Summer Ministry Update

It is hard to believe we are in our 3rd week at Helping Hands already.  It has been a whirlwind!  You will be getting a further update on HHFM shortly, but as promised in our last update, we did want to get out some news on our last summer of ministry with AIM.  It was a great season of ministry and we are so glad we were able to go out with a bang!

In addition to completing the final prep for the mission locations I was responsible for in Kenya, Washington DC, and Las Vegas, I was privileged to be able to lead 4 mission trips this summer.  I started on June 21st with a flight from Atlanta to Nairobi, Kenya.  I lead a team of 15 in Kenya at the Shangilia ("rejoice" in Swahili) Orphanage.  We had a blast!  The team was able to do a lot of hut to hut evangelism and saw several people come to Christ!  We also saw several who began coming to our contact's church, Oasis of Joy.  The team worked at a couple different schools with the younger children, and did some question and answer sessions with the high school students, giving the team an opportunity to share their faith.  We were also able to do a medical clinic for a couple days, which was a great need as there was a malaria outbreak during that time.  In addition to the ministries listed, we were also able to spend some time building relationships with the children in the orphanage and helping the staff at the facility, who work more hours than I can fathom!  Some of our team was also able to get a tour of the Kibera slums on the way home.  Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi.

I returned from Kenya on July 6th.  Nine days later, I was on a plane for Kalispell, MT for a week on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to be followed by another week-long mission trip in Las Vega, NV.  I was not coming home between the trips and was not looking forward to to being away from Sarah for another 2 weeks so quickly after being gone to Africa.  I received a blessing though!  While I was in Kenya, Sarah was informed that her replacement at AIM was ready to go and she was put on severance as of July 15th, the day I was flying to Montana.  I hurriedly booked a frequent flier ticket for her and she joined me on both trips!  It was a wonderful blessing and a huge help as there would have been no way I could have done as well by myself on back-to-back trips.

Ministry in Montana was wonderful!  We had the same group from Washington State I lead the year before.  They were able to jump right into ministry and relationships from the previous year.  The week was full of relational ministry including visiting the elderly community center, hosting a community-wide basketball tournament, and having a talent-show evening.  Four people came to know the Lord on this trip and are being followed up with by the local church.

We had a great week in Las Vegas as well.  It started out with a challenge as the night we landed (the day before the team arrived).  I had a message from our ministry partner saying we wouldn't be able to do a VBS as we had planned.  The children in North Las Vegas, it turned out, are in year-around school, so a morning VBS would not be possible.  Our contacts had just taken over the church, so they had just found out about the schedule themselves.  Sarah and I prayed for wisdom that night and set out to look for ministry the next morning, just a few hours before the team arrived!  God filled our schedule with great ministry opportunities for the week!  We were able to move the VBS to be in the late afternoon during the week, work in the homeless shelter serving meals, work with a nursing home, help the local Salvation Army church, and do some door-to-door ministry in the community as we did promotion for VBS.

As the week wound down in Las Vegas, Sarah and I were looking forward to a flight back to Atlanta and a nice long weekend in South Georgia with Sarah's parents.  This was not to be.  As I have said before, I was responsible for trips in Washington DC.  While we were in Las Vegas, I was helping the AIM home office deal with some leadership issues on the ground in DC.  Toward the end of the week, we got the request to go to DC for the last week of the summer, to make sure things went smoothly.  There was a staffing shortage due to the size of the group, so I received another blessing as AIM paid for Sarah to go up with me!  We flew Friday night from Las Vegas to Atlanta, spent 2 nights with Sarah's folks, and then drove back to the Atlanta airport to fly to Washington DC.

The group we had in Washington DC was great and we had a wonderful staff to work with as well.  The crew who had been running Philadelphia mission trips all summer came down to DC to work with us.  They didn't have their leadership team, which is one of the reasons Sarah and I were there.  For our last trip at AIM, we reprised the roles we had in New Orleans two years ago.  The group was able to do a lot of relational ministry around the National Mall and on the metro.  They were also able to do a VBS and help a local church with some much needed community outreach.  It was a great way to bring our time at AIM to a close, but we were ready to be home after three weeks in three different places!

I returned to AIM for one more week in the office so I could tie up some loose ends and get my trip money reconciled.  Sarah was able to start a week early at Helping Hands.  The week went quickly and then, as you know, things got very interesting on Friday August 13, when Dr. K went to the hospital.