Starting the Year Off

Hey! Hope everyone is having a great start off to the school year.  Starting next Sunday (September 14) we will go back to our Fall schedule which means that Food for Thought and Breakfast Club will be meeting at 11 am every Sunday for a quick bite and spending some time in God's Word.  From 12:30-2:30 each Sunday we'll meet to play some games, watch a movie, and hang out! Your friends are more than welcome to come as well.

Let Go, let God.

Let it go seems to be the phrase a lot of people have been singing recently.  I get a daily email from a very wise person named Richard Rohr. He's been talking about letting go for the past few days. I really liked what he had to say on July 23.

Letting Go of Ego

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

We need forms of prayer that free us from fixating on our own egos and from identifying with our own thoughts and feelings. We have to learn to become spiritually empty. If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our passing ego needs, which change from moment to moment, so Something Eternal can take over. This may sound simple, but it is not easy! Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’ve become identified with our stream of consciousness and our feelings. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying you should repress or deny your feelings. I’m challenging you to name them and observe them, but don’t directly fight them and don’t identify with them or attach to them (which almost all people do before enlightenment). Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have our feelings, our feelings have us. (Is that the deepest meaning of “being possessed”?) Now you might ask: “What does this have to do with God? I thought prayer was supposed to be talking to God or searching for God. You seem to be saying that prayer is first of all about getting myself out of the way.” That is exactly what I am saying. God is already present. God’s Spirit is dwelling within you. You cannot search for what you already have. You cannot talk God into “coming” into you by longer and more urgent prayers. All you can do is become quieter, smaller, and less filled with your own self and your constant flurry of ideas and feelings. Then God will be obvious in the very now of things, and in the simplicity of things.

Wednesday night

We had an awesome time last night after our work day. First we took a little trip to see the Heidleberg Project (look it up!). For those of us who had been there before it was very moving seeing where some houses have recently burned. Then we went to Greektown and enjoyed a yummy dinner at PizzaPapalis. We were joined by Lindsey Anderson, who talked with us about the city of Detroit and our perceptions and experiences so far. We enjoyed speaking with Lindsey. She really added to our Detroit experience.

We are busy!!

Yikes! I didn't even have time to blog yesterday. We are working so hard!

The Metro Kidz camp group has really been getting to know the campers. Every one of our youth has been interacting with the kids as they dance, play basketball, sing, read, do crafts or each lunch (we eat lunch rite with them.) Even though it sounds like it's a cushy work assignment, these teens are being tugged on, sat on, and stretched. They spend a large amount of their day wrangling kids, and helping to get them where they need to go. It's not an easy job! Our last day with the camp will be Thursday, but we hope to see a lot of these kids, and their families when they come to the community celebration cookout on Friday night.

The other groups are coming back from their sites exhausted! They are definitely working hard painting and scraping and cleaning up yards and getting hot and sweaty and yesterday they even got rained on! It's really been difficult work.

We've been looking for God and see in Him at work here in Detroit. We can't wait to share our sightings of Him with you on Sunday.

Tonight we're on our own for dinner. Our plan is to make a stop at the Heidelberg project and then hit up Greektown and Pizzapapalis for dinner. We've asked Lindsey Anderson to join us!

Detroit Day One (work day)

All right!

Day one of our 'work week.'

Our group of 8 -- Brian Anderson, Lauren Arquette, Drew Degener, Caitlin Marchand, Alex Marchand, Nick Krone, Luke Pohl and me - Nancy--  had a great day of service. We started by heading down Woodward Avenue to the Central Methodist Church. You know this church! It sits in front of Comerica Park and has a beautiful tall spire. I'm sure you've seen it when you've gone to watch the Tigers play. Martin Luther King has preached from this pulpit before.  This growing church of 300 members fills just about every nook and cranny of it's 6 story building with programs. The program we were working with was the Noah Project. http://www.noahprojectdetroit.org Specifically we were helping with their bag lunch program. We made sandwiches and packed bags for most of the morning, then served over 232 lunches! It was very rewarding being able to serve these hungry people. After the guests all left we were given a tour of this historic building. Like I mentioned, it houses many programs. We were able to catch an art therapy type program run through a little art studio they have on the 5th floor. We also went up to the rooftop and saw the small garden they tend there and then caught a great view of the Comerica Park playing field. The volunteer that was giving us the tour said a lot of people will gather there tonight to watch the fireworks.

After our work at the bag lunch ministry we headed back to our "home church" Metropolitan Methodist Church and helped out with the summer camp. Some of the boys played basketball with the kids and some of the girls hung out doing drama and dance until it was time for the kids to be picked up. This was the first day of the summer camp. Even though we only spent part of the afternoon here, we enjoyed interacting with and getting to know the campers. We will be working with the camp for the next 3 days and are looking forward to getting to know the campers even better.

The other group -- Mike Graunstadt, Jeff Doering, Debbie Krone, Madelyn Degener, Tim Walsh, Bill Stark, Joshua Doering, Nathan Pohl, Brenna Degener, Summer Benward, Louie Stark and Jessica Krone-- went to work through an organization called Rippling Hope. http://www.ripplinghope.org. They worked VERY HARD outside today. The group was divided into 2 teams, with one group (Tim, Nathan, Bill and Mike) cleaning out gutters at several homes. These gutters were filled with mud and dirt!

The other team (Jeff, Debbie, Madelyn, Summer, Brenna, Joshua, Louie and Jessica) scraped and painted and also worked on homes.  Even that team split up between houses. Jeff, Brenna, Madelyn and Summer went to a house and cleaned up the yard, weeded, mulched, created a planting area and planted some lilies. The others, Debbie, Jessica, Josh and Louie scraped and scraped all the trim areas of a house to get ready for painting. It was hard work. Then, together they started painting all that they had scraped. Painting with a little rain made it even more difficult. Everyone kept their serving attitudes though and kept at it. They almost finished at this house and hope to finish up tomorrow morning if the weather holds out. The best part was that they were able to speak with the homeowners of the houses they were working on.

While Detroit is having it's Freedom Celebration fireworks tonight we will not be going. It gets a little (?) crazy downtown and we want to keep everyone safe! Instead, we'll stay here and enjoy worship with the other 130 or so folks missioning with us this week.

I'll post pictures later!  We appreciate your prayers and comments!

I forgot to post the pictures last night!

We're here!

We made it! Of course, with just a 35 minutes drive we weren't too worried about getting here. We arrived to this beautiful old church on Woodward. (Metropolitan Methodist Church- check it out on Google Street view!) We set up in our rooms, and had a tour of the place. We'll be happy if we don't get too lost all week. This place is huge! There's a basement and 4 floors above. Our boys are all the way on the 4th floor (showers in the basement) and the girls are sharing a room on the 2nd floor with some girls from Atlanta.

Before dinner we had meetings, leaders and youth separate. We will be serving in 2 separate groups this week. One group (12 of us) will be working on homes in the community, painting, clearing gutters, fixing up yards, and whatever else needs to be done. The other 8 of us will be working in a lunch ministry on Monday at another church, then Tuesday-Thursday working right here at Metro Church at their kids summer camp program.

After dinner (spaghetti) we had a devotional service and some church time after. 'Lights out' time is almost here so I can't write too much more, but we're all very excited about being here and serving God this week. We appreciate your prayers!