Travel With Travis

Saturday - Sunday

The past two days have been great days for team ministry. Saturday was filled with morning prayer stations across the community, a few hours at the beach for a small get-a-way, then a Summer Blast kids outreach in the park in the evening. We have many new families we connected with, many children who had fun and played many games, and many parents who met Pastor Dave and people from the church. All in all....A great day.

Sunday we gathered for church. It was the first time we actually met most of the people who attend Central Assembly. It's an incredible city church. More than 12 countries are represented, every skin color (most of which were different than us) and so many accents it was hard to understand many of the people. Wonderful people. Wonderful experience. Wonderful glimpse of God's Kingdom with such a diverse make up of people.

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BLAST FROM THE PAST.
We were in East Boston in 2000 for the first mission trip I'd even led as a youth pastor. On the trip Jeremy West (for the first time) prayed out loud with someone at the park who had a hurt knee. That week she came to church with us and her knee felt much better. Her name was Rita.

Today I ate lunch next to Rita. She was water baptized a year after our trip. Now, she faithfully attends Central Assembly. When she saw our team and found out we were from mattoon, she immediately asked if Jeremy was with us. I explained he was now a full-time missionary. I called Jeremy on my cell phone and he and Rita talked at lunch. Although Rita had never used a cell phone, the two talked and it was a very cool mission trip moment.

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Tonight we play Uno at the kitchen table. The full week of ministry and experiences have nearly ended. The team has done wonderful. We stuck to our mission statement: We served Pastor Dave and his family, and we served his church and his community. They set the schedule and ministry, we simply stepped in and served to the best of our ability.

It feels good to serve. In fact, we are wired to do good things. God, who lives in us, has designed us to do good. And when we do, we feel good because we have accomplished our purpose God has established. God is good. Our reflection of him should be good. Our actions should be good. And when we do it.... it will feel good.

I saw a Christian t-shirt once.... be the moon, reflect the Light.
I really don't like those type of shirts...but i liked the message.

moon.

posted by travis spencer @ 8:01 PM