Day 4 already?!!?!

While each day has been chock full of work, beauty, and God’s goodness, this trip has moved SO quickly! We had another beautiful day of plunging the richness of God’s will for us here in Philly. What’d we do today? Well, at the Tyson Ave campus of True Vine, we got a 2^nd coat of paint on the three children’s rooms, cleaned all the toys and chairs that were in those rooms, swept and mopped all the rooms (the crazy paint scrapings from earlier in the week were quite the little buggers to get off of everything), hung some decorative items for them, vacuumed the sanctuary, swept the stairs, and more! We were blessed with lunch made by one of True Vine’s generous members. We also got to help a family from True Vine move into a new house today! Can you believe that they were driving from Allentown to Philly every weekend to attend – AND that they were high level volunteers who show up to church (with their kids) super early every Sunday? We busted through a full size UHAUL truck, plus a minivan in about an hour (with help from a few True Vine members as well). After dinner (thanks Pastor Luis for grilling for us!), we headed back to Tyson Ave for a prayer meeting. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but basically it was 90 minutes of Holy Spirit led, God’s presence infused time with a worship leader singing and leading us into God’s presence, and us praying silently and out loud to bless True Vine, tomorrow’s church service, and the local community. We ended the prayer meeting by partnering up with a True Vine church member, us praying for them and their church family, and them praying for us. You should be SO proud of this team! There have been fears conquered, many firsts, so much love and encouragement expressed between team members and more. This random team of 11 people is now a tight knit, affirming family. What a blessing it’s been. Tomorrow is one more full day. We’ll be running Children’s Ministry at both campuses (Wissinoming at 10:30 and Tyson Ave at 1:00). Before that we’ll be doing some cleaning and packing. After that, we’ll be spending some time sharing life with Tyson Ave members after their service, then finishing up with a few debriefs of our trip and a final bless to affirm each other as well as the AMAZING pastors we’ve worked with and the interns here supporting them and us. Good night (or well, now – good morning!)

The Treasure Hunt

Does God have a specific person that He wants us to talk to today? That was the question that Pastor Jim challenged us with this morning before we traveled to downtown Philly.  He led us in a time of listening to God to see if there was a specific word, image, or name that would lead us to a specific person.  God did indeed give us what seemed like random words, images and names.  We typed up the list, made 40 lunches, and headed to downtown Philly to spread God’s love to the homeless and see what God had in store!

We broke into groups of two, overcame our fears, and asked homeless people if we can share our lunch with them.  Many of them agreed and even let us pray for them! We learned their stories and showed that we cared.  Some people blessed us as much as we blessed them. We were all incredibly moved by being able to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Meanwhile, we were on a “treasure hunt” for people that matched the words, images, and names that God gave us earlier.  One homeless man matched one name that we had written down.  Another was wearing a heart symbol that matched one that we had drawn.  Another person was wearing a batman symbol that we had seen.  Yet a lot of the items on the list went unmatched.  This led one group to go around to random people in the Reading Terminal Market asking strangers if they had the names that matched the names on our sheet.  That didn’t yield any results but it sure was fun! More on the treasure hunt later…

It is so apparent that Pastor Jim and Luis are completely engaged in serving and blessing Philadelphia.  They can hardly talk about anything else! They deeply want to help the neighborhoods know Jesus, love Him, and love each other.  They work hard at it.  So we sent Jim, Luis, and their spouses out on a date while we watched their kids!  After the kids went to bed, we watched the documentary http://www.letthefireburn.com/ and Pastor Jim came home and challenged us to think about what we can do in the Harrisburg area to foster racial reconciliation.  It was a tough question that we wrestled with.

We ended the night with an amazing discovery.  After affirming what God is doing in each of our lives, we circled back around to the treasure hunt.  We realized that a person matching about half of the words on the printed sheet was one of our own team members!  We took that as a sign from God that we should all circle around and pray specifically for that team member.  It was an awesome moment and a wonderful end to the day!

Paint, Prayer, and Pizza

Philadelphia Day 2 started out as a drizzly day outside, but it wouldn’t dampen our team spirit! We continued on to scraping and painting the True Vine Tyson Avenue children’s rooms. It took many hands and a lot of hard work. Luis served us a great lunch and we enjoyed sharing about the “early days” of Daybreak. We went back to work for a few more hours of painting. Then we headed out to the neighborhoods of Philly for prayer walks. Four groups spread out and canvased the areas, praying for the needs of each community. Among other things, all four groups felt the need to pray for fatherless families. After the prayer walking, Pastor Jim hosted our group at his home for dinner. We had 2 of the world’s largest pizzas, and there wasn’t much left over. After we were full, we debriefed on the prayer walking and discussed the changes happening in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It was great to hear the insight of Pastor Jim and an elder from True Vine. Upon returning to the Wissinoming campus in the evening we returned to another service project: We helped prepare fruit to bless the local school teachers on their last day of school tomorrow. We wrapped up with another team debrief to affirm and encourage each other. We’re looking forward to eating lunch with the homeless tomorrow and exploring Center City a bit. Thanks for all your prayer for us. We’re all healthy and loving what God is doing in and through us. 

Philly Day 1

Hi Daybreak (and family and friends!), thanks for your prayers for us today. We safely arrived in Philly at True Vine Church around 11 am this morning and enjoyed meeting Jim Rudd (the lead pastor there) as well as Luis (the campus pastor at the Wissinoming campus), and also two summer interns serving (Phil & Jamie). We were served a great lunch and toured around both of the True Vine campuses, getting to hear the stories behind how God brought about each one, led the staff/leadership of the church here, and how God is working through this amazing church family. We spent the afternoon engaging in our first service project, which was to prepare several children’s ministry classrooms at the Tyson Avenue campus to get a coat of paint – there was some old paint that needed to be stripped/sanded off. It was hard, dirty, but fun work! We wrapped up with dinner, a debrief with Pastor Jim and the interns, and then a debrief of our own to encourage each other and share how we saw God use our team members throughout the day. Tomorrow, we’re looking forward to continuing the painting project and seeing what else God has in store for us. 
                                               

Our first team to Philly!

Daybreak is sending our first ever team to the City of Brotherly Love! This is also our first team we've sent that didn't require a plane flight, and we are looking forward to this new friendship and partnership with True Vine Church Community.

The team pictured here has been training for the past 6 weeks, getting to know each other through team-building, personality development, story-sharing, prayer, and building community & trust with each other.

We will be in Philadelphia from June 17-21, 2015, working with the church family at True Vine. We hope to help complete some work projects at their two campuses, share a meal with the homeless and eat WITH them, organize food for the local Food Bank, serve their church family on Sunday morning, and who knows what else?!?!!!

Thank you for praying for us as we travel, as we serve, as we experience God in a brand new place, and for sending and supporting us!  We hope to update this blog as often as we can.  Just remember that no news is good news if we don't get around to it one day!