New Updates.

So far we have 40% of our support raised in the first week of being (or trying to be) in conversation with our sponsors. Truly it is a humbling experience. I mean who wants to ask for money from people?! It honestly puts you in your place: helplessly reliant on God. We have just been grateful of all that has happened thus far and are excited to talk to more of our potential sponsors next week (after labor day, of course!).

Of course, financial support isn't all we need. What's even more important is the prayer support and just knowing that our Christian brothers and sisters got our back spiritually. If you can give, thanks... but also pray! If you can't give, that's fine... but please pray! Pray, pray, pray! Pray for the names Alison and Mikey and for more opportunities like last night...

Here's a quick update for you guys: a few weeks ago, we went on a student leadership retreat for the high school youth (as was shown in the dvd). A teen that goes to the Bridge invited a couple of her friends that don't really want anything to do with God. What an opportunity! Somehow that weekend Kylee and I connected on a deeper scale with the two kids, Alison and Mikey. They live in Indianapolis and find it hard to attend youth on Wednesdays in Anderson, not to mention that they don't want to come in the first place. Well a couple weeks went by and Alison came to our Wednesday night youth event with her friend from the church. They and Kylee set up a movie night at our place. That night was last night.

After the movie, Gabe (the head youth pastor) came over as well to hang out and see them since he hadn't seen them in a few weeks. God truly made himself evident tonight and Alison shared what she is struggling with. I won't go into details out of respect for her, but, let me tell you, my heart broke for her. Stuff that I never thought kids at her age had to go through she's going through... all by herself. She's having to grow up a lot faster than a kid should. However, her sharing opened up a lot of opportunity for us to share our own testimonies and talk about how God has pulled us through similar types of stuff. And that probably the reason we get put through that stuff and the reason that God doesn't just take it all away is that He sees the bigger picture of how much of a better person we become through it. As fires refines and purifies gold, so are we refined by our own trials. We talked about how there is hope through it all and that our God (unlike other religions and gods) actually KNOWS our pain. For Jesus himself experienced it and because he himself experienced it, we know we can run to him in it and he has compassion on us and lifts us out of our despair.

It's that common understanding of pain and circumstance between us and our God that offers an intimate relationship unavailable through any other religion or god. It is that sort of intimate relationship that gives us hope in despair and brings about the end good through the (seemingly) bad means. Do not lose hope for the God who knows pain and works in pain is in control and sees the final product. And the final product is good. We just have to trust it though we cannot see it. This is where faith comes in. And this is where faith becomes proof enough.

Think about it, if there were no God, bad would be bad all the way through. But good CAN come out of bad... everyone has seen it at some point in life. In fact, isn't good all the more beautiful and evident when it does come from bad? Is the fact that we even feel we have a basis for determining what's good and what's bad the evidence for a God, an ultimate good-bad judge, in the end? I heard a pastor on the radio the other day telling a story about him relating to a kid having a hard time making "good choices." The kid asks, "How do I make good choices?" The pastor says, "Through gaining experience." The kid asks, "How do I gain experience?" The pastor says, "Through making bad choices." The bad things are what God can use to teach us, to train us, to beat us into shape. Gabe was talking about how you build muscle mass. In order to build your muscles, you tear them and break them down. When you break them down, they repair themselves and become larger in size.

Alison was broken last night. But there is beauty in this brokenness. There is a glimmer of hope and the healing has started and the opportunity for learning about a Creator and trusting a God presented itself. And we all felt it. And Mikey listened. Please pray.