Welcome To The Summer Missionary Blog

Saturday 17 May 2008 at 1:31 pm

I hope your time this summer brings you closer to the Lord.
-Chase

alive

Sunday 14 October 2007 at 4:04 pm Yesterday I was able to go back to a site I haven't been to in a while and help out with kids club. And it was awesome!! Some of the Mt.Vernon youth came while others went to hand out water bottles and tracts at a park. I was so happy just to see the familiar faces of kids I had been working with all summer and some new ones. It was the best day I've had in a long time and I praise God for it! Lately it seems that I've been so tired and the days have passed by unnoticed, but yesterday - yesterday I was alive...

It's been a while...

Sunday 23 September 2007 at 10:47 am Hello friends.

Just thought since I will still be doing mission raleigh throughout the year I should start blogging once in a while, as painful and as difficult as it may be to make myself sit down and narrate my life. (If only I could just use a camera).

Well this year has been pretty good so far, albeit stressful, to say the least. God did some amazing things this summer, I watched Him work in ways I never dreamed He would. I got to brush up and improve on my Spanish, paint some faces, make some videos, sweat, eat Boberry biscuits, see people come to know the Lord, make a ton of new friends, rally against those friends as they picked on me and Matthew the whole summer and then finally get to tell them all that they were right.
Now I am back in school, taking on as much as I can possibly handle...this RA job is good, very time consuming and taxing--physically, mentally, and emotionally. It is literally the most underpaid job ever. It's like a more elaborate Mission Raleigh with a smaller paycheck. It gets lonely sometimes being here by myself but I have all my friends here at school to hang out with (also a source of strain at times, to balance my time that is). I'm still doing the Crusade praise team this year, so I have Sunday nights and Thursday nights usually booked. Then of course there is Bojangles after Crusade and shagging after Bojangle's.  Oh and did I mention 15 credit hours while trying to get on track for my double major and minor??
And Fridays.... OHHH Fridays.
I felt the call at the end of this summer to start going out to Walnut Terrace to start up a youth group with Matt and Timmy. Sadly both of them have had to either fly across the ocean or fall away from this ministry. Although that was pretty discouraging God has provided George with the time to come out and help me run this often overlooked site. My heart breaks for this place, for the kids who run up when they see me and ask when kids club will be, and I can't say anything because there is no ministry for them right now. I wish I could do one for them bu I simply don't have the time or ability. I am so glad to be able to take over the youth group, and how God encourages me every time I'm out there in a unique way. I can't wait to see what God does in this place although I have to admit the feelings of loneliness, fear and utter exhaustion often make me want to just stay in bed. But this is where He wants me and I have found, especially in light of this summer, that answering a call on faith is much better than coming up with your own plans... you never know what amazing thing God will do next.

Wow I didn't realize I had that much to say and as I sit here I realize that I have even more but we will save that for another time.
Adieu, Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci!
Dana

At CP I try to do the cha-cha...

Friday 14 September 2007 at 7:52 pm

The other morning a friend of mine happened to tell me that she thinks my sandals look like 'Jesus sandals' and it was all I could do not to explode off of my seat and laugh for the sheer joy of the knowledge that God is good. Just a little reminder that God is not only good but He is also amazing, awesome, inspiring, encouraging and so much more.

in response to: "a good night"

Wednesday 05 September 2007 at 6:20 pm I want to do youth night soooo bad! I'm afraid to ask my parents about it though, cuz I'm already doing CP Monday afternoons and then Wednesdays are completely swamped with church. I'm glad youth night went well and I'm glad the Lord sent along Jacob to help out just as everyone else was leaving. Isn't He so good!? MAN!! I miss those kids so bad! It makes me cry. I really don't know what to do. I can't just continue on like this summer didn't happen, but I can't allow myself to be so consumed by it that it interferes with the things I need to be doing now. When I'm at school it's almost all I ever talk about. I fell in love this summer, I fell in love with a people and this love, it requires action. So how do I love reasonably? If there is such a thing.

Good-Bye

Saturday 25 August 2007 at 11:40 am I said good-bye, softly, like a breeze you notice when your napkin falls off the table but not before. I said good-bye to a site that breaks my heart each time I step onto it and makes me smile and laugh the whole time I am there. I said Good-bye to a friend, the only kid I remember from my first week here, two+ years ago. I hugged her, told her I was flying off to college and told her that people would keep coming around and hanging out with her. It was hard not to say, though I hope it's true, "I'll see you again" because I don't really know what God is doing. A year and a half ago I only dreamed of coming back to Raleigh but my dreams of returning were week and I expected nothing from them. Then God came in, like the winds of a hurricane, and here I am, in Raleigh, saying Good-Bye again.

Kyle And Gregory

Thursday 23 August 2007 at 08:54 am

Yesterday Was a Good Day

Saturday 04 August 2007 at 11:55 am I didn't really want to stay outside with the kids, it was hot and there were only three out there. I told myself that they wouldn't want to play outside with us because it was so hot and there was almost no shade to be found. Then a little boy ran up to me and asked to get on my back but took my hand instead. He walked me to the shade of the trees by the playground and I lifted him up onto the platform. Clouds filled the sky, covering the hot sun allowing my body a break from the rays that turn my cheeks such a deep red. Then a two year old ran up to me with arms outstretched and jumped, somehow managing to wrap his legs around my waist before I could even realize what was happening. He squeezed my neck and pressed his cheek to mine, I closed my eyes and we stood like that for a minute or two before he began ordering me around and telling me which playground he wanted to play on. He drove a bus, I drove the bus, then he drove it again. We went down the slide and played tag. I was arrested a few times for robbing a bank and sadly I didn't have enough hands for everyone to hold onto at the same time. Yesterday I was blessed. I told Grace C. on Thursday that it's a good day when you've played just as hard as the kids.