Youth SLAM Trip - Day 1

The Church of the Redeemer youth group is off to its first ever short-term summer missions project. We'll be serving, learning and building relationships on the Yakama reservation in Washington State. We're all really excited!

We left my house yesterday with a team of 8 youth and 3 adults and began our long road trip up to Washington. Last night's stop was in the Bay Area and the drive had several dangerous incidents - two cars flaming on the freeway, an 18-wheeler turned over on its side and another semi that had a tire explode right as we passed by. Praise God, we were safe and all the kids and staff had a great spirit about it. We also got a chance to stop at In-n-out burger =).

In the evening we visited Stanford University and had a great time exploring campus. Even though the youth are all staunch USC Trojan supporters, they admitted that the campus was "alright." Not bad.

Today we're headed up to Oregon. The drive is 12 hours, nearly twice as a long as yesterday. Please continue to pray for safety and good attitudes. My prayer is that our team would have the mind of Christ described in Philippians 2 and be servants of others and each other. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and prayers!

Blessings,
Elliot

Adventures Ahead -- Clausura Friday

It has been a busy and fun-filled summer at Adventures Ahead! We can't believe that in three days it will already be time for our annual "Clausura" (Spanish for "closing ceremony"). The last month or so has been filled with lessons about the water cycle, the earth's crust, and volcanoes. Children have avidly learned songs about the difference between metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks, traveled to an aquarium, and searched for worms at our community garden's compost pile as a neighbor taught them about compost. Lauren and the LAUP interns have kept busy hosting volunteer groups, leading reading and math classes, and walking over to the park to borrow buckets of sand for their latest experiments.

We hope to post more stories of the summer soon. For now, we'd like to invite your prayers for our closing ceremony, coming up this Friday! Please pray:

1. For the event in general -- that logistics would come together, all the children and families would be able to come, and God would protect our party.

2. Connections -- This year we have seen some families who have been connected with adventures ahead in the past start to become more connected with our church, which is a great joy and answer to your prayers! Please pray that this event would especially be a time when parents can connect with each other, new friends from church, and other opportunities to continue to be involved in what God is doing here.

3. Closure -- Pray that these last few days would be a time to send our LAUP interns off well as they return home and consider a longer-term calling to the inner city. We also hope to end well with our students and have them remember the skills they've gained into the next school year.

4. Continuity -- Let's ask God to bring many of these children and families back to classes at Adventures Ahead this fall!