Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Off to Philly Sunday morning!

This Sunday, August 2 Senior Highs jump in the vans and head to Philadelphia to Broad Street Ministries. Broad Street Ministries (BSM) provides days of service learning and opportunities for authentic relationship building with the people of Philadelphia. An effort will be made to take groups to different neighborhoods in the city and discuss poverty, homelessness, hunger, and health care all grounded within a theological framework. A particular goal is to engage the group with the poor and disadvantaged who are trying to make a difference in their community through social action. Stereotypes will be broken and re-enforced. The week will end in a service of commissioning to send the group back to our community where faithful transformation may continue. The BSM is born out of a local congregation that values worship, hospitality, community, diversity, social justice, risk, creativity and the arts.

Pray for our safe travels, to become closer to God, and pray for the people we will serve. Please come back often to view updates throughout our 4 days.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

EXTREME MONTREAT DOWNHILL HIKING!

Extreme downhill hiking at Montreat w/ Spencer, Josh, Joe, Peter, Chris, Lucy, Stephen and Jack!

MONTREAT VARIETY SHOW 2009

Senior Highs once again participated in the Montreat Variety Show this year.  They performed in front of almost 1000 people. We never know what we're going to do until we get to Montreat.  It's amazing that it always comes together in the end!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

MONTREAT PHOTOS #2



MONTREAT PHOTOS #1




MONTREAT UPDATE #6

We have arrived home!  Last night was a perfect ending and beginning.  We ended an amazing week together and now we are fresh and new ready to take on the world!  More updates to come from the week, but now I must sleep!  Enjoy the pictures!



Friday, July 24, 2009

MONTREAT UPDATE #5

I have a little time on my hands, so I thought I'd upload a few more photos.  Everyone is full of energy, but sad that the week is coming to a close. 



MONTREAT UPDATE #4

Wow!  Time has never gone so slow and yet so fast!  Tomorrow we go home!  Every Montreat has a different feeling for the good.  Each year I am amazed with our youth, and this year is no exception.  They have been just unbelievable!  These youth are amazingly deep and caring individuals with so much to offer this world - the true definition of a BLESSING!  I am always scared at this time, however.  It's Friday and tomorrow we leave this incubator we call Montreat.  It's like what I feel like when I'm about to speak or perform in front of a large group of people.  It's like I'm excited to share my gifts, but nervous that I'm going to mess up in front of everyone.  I pray something sticks like super glue.  But it's so hard.  God only knows what's ahead.  Some youth will continue to crawl, some will walk, and some will run!  But I pray that all our youth will put on their running shoes and never stop running!



Tuesday, July 21, 2009

MONTREAT UPDATE #3


It's only Tuesday and it feels like we've been here for two weeks already.  Everything is going great!  Here's a couple pictures.  The photo below is our group, with a couple others from another church, practicing for tomorrow's keynote.  Did I mention that we have the largest group?  Not that I'm counting, but I think this says a lot about our youth, adult leaders and parents that make up our youth ministry from a technically smaller church.  Blessing! ~ Scott



Monday, July 20, 2009

MONTREAT #2


I thought I'd load some more picture for you all to enjoy!  More to come!  I forgot to mention in the last post that we saw a black bear yesterday just walking the streets!  By the way everyone screamed in the car, you'd think it was the Jonas Brothers! 




I thought I'd load some more picture for you all to enjoy!  More to come!  I forgot to mention in the last post that we saw a black bear yesterday just walking the streets!  By the way everyone screamed in the car, you'd think it was the Jonas Brothers! 

Montreat #1

Hello parents, friends, dogs, cats and anyone, or thing, checking up on new blog posts!  This is the first Montreat update!  Yesterday was a great day with only a couple issues.  After sleeping in, I decided that our Sunday worship was going to be in the form of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We enjoyed rejuvenating, breathing in crisp mountain air, and just plain taking in God's amazing creation. 

Just as we all say, being a Christian doesn't mean life is always going to be smooth!  Got down the mountain and the van that Jennifer Clark was driving started smoking up a storm!  The right tire was smoking in swirls (which leads me to believe the tire was about to catch on fire), and brake fluid was boiling out of the wheel.  Where's the blessing you say?  An auto repair shop was about 50 yards from the gas station we had stopped at.  We left the van there and hoped for good news this morning.  Bad news is that the brake system needs to be replaced. Good news is that it should be done by today.  I was afraid that tubing was going to be out for Wednesday if it couldn't be fixed.

It's been a great experience so far and everyone is excited to be here.  I'm pushing the youth this week to really become "vulnerable."  I want them to take off there cool shoes at the door and allow to God to work through them this week.  Below are some pictures I've taken of the fun we're having.  More to come!! 





Friday, July 17, 2009

Montreat Bound...


It's Friday, July 17th! This means we leave for the Montreat Senior High Conference tomorrow! 42 total youth and adult leaders! It's bound to be another amazing week! Well, if I'm posting a blog right now, this means I'm not marking off my list of things to get down before we leave. I better go!!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Erin Pagett is in Mexico!


From Erin who is in Xpujil, Mexico with her mom (Mary Beth), Olivia Huey, Caitlyn Holt & Jeffery Knotts. They are working with children in Castillo Brito.

Hola!
I feel like a sponge soaking up everything spanish that i see and hear. I absolutely love speaking spanish in the real world!!!!! When you're in the classroom, it's hard to really know how spanish is really spoken, so its amazing to finally get a sense of what it's really like to put my spanish to use! I think i finally realized that we were in mexico when we were going thru a final security check in the airport yesterday before they let us leave and they made us open up all of our boxes and i got to translate! The food is delicious (so far) and we all get a bed (yay!) so nobody gets stuck in the hammock, even tho the hammocks are very comfortable. Showers are interesting..... you can't open your mouth and the water is often cold, but its refreshing after being in the sticky heat. Jennifer, a high school friend of Lady (todd's daughter) is here, too, and she's really fun to hang around, plus she knows how things work pretty well and speaks spanish really well. I loved doing the Sunday school lesson today (Todd helped us a bit)- the kids seemed pretty well behaved and listened really well (thank goodness). Again, I LOVED speaking spanish!!!!!!!


Hope all is well in Greensboro!!!
Love,
Erin