We're Here!

Hey everyone, so after a long van ride filled with catchphrase and Tyler Lynn's story about a chipmunk, we got here. We made really good time (without speeding) and we  are now in Cindy's parents house. We all agree that it is pretty hot, but I think that it is because we are all so on fire for God that we just make the house hotter. I pray that we can take the fire that we have for God right now and bring it into the city of Gloversville to help and ignite the awaiting fire for these religion deprived people.

Donn told us about how he has witnessed a system of the people in Gloversville that involves the acquisition of drugs and alcohol that puts the city into an inescapable downward spiral. He also told us about a spiritual warfare, not the kind of warfare that is similar to the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, but one of apathy. When I went to the Presbyterian Conference in Indianapolis a few weeks ago, we had a speaker from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who talked about how their church was fire bombed and destroyed by Catholic radicals. However instead of the Catholics and Presbyterians growing farther apart from this, they grew closer after a 10,000 pound donation by the Catholics to the repair of the Presbyterian Church that was burned down. I told this story because I feel like the people in this city can be helped in the same way, instead of pushing away the people who are apathetic and nonbelievers, we instead have the chance to draw closer to them and to help guide them on their faith journey. Just like Isaiah 49. 6- "You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

 The theme song for this week is "Do Everything" by Steven Curtis Chapman. I pray that as we go on through this week that God will allow us to do everything that we can to ignite the fire and passion for Christ that we share together as a group into the people of this city, because they are beloved children of God just like us, and they deserve not only the love of God, but the love of the people around them. Amen.

It's the day before!

Hey guys, so as we all know we leave tomorrow for Gloversville! I am really excited to go and do the Lord's work while being filled with the Spirit to help the people in need. My church also went on a mission trip, but we went to Washington, D.C., that trip was eye opening to me because I was thrown into a place that I didn't recognize as being our nation's capitol. I was shown some of the smartest and most interesting people that I have ever met, but because they were homeless, no one gave them a chance, and those people were hopeless and felt worthless and like they didn't matter to anyone. I am saying this because when we go to Gloversville I want to try and make every single person there feel like they are somebody to God, I want them to be able to know that someone cares for them and that someone is going to look after them. I want these things, and I know that the other members of our team will want things from the week too. Because I know that they will want different things from the week, I will encourage them to talk to me before the nightly post so that I can put their experiences and hopes in the post while the week goes on.

So before I finish this post, I want to insert this video from Jaeson Ma called "Glory," it's a really cool song and I hope that we can do all of our work this week to the Glory of God!

Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow!

Hey everyone! Quinn sent the first post on the blog, but I just wanted to follow up by introducing myself and saying that I will be running the blog for the week. First off the blog is finished, so praise the Lord for that! Second, my name is Eric Lipka, I have been blessed to have been brought into this group of really great guys. I just graduated from Providence High School and I go to Providence Presbyterian Church.

I will be updating the blog every night and I will try to do it around the same time. Each blog post will include stories from the Gloversville team that they were moved by, what outreach we did for the day, and finally some cool things from the devotion for the night.

I can't wait to go on this trip and also to tell you all about the service that we are doing!

-Eric

Team Meeting

Tonight we had our final meeting before we leave on Sunday! So cool to see (almost) all the team members together under one roof.


The goal of this meeting was to really bond as a group, and to scratch the surface a bit about our thoughts on this trip. We ate dinner and talked, and then we broke out into a discussion group.


We talked our faith -- individual strengths and weaknesses. One person's strength really struck me -- the ability to see past any stereotypes or immediate perceptions brought on by a stranger's image. This is key as we live our lives. We cannot turn away, nor be turned off, by how someone else looks. This immediately divides you from that person and prevents you from establishing a God-ordained connection with him or her. Yet this phenomenon is so pervasive in our culture. It's key that we are able to get over that on this trip.

We also discussed 1 Peter 3:15, about "always being prepared to give an answer for the HOPE that [we] have." First, we must show that hope, so that people will want to even ask about it! That involves possessing an inner peace and joy in the presence of God which apparently is not always evident, or else people would be asking us about the HOPE that we have all the time!

At the end of the meeting we got a chance to Skype with Donn Truax, the leader of Change of 1 Ministry in Gloversville and the man who has done most of the planning for the trip, and his wife, Cyndie Truax. From what they said, it seems that much of the trip will be focused on outreach in this hurting community.

We prayed it out with them over Skype (how COOL!) and finished up the evening with a bit of dessert.

Each day, as we get closer, I get more and more excited. This trip has gone from a dream to a drive to an almost-reality! I thank God for blessing it SO much.

This may or may not be my last post, as Eric will be taking this over when we leave for the trip. I didn't read over this, so I'm sorry for any grammatical or syntactical errors that may or may not have occurred.

Talk to you soon!

Quinn

First Test

First blog test