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April Internship Report – Kevin and Alisha Greene

April Internship Report – Kevin and Alisha Greene

Published April 6, 2017

North Annville Bible Church, Annville, Pennsylvania

Kevin

Ministry Highlights

Besides the normal church activities, Alisha and I went on a mission trip to Guatemala and the following weekend we went with our youth group to Wintercamp for a weekend retreat. This report will highlight our youth group weekend first and then spend the rest of the time reporting on the mission trip week.

Wintercamp Weekend Retreat – We had a great weekend. This year, it was awesome to see that we had seven new students attend Wintercamp. One student was a 7th grader and has only been to our group a few times. I wasn’t quite sure how he would do because this was an unfamiliar place for him and he is relatively new to the group. However, he fit right in and really enjoyed the time. We had so much fun as a group and had numerous opportunities to teach and talk about Biblical truths.

Our speaker was a recent college graduate who is raising support to join DiscipleMakers. He had only given 2-3 Bible talks in his entire life and he did amazing. You would have thought that he had many years of experience under his belt. It was so awesome to see God use him to communicate such important life-changing truths to our group. Our other speaker was a junior in college and she was an effective communicator. She shared her testimony and then focused on building relationships with the students, especially the girls. She got connected with some of the girls very well. So cool! In the end, we made lots of memories that will last for a very long time. Throughout the weekend it was neat to look back on the memories of Wintercamp from previous years. This encouraged me to know that we are doing things that people remember. Since they remember things, hopefully they will then have a chance to put these things into practice and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

Guatemala Mission Trip – The big event of the month was our week trip to Guatemala. Eleven people from our church went to help a missionary in Jocotenango, Guatemala. This missionary was one of our elder’s classmate at Pensacola Bible College. It was awesome to hear that this missionary became a missionary because he read the book Radical and discussed it in a small group. God is now using him and his family to mentor pastors and help many people in Guatemala.

It was awesome to go with the full support of our church. Each person going on the trip raised their own funds, but we asked the church to partner with us and give directly to projects. Because of our church’s generosity we were able to complete five different projects on our trip.

The first project was that we were able to put a roof on the porch of the pastor’s house so that his church could meet there. We built the roof, painted the walls, and installed lights. It was awesome getting to know the pastor and his family. His wife is going through chemotherapy at the moment (so pray for her!), and his children are doing great. They were a blessing to be around, play with, and we were also able to practice our Spanish with them.

Second Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second project was to help a lady in the church. She did not have a strong wall around her house and this caused her house to get broken into often. We took the old wall away and built a new one. We also made her a solid door that she could lock. It was great serving her and getting to know her young boys. We played a lot with her young children. They even tried to help us out!

Our third project was providing this same lady with a new cook stove. The new cook stove burns very efficiently and has a way for the smoke to get out of the house. It was such a blessing to provide her with something she is going to use every day.

Fourth Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fourth project was supplying the 12-15 pastors that meet each Saturday morning with a Spanish version of “The Measure of a Man.” We had a great time leading that meeting. I was able to teach them about the existence of God (Doctrine study) and Pastor Todd was able to lead them through an introduction and overview of the book.

Finally, the fifth project was supplying food baskets to 4 different individuals. We were able to supply 4 single mothers with enough food for about a month! One lady was so appreciative of our food basket she started crying and saying that she didn’t know where food was going to come from tonight. God provided us for her! It was so awesome!

Fifth Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many other amazing things that we were able to be a part of over the course of our week. We visited a drug and alcohol center’s worship service (which Pastor Todd preached at). We attended the mission church on Saturday night, and a bi-lingual missionary church on Sunday morning. We also spent some time in Antigua, zip lining, and hiking to the top of a volcano.

We will be giving our missions report this Sunday morning. You can watch it after it happens at northannvillebible.org. Also, like us on facebook so that you will see a video recapping the trip when I finish the video and post it. It’s going to be difficult to condense the week into a video, but I am excited to try to communicate what God did on our trip with everyone, including you!

Key Prayer Requests

Junior Church Teaching Ministry Prayer Request: I will be asking every AWANA (Sunday night) volunteer to consider learning more about our Sunday morning kids ministry and possibly come and check it out.

YAC (Young Adult Community) Ministry Prayer Requests: Pray that April 23 I can meet with the parents of our high school junior and seniors and then meet with those students April 30 to discuss what a young adult ministry will look like for them.

Outreach Events Prayer Requests: Pray that we can stay involved in our community and our small groups run with the vision of being Christ in our community.

Pray for me as I work to develop a visual way to see our small group ministry and also a better way to communicate information about the missionaries we support. We continue to make progress on this. I am still waiting (will be asking again today) for missionary information to be given to me by someone on our missions committee. I am planning to visit other Lifegroup at their next meeting.

Continue to pray for our youth group. Lots of growing pains going on in the group right now.

Prominent Lessons

Today Alisha and I met with your mission trip team for lunch after church. It was great to get together and great to talk about our upcoming trip to Guatemala. This will be our first missions trip (that’s not to Utah), and the first trip our church has done like this that I know about. This trip is a result of a relationship that one of our elders has with a friend from Bible college who is now a missionary in Guatemala. He and his family have gone to visit and minister with this friend twice before and now he invited the church to join them on this one. It was great to see a small group form to go down and see how the church has supported various projects that we have told them about.

This is my first time being a part of a church sponsored mission trip. It’s also nice that I haven’t had to plan any of it! I look forward to going, ministering, and serving. I look forward to the relationships that will be strengthened between those on the team as we serve others in a different setting. I look forward to doing the various house projects, helping lead in some Bible studies (drug and alcohol rehab group, and pastor/church leader group), watching Alisha do some physical therapy, and spending time with lots of people. There are a lot of things to look forward to!

One of my hopes and prayers from this trip is that the team who goes will bring back with them a different mindset about missions in our neighborhoods. If we can go to Guatemala to do these things, we should be able to do them here at home. This trip is a great opportunity to communicate the importance of missions, around the world and right here at home. I am praying that God will use this trip in many huge ways.

Yesterday we had one of our long Sundays. Church 9:30-10:45am, Sunday School 11-11:45am, Engage practice 3-5pm, Dinner 5-6pm, Youth group 6-7:30pm. It’s a long day but it works for us (once a month for 6 months out of the year).

Long story short, 2 sisters (9th and 11th grade) came back to our youth group after maybe 6 months-1 year away. Both girls have been dealing with different issues and the 11th grader is farther along than the 9th grader. Her mom was the one to make the decision that the 9th grader needed to get involved with youth group again. She decided that she was going to make her daughter do youth group and go to our Wintercamp retreat. Having the 11th grader come back was exciting and unexpected. I’m not sure what changed in her but she made the decision to come back. So last night the girls, and their mom, came for pizza, and the girls stayed for youth group. Both did very well considering they have been away for awhile. The 9th grader did alright (she didn’t really want to be there) but she participated and listened. The 11th grader dove back in like she never left. She even opened up in her girls small group and shared the struggles that she has been going through and fighting the last year or so. Alisha was amazed that she wanted to share so much. It was powerful.

To summarize, there is always way more going on than we know about. This family has gone through a lot of changes recently for different reasons but we have been praying and trusting God that He will lead them where He wants them to be. It seems like things got inline for the parents first and then they were the ones that have gotten their younger children, then now their older children in order. We are celebrating this first step and will continue to see how they grow back to be not only a part of the community here but also grow in their faith.

The connection with the parents in youth and family ministry is critical. It doesn’t always turn out like this but we have been very blessed to have many families come and get involved in the youth group and never leave. It’s been a privilege to watch them grow up and hopefully have a positive influence for Christ in their lives along the way. Pray this family continues to take the necessary steps to grow in their relationships with us here at church but also with the Lord!

It’s exciting to see how major events (like our youth group Wintercamp) allow me to connect with students in a certain way that I would not normally be able to. What I mean by this is that I am inviting them to do something a little out of their comfort zones, and I am able to help lead and guide them to make the best decision. One boy is relatively indifferent to everything. I spent about 20 minutes playing a game with him on our apple t.v. and gave him the freedom to explore some different games and just sat and played with him. Through that time I think it helped him feel more excited about going to Wintercamp and getting involved. I got an email from his dad later that night saying that he had decided to go. That was awesome news.

The other situation was that a boy wanted to go but his dad would not let him until he gets his grades up. This major event of Wintercamp allowed me to have this conversation with his dad and then also with this student. We scheduled a time for me to come and talk with the student and help him get back on track in school with his grades.

These situations were a reminder to me that Wintercamp (or another major event) is not only helpful for growth for those that go but also for those who don’t. Usually a major event like this will help you identify things in people’s lives that come out as a result of not wanting to go or unable to go, or they are going to go because of something major going on in their life. I am praying that this weekend will be good for everyone, even those who don’t go.

Wintercamp Weekend Retreat – When I started youth ministry one of my friends in youth ministry told me that a lot of youth ministry is creating memories. Throughout this weekend it was neat to remember what we did over the past several years for Wintercamp. This encouraged me to know that we are doing things that people remember. Since they remember things, hopefully they will then have a chance to put these things into practice and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

Ten years from now we probably won’t remember the 2nd point to the second lesson on Saturday, but they will most likely remember the silly thing that happened in the van with all of their friends!

Guatemala Mission Trip – Our whole mission trip weekend, let alone all the work that the missionary and his family have been doing for the last five years is all a result of God using the book Radical in one man’s life. In addition, not only did he read the book but he discussed it in a small group. This just reminds me of the power that our words have, and when we encourage people to doing big things for Jesus, some people do, and it’s amazing to see the results.

Key Goals for the Next Month

Meet with high school juniors and seniors and their parents to plan their young adult ministry.

Continue to move the outreach vision forward and have a great event the Saturday before Easter.

Have a great Youth Group Engage event April 8.

Alisha

Ministry Highlights

Participating as a leader in youth group and leading a girls small group.

Helping to lead YAC, our Young Adult Group. We have a wide variety of people who are attending from freshman Lebanon Valley College students to a married couple, to young adults from the community who never went to college.

I’ve been able to build my relationship with a young adult girl in our YAC group and walk with her through life. We have continued to read a book together and meet to talk about it to help her out during her season in life.

Helping to lead our NABC Kids Sunday morning ministry. I lead a small group of 6-7 kids and mentor high school students as they help lead the group as well.

This quarter (March – May) I am teaching the 5yr-K grade Sunday School during the sermon time on Sunday mornings.

I continue to visit a family from our church’s house to do some physical therapy treatment on a high school senior. We have been able to make a good connection over the last year or so.

Continued to do morning devotions with Kevin before going to work

Besides the normal things, I went on the mission trip to Guatemala and spent the following weekend at the youth group wintercamp weekend retreat.

Key Prayer Requests

Continue to pray for the girls in our youth group.

Pray for my sister in law that is going through a lot difficult things in her life.

Pray that I continue to study well for my manual certification class and test and continue to learn a lot that can I apply to my job every day.

Pray that I do well in the clinic director training that continues through April.

Pray for me as I meet with the one young adult girl one on one.

Pray for me as I teach my 5yr-K grade Sunday School  class. It would be helpful to have another person teaching with me but right now it’s just me and 5-8 kids.

Prominent Lessons

I have learned so much from my missions trip. To put everything in words is still hard, I am still trying to process everything. My eyes were opened to a whole new world in which the people have very little but are still content. I was refreshed and re-excited about the opportunities that I have to serve at the church. In addition, I had the opportunity to work with the missionary child who has down syndrome and was able to give the mom and sister advice on ways to facilitate his motor development which was rewarding to see how much they appreciated my help.

My winter camp experience this year was amazing. I was able to connect more with some of the girls in the youth group and encourage them in their walk with the Lord. We had a fun time bonding when making tie dye shirts as well as other activities. I have loved growing and developing my relationships with the girls in the youth group.

Key Goals for the Next Month

Do well in my clinic director training.

Do well in my manual certification classes and tests that are coming up.

Reach out to and meet with a girl from youth group who has recently started coming again with her sister.

Continue to build my relationship with a certain family at church and their children. The kids keep asking me when we are going to come over and babysit them again. They can’t wait!

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