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This amazing week has come to an end. Wow what an amazing week it was! God moved through each on every life and each and every person theses students came into contact with. God is doing work in the lives of all 33 home owners and all 400 students. Out of the students this week We had five salvation’s and 6 rededication’s. It’s amazing to see how God works. We don’t know how he does what he does, but what we do know is that he changes lives and that is something to rejoice about!
We just want to thank everyone who was involved this week, from the coordinators to the leaders, to the students and local churches and of course God. Without the willingness of these people to serve, this project would have never been possible. What an amazing way for our staff to start of the summer, we couldn’t have asked for a better first project! God Bless and hope we see you again for another summer, of changing the world!
For His Glory,
The Alabama Team
So today we came up with our offering total, the participants raised 1,979.87$!!! God is going to be able to use this is so many ways. This offering will go to the Kaleo Conference, Current Canada, and Urban Evangelism. Kaleo is a two day conference for students or adults who feel they have been called to a field in ministry or missions. They will hear from people that are currently in the mission or ministry field. They will direct them in the direction they need to go to pursue ministry or missions. Current Canada is an opportunity for students to go into the cities in canada and evangelize and spread the word. 93% of Canada is unchurched. There are 33 million people in Canada so 30.69 million people, haven’t heard the word of Christ. We need people in Canada to Evangelize. Urban Evangelism is a ministry that sends missionaries into 5 urban US cities. The missionaries will go and listen to the needs of the people in the city and relay it back to the churches they are working with. Because these students were willing to sacrifice, God will be able to usethis money to glorify his kingdom!
Tonight’s message at worship was a challenging one. Josh challenged us with a verse from Jeremiah. Jeremiah 33:3 says ” call out to me, and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” We need to call out to God and believe that what he says and tells us to do is what is best for us. We need to have faith and trust in the Lord with the callings he has given us. We need to quit trying to figure it out ourself and let God do the work. We have all had our ideas or plans on what we want to do with our lives, but it doesn’t matter what we want, we need to allow God to set our plans for us, because when we put everything in his hands, everything will fall into place.
We have one more day left and we pray that God will allow everybody to finish up strong. This has been an amazing week of ministry and God has worked in so many lives! As staff, it is our hope that these students don’t just leave it here in Birmingham but take what God is doing in their lives back home to affect their community and friends at home. We have loved working with all of your students and have been blessed to serve them!
For His Glory,
The Alabama team
Today was the second day of full work. A lot of crews are making tremendous progress and might be able to finish tomorrow! This would allow for many other crews to get help if they need and even more ministry to be done! Today was a great day at the projects, we had several media personnel come out to cover the awesome story of these students giving up their time and money to help serve the Lord and this community of Birmingham. However, the greatest thing today, was the concert of prayer.
WOW!! That is all that can be said about concert of prayer tonight. God was moving through the worship center like you wouldn’t believe. Students and adults falling on their hands and knees, giving all that they have to God. The Lord was moving and working in so man hearts tonight it’s unbelievable. We had a student that gave their life to Christ for the first time tonight. Students are being saved and people are being reached. God is just flowing through this city in Birmingham, and to think we still have three more days of work! We are at a loss for words on what Christ is doing in and through us this week. Keep all of the students, adults and staff in your prayers for they have put in alot of hours of hard work so far this week. Pray that they God will strengthen them to do the things he has planned for them to do, so they can all bring glory and praise to our gracious and loving father in haven.
For His Glory,
The Alabama Team
Today was The Great Send Off! This kicked off what is going to be an awesome week of service and ministry. All 33 of our crews drove off into the sun rise in hopes of making their home owners feel the love of Christ first hand. I had the opportunity to speak to a home owner today and she said ” I just feel so blessed to have this happen to me, these kids are an inspiration, i would rather receive this free roof from these students, than win a million dollars.” That speaks volumes to how these kids are impacting the people they are serving! We as staff can not wait to her the multiple stories our students have throughout this week!
For His Glory,
The Alabama Team
Today was an amazing day! Started it off by allowing the participants to see who all was going to be on their crew. 33 crews later, everyone has made a new friend. After crews were established, we took the annual world changers big group photo. All 400 squeezed into one magnificent shot. After the picture was taken, crews headed out to attend sunday morning church services. Each crew attended the church that will be providing them lunch for this week. It’s amazing to see how God provides that we are blessed with 33 willing local churches that would give their time and money to provide these students the food and energy they need! After services concluded, the crews were given the blessed opportunity to go and visit the house they would be working on. This allowed them to meet the owners and see what amazing ministry opportunities they have this week.
Students and crews returned back to Carver High School around three o’clock. This allowed them to have quite a bit of free time untill dinner started at 6:00 and worship at 7:30. Worship tonight was amazing! We sang about how holy and worthy our loving God is. Worship was followed by a challenging message from speaker Josh Swindall. Josh went through Isaiah 6: 1-4. In this passage, Isaiah says that he ” saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” Josh challenged us to ask ourselves, “if I saw God high and exalted, how would that change the way I worship? How would I act? This was a powerful challenge that many students took to heart, but it didn’t stop there. Josh then used an illustration of how when we spill things, we just pull our “Shout” out of the cupboard, spray it, and it cleans everything up. He then related that back to God. He asked us ” do you only pull God out of the cupboard when things get messy in your life? or are we living like he is always here?” This was a powerful question that hit home pretty hard with alot of people. It makes us take a step back and really ask ourselves how am I doing in my relationship with Christ? Is he around all the time and not just when I need him to clean up a mess?
Tonight’s message was a great lead in to tomorrows full day of work and ministry. We can not wait to hear the stories the students have to share this week!
For His Glory,
The Alabama Team
Today all twelve churches arrived safely with tons of energy! These twelve churches are from 8 different states and they are:
Boiling Springs First Baptist Boiling Springs
South Carolina, First Baptist Church of Magee Misissippi
Wade Baptist Moss Point, Mississippi
First Baptist of Panama City Florida
Flemington Baptist Micanopy, Florida
Gasburg Baptist Mooresville, Indiana
Holston Baptist Knoxville, Tennessee
New Providence Baptist Loudon, Texas
New Song Church Carrollton, Texas
Sugar Hill Baptist Sugar Hill, Georgia
Tusculum Hills Baptist Nashville Tennessee,
Wynne Baptist Wynne Arkansas.
All 12 of these churches combined to bring over 400 students and adults. After all the churches had arrived and unloaded, we held a Welcome Celebration for all the participants and leaders. After the welcome celebration we headed to dinner for some scrumptious chicken tenders with cheese and potatoes and a nice tastey piece of cake. We then went to what was an amazing night of worship. Worship was lead by Music Leader Christina Baxley who was assisted by team Missouri and Florida’s music leaders Brian Wattier and Collin Malaney. After worship, our speaker Josh Swindall hit us a hard with 1 Peter 2:9-12. Josh challenged us to be holy which actually means “set apart”. Set apart is the theme for this summers’ World Changers projects, and the challenge is to be in the world, but not apart of it. Josh noted that as Christ followers, we may be the only bible that some people read so our actions need to represent what we believe.
After seeing how this first day went, we can not wait to see what God does in and through us this week!
For His Glory,
The Alabama Team
Wow! Only one more day until the participants arrive! These last two weeks of training and preparing have gone by so fast and we could not be more excited to get this project underway! We are all ecstatic about what God has planned for the project this week! We can not wait to see how God is going to work in and through the lives of these students and how he will use them to witness and share his love to the people they encounter!
Now we would like to introduce the people who make this whole project possible. First off, we would like to introduce all of the coordinators and our worship speaker: Projector Coordinator is Gordon Davidson, Construction Coordinator Mr. Randall Patterson, Associational Coordinator Margie Duncan and Worship Speaker Josh Swindall. Now for the summer staff: Office Manager and Team Leader Ms. Rachael Fiyalko, Music Leader, The Christina Baxley, Audio Visual Techninja, Logan Vincent and Missions Communications Specialist Mr. Jared Carl.
A special thanks goes out to all of the faculty at Carver High School for allowing us to use their facilities for this week of amazing ministry and opportunities. We are counting down the hours until the students arrive and could not be more excited for the opportunity we have to serve this week!
For His Glory,
Birmingham Alabama Staff
Josh Swindall- Worship Speaker Margie Duncan- Associational Coordinator
