We arrived!!!
Less rain today... mostly fog but not too hot which will make things easier for all of us this week!
We woke up this morning to a great pancake breakfast at our very hospitable campground... the staff picked up our garbage, offered to hose off the mud on our vans and even offered blessings and prayers for our trip! Sorry if you did not hear from your children after we arrived tonight... the phone reception is very spotty in the mountains. We are very BLESSED to have the beauty of God's creation all around us... Our home base sits at the top of the mountain and our Worship site is a ski lodge at the highest point! We will post pictures when we can get some good ones... it was pretty foggy by the time we all got settled into our sleeping rooms. We are in groups of 6 or 7 all sharing one studio apartment... a little rustic and tight quarters but Jane is thankful for a real bed and NO more camping... JP and Brady are glad they can avoid spider guard duty as well!!!! We drove into the small town nearby (Altoona is 40 minutes away) to get dinner... It takes us a full 30 minutes just to get down from the mountain and into the closest small town....We are already thankful for all of our conveniences at home that we all take for granted!
Our TEAM EFFORT crew did a great job of welcoming us at our Opening Worship...inspirational music and introduction of our worship theme-
FIRM FOUNDATION....47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. Luke 6:47-48
We will be waking up early to spend some time in individual devotion and prayer... 7:20 am EST so 6:20 central time for our prayer pals who would like to be in prayer at the same time as our youth! The kids will focus on our theme as well as the verse they chose with their prayer pal.
More pics to come tomorrow ... we will head to the work sites after morning devo and breakfast. We will be serving at a trailer park in a group of 70 (including us) representing 3-4 churches.
Prayers to all of you and thanks to Jodi Schulteis for the inspirational message and lyrics left with our yesterday's entry!
God's peace...Kristin Tetzke and IMPACT
Love the pics! Love the individual devotion time in the morning (doing the same here at home in Colgate)When reading your Scripture verse from Luke 6 the song "Cornerstone" came to mind immediately I will paste the YouTube here Kristin not sure if you have speakers on your laptop, if you do, maybe you can play the song for them?
ReplyDeleteChorus: "Christ alone, Cornerstone weak made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, He is Lord, Lord of all!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvLxZEU02uI
Seeking His face- Jodi
I love the theme, Firm Foundation In Christ. I found a college term paper written by a student on this particular parable. This is only a brief synopsis. What stood out to me is that “our foundation is solid only when we build it on Scripture.” Not on what society wants us to believe. The fact that we have 20 youth and 20 adult prayer pals memorizing Scripture together this week is helping to build their solid foundation of knowing and trusting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
ReplyDeleteThank you to Kristin and the other youth leaders for sharing their love and guidance with our children this week. We will continue to pray that God will bless all of you, both the youth and the adults, as you further God’s Kingdom in the work that you do. Maureen Leurquin
Arthur Just commented on Luke 6:47-49. He described it where Christ is the builder and the foundation is solid when we build it on Scripture. He said that Scripture is the solid rock where we are to build our house. If we go by this standard, then the skeptic would have a difficult time taking anything from this passage. The skeptic would not agree with "building their house" on Scripture.
In conclusion, I have taken this passage to heart. Reading and studying this parable has really gotten me to start thinking about how I am living my life. I hope to not fall into the path of only claiming Christ to be my Lord but to continue living it out. My faith should be reflected in all that I do, it should not only come out on Sunday mornings. As mentioned already, I am learning first-hand the importance and true meaning of this parable. In researching and thinking about this passage, I am now fully convinced that I must continue to work on making Jesus and His Word my foundation. It is important because if I lose focus for a spit second and do not have my house upon Him, I will crumble when hard times come. The core value taught in this parable is and has been one of the most important things I have learned during my personal walk with God. I am clearly finding it to be important to have a foundation of Jesus when times are hard, but I also know now that I need to keep that foundation and work on it also when times are good. When times are good, I can work as hard as possible to make my foundation stronger and more concrete. This will allow me to be well prepared for any storm that life will bring. I need to continue building up my foundation by studying the words and life of Jesus and live my life accordingly so that I can construct a house of faith that will withstand all struggles and pressures that are thrown at me in life.