occasions. Some of the work we do now will have an impact for a long time. I learned about the dreams and destiny God has for me. He’s using me here and now! There are so many more personal lessons I learned, I’m ready to take these and put them into practice in my everyday life.

I’m so grateful to have a family like this. A family that I can talk to and they understand and listen. This was one of the greatest summers of my life and I will take every lesson I learned with me forever!