"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you."
~Philemon 3-7
Praise God! He is awesome! I just returned with our youth choir at church from the mission field in Arlington, TX. We had a share service on Sunday night, but I didn't get to say everything I wanted to and figured this was the easiest way to tell everyone at once about the trip.
We went down to Arlington, TX to work with Mission Arlington. Mission Arlington was started in 1986 by Miss Tillie Burgin and her family. She and her family were missionaries in South Korea for over 10 years. The Lord gave Miss Tillie a burden for her home and He told her, "If you can be a missionary in South Korea, what's stopping you from being a missionary at home?" On August 1, 1986 Mission Arlington began. In 1990, the Mission Metroplex was formed and operates as a food ministry, a clothing ministry, and simply a meeting needs ministry. It is the heart of the ministry to take church to places and people who might never go to church otherwise....to literally be the hands and feet of Jesus in the community. One way they have done this is through apartment ministries. They have partnered with several apartment managers across the city and formed relationships to establish apartment churches and begin meeting needs.
So, this is what our youth choir did from Sunday through Thursday. Every year over Spring Break, they hold a backyard Bible club called "Rainbow Express" and conduct it like a VBS in all of the apartment complexes in the community. Due to the size of our choir, we formed two separate VBS teams and Natalie Nagel and I were the VBS directors for each of our teams. Each team member had a job to do and a role to fulfill and we spent many training sessions the weeks before we left learning our roles and our positions. These positions ranged from Large Group Leader, to Memory Verse Teacher, to Games Leader, to Puppet Master, to Attendance Taker, and Small Group Leaders. Some of the kids were in charge of inviting and some of them were in charge of setting up. We made sure EVERYONE had a job to do! :) Everyone partnered up with someone to lead a small group study, Bible story, and craft each day. Mission Arlington provided crafts, but we let them know that an awesome woman back at our church named Jennifer Kisling set us up with all our crafts and taught them to our youth according to the age groups they would be teaching before we left.
So, here's how our week went. On Friday night we checked into a hotel for our fun day on Saturday at Six Flags. Before we went to Six Flags, we went by Mission Arlington to find out where we were going to be staying. Let's just say this was a trip of total faith and reminds me of Hebrews 11:8 where it says "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going." None of us knew where we were staying. We had heard several possibilities that it could be a church, or a set of vacant apartments, or an empty office building. I must admit, we were all pretty worried about it. We finally found out we were staying at a church, the Fuller Street Fellowship and home of a Hispanic congregation in a Hispanic community. I don't think any of us knew what it would be like, but 95% of the people we met and spoke to were Mexican. Many did not speak English at all. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead. The pastor of the church was SO very sweet and gracious. They had many groups stay there before.
So, after we unloaded all our stuff, we went to Six Flags. It was fun, but got rained out near the end and we left two hours earlier than expected but had been there about 5 hours.
Sunday morning we had a quick orientation at Mission Arlington with Miss Tillie and she led us all in the song "This Little Light of Mine" (which was VERY touching, awesome, and sweet) and then it was off and running to serve at apartment churches. There were 30+ groups from all over the nation to serve that week at Mission Arlington. We had NO IDEA what to expect. Every morning they requested our leaders (Marty & Jake) go to the back for a meeting and get our assignments. The rest of us sponsors stayed with our group. Our leaders came back and basically said, "Okay, you're with me, and you're with him..." and we numbered off into two groups. We were given material to lead a Bible study and basically conduct a church service at a common area in the apartment complex. WOW. Okay, so we are going to a place we've never been to meet people we've never met and knock on their doors and invite them to church. So, we had about 30 minutes to knock on the doors and invite. It was COLD. And WINDY. And COLD. So, we knocked and knocked and knocked and found out very quickly that many people did not speak English and we got very little response. So, we gathered by the pool and prayed. Then, we had a worship service. I pulled out my guitar and we sang a song. Then, we walked and sang and stopped and sang and prayed some more and prayer-walked and sang all throughout the complex. It. was. awesome. Nobody came to our church service, but little did we know that this was one of the apartment complexes where we would lead VBS that week, so prayer-walking was the most important thing we did. Then, we went back to our van and our youth minister led us in Bible study and church right there in our van! Sunday afternoon we had orientation for Rainbow Express from the VBS leader, Matt Hart. Matt also did all of our morning and afternoon devotionals. He. was. AWESOME.
Our typical daily schedule went something like this:
7:15am - Breakfast at our church (Fuller Street Fellowship)
8:15am - Worship Service at Mission Arlington
10:00am-1:00pm - Work Project
1:00pm - Lunch back at our church (Fuller Street Fellowship)
2:15pm - Worship/Prayer to Prep for Rainbow Express at Mission Arlington
3:15pm - Depart for Rainbow Express
4:00-5:30pm - Rainbow Express
6:30pm - Dinner at our church (Fuller Street Fellowship)
Fun activity in the evening (Chuck E Cheese, Putt-Putt, ice cream, etc.)
So, Monday our work project was picking up trash at local apartment complexes. We went back to our same apartment complex and picked and picked and nit-picked and prayer-walked and picked. Then, Mr. Marty brought us some gloves after our first round! :) Then, we picked and picked and picked some more. As soon as I would call Jake with an update and say, "Okay, we're done..." he'd say, "Nope, I got more where I am, come here..." and then again, "Alright, we've finished that, we're done..." and he'd say, "I just found more over here, send the kids my way..." and we picked and picked and scoured and picked up some more. The kids did such a good job and it was really something I never thought I'd do, but they totally did it to the glory of God! Our first day of Rainbow Express was pretty scary and we forgot snacks, but thank the Lord, Marty brought us some. My team was pretty nervous to start, but I was SO PROUD of them for just jumping into their roles and being brave. We only had two little kids show up at the very first, and Brady, my Games Leader just started playing a game with the two of them right away....like a champ....so proud. On Monday night, we did two choir concerts at two different apartment complexes. Marty presented the Gospel at both of them and 7 people were saved in all! At the second location, at first we thought we might not have electrical capability to set up, so we played the first few songs acoustic and the sun was going down and it was getting dark and cold, but the people came and worked together to help us set up and we sang a few worship songs to improvise during set-up and people came and sat on their cars and brought chairs out to listen and one young man got saved! Praise God!
Tuesday, our work project was to do a clothing ministry at a local apartment complex close to where we were staying. We loaded up four HUGE bags and boxes of clothes and went to a common, open area in the complex and laid out a tarp and sorted clothes into men's, women's, and children's. Then, we knocked on doors to let them know the clothes were there. Then, we helped them shop! I got to use a lot of Spanish that day and was very thankful for the Duolingo App on my iPad that I practice Spanish with so I could tell the women who came, "mujeres, hombres, ninos" (women's, men's, children) so they could find the clothes they needed. It was awesome to watch our kids help men and women shop....so special. When Tuesday rolled around, our team felt a lot more comfortable and more and more kids came! It didn't take long for us to bond with them and for us to learn each other's names. Such a blessing to see their smiling faces every day and I miss them so much! We started with a Welcome, we did some songs, we learned a memory verse, a student gave their testimony, and then we did Bible stories with puppets, and then split up into small groups by age and taught the Bible story again and let the children ask questions. SO PROUD of our youth for sharing their faith, answering questions, talking about God, talking about the Bible...they did SO WELL! I told them during training that everything they had learned up until that point in Children's Church, Sunday School, AWANAS, and in youth from Marty, Jake, or their Sunday School teacher they were going to have to put to use on a team in Arlington. THEY DID and they did GREAT!
On Wednesday, our work project was to hand out flyers at a different apartment complex about an event that Mission Arlington was having coming up. Wednesday was the day we presented the salvation bead bracelets in our small groups at Rainbow Express. Before we ever went, since we got done with our work project early, I took some time to teach our kids about the beads in the Sanctuary at the church where we were staying. Some of them had never done it before or presented the Gospel that way. We had an awesome time of prayer before we went! Every day at 2:15, we had an AWESOME time of prayer with ALL the churches who were there at Mission Arlington to be dispersed to different VBS sites. We prayed in small groups with and for each other before we left. We had several children pray to receive Christ in our small groups during VBS! PRAISE GOD!
On Thursday, our work project got cancelled so we went back to the church where we were staying and picked up trash and cleaned and packed since we were leaving that evening. We had family groups who prepped and cleaned up after meals, and family groups who had bathroom clean-up and van clean-up throughout the week. We did face painting at our VBS at the end and our kids got COVERED in face paint by the little children! :) Also, that was the day we had a Muslim family come and join our Rainbow Express for their first time all week. I think they spoke Arabic. I was not aware in the Muslim culture that the women cannot be addressed by a male who is not their husband...that it is considered disrespectful so I got to address them and the children and ask if it was okay if we painted their children's faces. Later, the husbands joined us and watched from afar, but we got to give them some Bibles (with their permission) before we left.
I was very sad to leave the children and the apartment complex. We prayed for them and the apartment complex before we drove away. It was so fun to see them jump up and down when they saw our van driving up every day in the parking lot. It's amazing to think how fast someone can work their way into your heart in such a short amount of time. I will never forget their faces or their names and we hope we can go back to see them again next year!
36 people were saved between our two VBS sites and our concerts on Monday! The Lord's light truly shone through our youth choir and they all led and served so well and so faithfully! It was an unforgettable trip! Please keep praying for the ministry of Mission Arlington! I heard "God of This City" as my Pandora played while I was folding laundry this morning and the tears just flowed as I thought about the lost people in Arlington.....my heart is definitely still in Texas. There's lots of other stories and things I could tell, but those are the highlights for now. We left after VBS at about 7:30pm and returned at 1:45am on Friday morning. Matt urged us to not let the mission end when we left. He said even though we were leaving those people, they had to stay...he encouraged us to stay on mission everywhere we are. Please pray for me as I continue the mission in my heart and life in my own neighborhood and community where I live each day.
