Surprises Left and Right
This past week has come and gone (our week six with teams here in Chicago) and it held quite a few surprises along the way.
First off, we had a team from Texas who come to find out knew my squad leader from The World Race, Abby Barnett…how crazy is that!!??
Second, one of the teams was all middle schoolers, with some of the youth being eleven and twelve-years-old. Nothing is wrong with this, but it did pose a different set of challenges then we have experienced the rest of the summer.
The final group was a mixture of the two, but knew how to serve mightily. Their leaders set the tone and example as Jesus did to His disciples. Beautiful to see!!
All three groups!
At first, we may not have known how to truly relate with the younger group, as we have stayed consistent with having 13-18 year-olds in all the other groups. However, I believe we got the hang of it as we went along and grew a bunch from the experience.
The groups helped with Safe Haven mostly and did some other service projects in Harrison Park from face painting to handing out bottles of water! (Please note: I help with Safe Haven, so most of my photos are from there…sorry for not having photos from other places!)
Sidewalk Chalk
The before and after of cleaning up Maranatha Church's trash area!
Sports time, or Kickball! 😀
A little relief from the heat!
One-on-one with Pedro (Yoshi poop…ridiculous!! Haha)
The whole Maranatha team with all the kids!
Every group was different and needed a little different words encouragement wise, but I personally saw a LOT of growth in every single one of them, especially how the group from Texas poured into the younger youth in the other two groups.
I will personally miss the groups and definitely the men of the Texas group as I got to spend a little bit more time with them and connected with them very well!
Either way, we got to see a continuation of our prayers being answered in the kids from Safe Haven asking about God and Jesus and even have had a few of them come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ over the last few weeks because of our teams boldness and courage to share their faith with them. My heart swells with JOY for each one of these kids.
I had to say goodbye! 🙁 Group hug (tackle)!! Lol
~By: AJ Wagoner
P.S.~To each of the teams (Wisconsin, Iowa, and Texas): Thank you for your service and stepping out of your comfort zones throughout the week we got to spend with all of you! You are an inspiration and I cannot wait to see where and how far God takes each one of you with serving His Kingdom!! You are all amazing!! Thank you again! God Bless!!
P.S.S.~We also got an AMAZING woman of God right before the week, Katie. She started the summer with the Jamaica team, but got sick and had to go home. Then, knowing the Lord wanted her to finish out the summer with AIM, she came here and she is a super awesome blessing!!! Thanks Katie!! Loves you!! 😀
The team: Brittany, myself (AJ), Katie, Tommy, and Dan! 😀
