Kaleo Ministry

Friday night at youth was a little frustrated trying to get the game organized. I was also a little disappointed in the involvement of a few individuals but overall it went well and I am glad for thought that Aimee, Josh and I put into the game. A special props goes out to Josh especially for putting the ideas and everything together.

This past weekend the New York trip went to Langley to see Bill William preach at the Christian Life Assembly Church. Bill William is in charge of Metro Ministries. This guy is reaching out to a community that he is pretty familiar with based on his life growing up. He claims to not exactly know what he is doing but knows that God is at work and so things are happening. His words are. "I am not some great man of power and faith. I am a regular guy that often runs scared too. However, I think that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), so I do not sit around expecting God to drop what is needed out of the sky. Nevertheless, an issue of faith dictates the need I have to cross the line in the first place."

I really like this guy because he will challenge you and let you know if he doesn't like you or has a problem. He lives to please God and not man so I am very excited, scared and other things I cannot describe to go on this mission to New York in March!
Bill really pointed out to me this weekend through his stories that God really is after anyone who says, "Nobody cares LORD, here I am." And then he went on to say “It’s always one that cares, always one.” When you really think about this it is something amazing, I also cannot describe and don't fully understand either. When this guy talked both of his sermons brought tears to my eyes. He reminds me of Old Testament leaders and his stories revealed to me more about God's love for us.

Kaleo Ministry

On Friday night we when to Youth and I truthfully was not in the mood. I felt overwhelmed with being there and everywhere all the time. Well actually I was at the camp most of the week but I don't know I was feeling not in the mood to socialize. When we arrived at the church I calmed down a bit. We played some Genis games it was actually lots of fun. I set a few records and was getting into it pretty good. There was also a new guy Josh to meet and Shai was there! He told me he was starting to read Genesis so I hope he can get a lot out of it! One thing I have learned about this youth group is that the majority of them are not a whole lot into extreme sports. I wanted to plan a trip to Mt. Washington but was informed that most of the youth wouldn't attend, so that is a bummer.
Next week Josh Amy and I are planning youth. We want to do a scavenger hunt. We plan to have clues that are riddles based on there location and a bible verse. I really hope it goes well, I'm mostly excited for it.

Kaleo Ministry

This weekend I participated as a counselor in the senior retreat. Coming into the weekend I was a little freak out just cause my last counseling experience was with juniors. However it turned out to be a really awesome weekend.

All my guys believed in God so that was awesome. We had some good discussion on the first night getting to know each other a little bit. Two guys really liked soccer the other two were into snowboarding and skiing, while this other guy wasn't really too sure,"maybe skiing" he thought. Anyways later they got into busting some pretty funny jokes but it was getting a little out of hand. Sometimes I find it hard to keep a group under control,"lets raise the bar" they would say. Well the second night became even worse they were up until 2:30 or 3:00 am just passing off the jokes, some of them were pretty hilarious, but I knew somewhere inside I should be telling these guys to be more careful about what they say. It is hard though because I want them to have a good time, and they are laughing and I think laughing is a great thing but I also new the things we were laughing about was not right.

So the next day I tried my best and with the prayer of strength from God to help me tell these guys how we went wrong last night and how we needed to be on guard with our hearts about good and evil. It is so crazy when you are around camp and everyone is a Christian here and we all seem to keep our mouths pretty clean, then all the sudden you run into something like this and your just not quite as used to anymore. I have been here before I know what it is like to try and be a good example for these guys but to try rebuke them and to know how God wants me to go about doing it, that is the hard part.

So I don't know how much my talk with them truly did effect them? It was weird talking to them and I look around and they were all so concentrated on me. It gets me all nervous cause I know they are actually listening. Then I start thinking to myself "oh boy Arlan better not screw up now" or "do you really know what your talking about?"

Overall looking back on the whole thing it was really a lot of fun, it was cool getting to know each one of them. It would be really cool to know or see these guys become stronger in there faith so that is my prayer for them.

Kaleo Ministry

This Friday was fun as we prepared some boxes for Operations Christmas Child. It was cool getting the chance to prepare and wrap up a box as I was hesitating about the whole idea earlier. Probably mostly out of selfishness.

This Sunday I was able to help out in Sunday school. I have not been able to help out a huge deal yet but my hope is to one day plan and prepare a class. In the mean time it will be good to learn from Wanda and help her out and to gradually better my skills. So far I am learning that these kids are pretty energetic and you have to get a little serious with them sometimes in order for them to settle down. I really want to keep the focus of showing these kids how to do what is taught and not just tell them.

Today at church the topic was holiness and again we had communion. This week I herd a sermon on the computer about men needing to love their wives. It talked about the amazing love Jesus had for us and his father as he died on the cross. We hear about this death so often, yet if we ever begin to say or think "whippty do" Jesus died,not caring to expand on what this means or becoming annoyed with this message, we cannot know how to expand in our love. Were supposed to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Give yourself up as God gave his son up(Ephesians 5:25).

So this kind of opens my eyes up a little more to the whole communion thing. It is a time to focus on the death of Jesus, and through his strength he could keep giving me a more advanced understanding oh what this all means. I believe I'll never know fully what this all means because I need something to hope for. To hope that God really is bigger and more amazing than we could ever know in this human life (Romans 8:24-25)

There was lots of helpful verses thrown out by Harry today to describe Holiness, how people react to it, fearful and face to the ground, how we might call out in humility like Moses and Job saying "Who am I" and God's like ya, without me you are nothing. So this brings me back again to Romans 12:1-2. Give yourself to God, let him reveal, teach, give you strength, understanding.....