Hello, dear friends!
I have a few prayer requests, for those of you reading. First of all, I have a classmate from Concordia who took her own life yesterday... For someone to be experiencing that much hurt, that much hopelessness, is a difficult thing to grasp. Please keep her family and her friends in your prayers, and continue to thank God for the impact she had on so many people while she spent her 20 years here on earth.
My second prayer is for my upcoming mission work that I'll be doing this next week. As much as I love Russia, and am SUPER excited to go back, I have always, always been a big believer in "being where you are". By that, I mean, look around you. Everywhere you go, you see a need.
For instance, I work on an apartment maintenance crew. (I'm adding a third prayer request in the middle of my second one, here... Be patient.) We were painting windows, and had to ask the tenants to open up their windows. It's amazing how much you can learn about people, just by opening their windows... In one apartment, there was a brand new baby boy, couldn't have been a week old. His mom and... Well, a man, I can't even begin to guess how involved he was in the lives of these two people... Were in an argument, one where he was mostly yelling. When the newborn started to cry, the man started to yell at this new baby!!! Right there, there's a need, in Nebraska, for Jesus' love, for His salvation and grace!
That's what I mean by "being where you are". Look around you. To quote Pastor Reehl, "Does everybody in your town know Jesus and how much He loves them? Then you have a mission!" Any way, now that I've ranted on that subject, my mission that I ask you to keep in your prayers is called Royal Family Kids Camp. This program is an outreach to children who have experienced abuse or neglect before in their lives. We get 24 children, ages seven to eleven, for a week. During this week, we focus on teaching them about God's true love for the, about their true importance to their Savior. We also try to show them what a loving, heavenly Father looks like, which is a huge struggle, since most of them have never known such a thing as a loving father.
So my request to you now is that you would become a prayer warrior for these kiddos, starting now!! :) It's Thursday, and we get to see their smiling faces on Monday! I'll bet they're getting nervous, and their parents are probably even more nervous, especially if the kids haven't ever been to camp before. Please pray for bravery and confidence as some of them step out to try something new. For our returning campers, pray for them to remember us! Overall, pray that God's love is constant and shining, and that He touches soooooo many little lives during this next week. I'll try to keep you updated on what's going on. Thank you so much for all that you do for God's children! You are a true blessing!! :)
Blessings on all that you do!
Amen, Steph!
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