Hi Everyone! This is Kayla. I know it's a bit late, but this is what we've been up to! (at least from my perspective).

The past couple of months in Columbus have been kind of crazy. II was a little worried about being able to focus with all that's gone on. Actually, we all were a bit worried about that for ourselves. But praise God! He has shown us favor, and we have all had a focused time. I am quite amazed, myself.

Personally, the month of April was good, a little busy, but not bad at all. At the very beginning of May, I took another whole week off to fly to Arizona. My sister, Rachel, just got married (on the 9th) to Matt. It was a great change of pace. We worked hard throughout the week and it truly paid off on Saturday. The wedding went so smoothly!!! It was beautiful, elegant and so much fun! If you guys would, please say a prayer to continue blessing their marriage! I pray for joy, good communication and a continued team-like attitude that those two have! I am so excited to have a brother! This was a wonderful way for me to finish off the winter and spring months of staffing!

The end of April found us wrapping up our consistent Community Outreaches. As we’ve been getting ready for the summer, our schedules are shifting and we’ve had to let go of some of our favorite things to do. However, we’ve not stopped serving.

Our Perspectives class ended on the 11th of May. The last class was short, but very nice. The “production team” (the people who organized the class) prayed for us as a class. It was so refreshing to feel their blessing on our lives and to know that they will continue to pray for us as we go our separate ways.

As for Vineyard Leadership Institute, we are about to wrap up our last class tonight and will take our last exam next week! I know this sounds nerdy, but I am really going to miss that class, both academically and relationally. We’ve all made some great friends who have really touched our lives. If you wouldn’t mind praying for them, their names are Bob, Matt, Bethany, Jim, Manrique, Liston, Gideon, Kaitlyn, Jason, Brian, Dee, Erin (who is pregnant and due in late June), Gwen, John and John (father and son), Linnae, and Mike. Pray that they will all continue strong (I believe Jim is the only one graduating this year), and be able to complete the courses well! Thank you all for lifting up our friends.

This past Friday and Sunday, two more were added to our numbers here at the house. Elisha is a summer urban volunteer (SUV) leading worship. Austin joined us as the interim house director. He is taking a lot of the load from Carmal (who has been stretched very thin these last five months) and will also take a lot of leadership for the summer and throughout the Reach Discipleship Training School in the fall. Elisha will also be here for the DTS, but he will be the team leader to Thailand.

Last week, we all were very busy. We were preparing our house for the first group of City Challengers to come for the week! City Challenge is our summer-long program. A youth group (or two) will come on Wednesday to the house and stay until Sunday. They will participate in a prayer-challenge (finding us staff and praying for people throughout the city), work duties, community outreaches, and sessions that are directed toward finding their identity in Christ. This first group of Challengers is slightly different than the others will be. They are actually a class of sophomores from a small school a couple hours north. They arrived on Monday and will leave on Friday. So far, the week has gone really well! It’s only the second day, but things have rolled smoothly and there has already been a few conversations directed towards personal issues and issues that have arisen in their school. God is really working already. I ask that you continue to life us staff up in prayer and also the 17 Challengers. We can truly praise God for what he has already done and what he will continue to do in their lives.

Coming up, literally before this City Challenge group leaves, is the first Re-entry for Reachers. The six-month teams are returning from Kenya, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, and Israel. We are very excited for them to come home. The interesting part will be that the Kenya team will come Thursday evening and Madagascar team Friday morning. This is before the Challengers leave. So, it may be chaotic for a short time. Please pray for us staffers then, so we won’t be overwhelmed. Also, pray for the Reachers, that they will be able to adjust to the time changes, to being back in the states and releasing each other from “their team.” This last one seems like an odd request, but it is so important to free each other from the roles that they have all played for the last six months and to go their own ways. Please also pray for final forgiveness for each other and for people that may have wronged them while overseas, for closure from the process, and for transition back into their communities.

I really appreciate all of your guys’ prayers for us staffers and these City Challenger and Reachers. The first three weeks of June will be City Challenge groups, the last is a staff retreat after which I am flying to California to see James (my fiancé) for the first time since January. You could also pray for that.

Thank you so much for your prayers. Even if you cannot see the results, we do. I encourage you to continue because your prayers have been making the difference in our lives.

Thanks again! Blessings

Posted by SEND Staff at 11:23 AM | Permalink

Hey every one! I hope this blog finds you well. This is Kayla.

Just a little update on things in the city. Wendy and I needed a couple more hours for Community Outreach each week, so Brittany hooked us up with our neighbor across the street. This past week, we spent a while picking up trash. Soon we will probably do some painting in our neighborhood. Specifically over graffiti.

We have been helping at the 5th Avenue place, the future home of the SEND house. It is still officially unnamed, but it has progressed immensely. Thanks to Bob, Randy, LaMar and Dave, and lots of volunteers, there are fewer walls and lots of vision for the facility. It has been interesting to see things progress. I'm sad to not go this week, but hopefully there will be more changes by two weeks.

The reason we aren't going this week is because we have a long weekend off. :-) I'm excited to spend time in Michigan with my parents. :-)

Well, I hope you all have a blessed Holy Week and wonderful Easter.

Please continue to pray for our growth as a team and in Christ. Sorry this is so short!

Posted by SEND Staff at 03:58 PM | Permalink

Wow this week was just a little bit crazy. We took out Interpreting Scripture and Latter Prophets finals. It always feels good to get those over with. In two weeks we will be starting the spring quarter and I think the class is on the writings (Psalms, Proverbs, etc). We’ll see how it goes. For the most part I enjoyed out Interpreting Scripture and when it seemed a little tedious I was always able to crochet :). Wendy and I will be taking the Teaching and Preaching Mentoring next quarter while the rest will be taking the Evangelism Mentoring.…I can’t say that I am really looking forward to writing sermons, but I know it’s good for me, we’ll see how it goes.

On Thursday we were helping out at the 5th Avenue project. I actually had a lot of fun. It’s been so long since I got my hands dirty. When I first visited the “new SEND house” I felt overwhelmed with all the work that needed to be done, but things are happening and I am excited about being able to watch the development (and help out some).

Aaron, Brittany and I are still doing homework help at the Blackburn Recreation Center but there has been a recent change in management and the new manager is really cracking down on rules. So now the kids have to be a part of some kind of team to be allowed in. Because of this, there are a lot less kids so having all three of us there is a little much. We are keeping our eyes open for new ways that we can be reaching out in the community. It would be awesome if you could be praying about that.

Well that is what is going on at the house right now. Your prayers are very appreciated :)
God Bless,
Cassandra

Posted by SEND Staff at 03:07 PM | Permalink

So, for the second week of February, Brittany and I went on a little recruiting trip to Kansas (Sunday to Thursday). We stayed with a student in her dorm for the first two nights and then at a guest house the second two. The girl was a friend of a son of a Regional Director for RMM. :-) I really loved the connection, and she was so awesome! We spent Monday at Bethel College. Tuesday was our "day off", so we went to the zoo with the YES Staff (who were also recruiting; YES is Eastern Mennonite's version of Reach). Wednesday and Thursday were spent at Hesston. Thursday night (all night) we drove back to Columbus, so Britt could go with Aaron and Todd to Hartville (her hometown) to do more recruiting. Basically, Brittany is now a professional Reach Recruiter.

The rest of this month has been good. Wendy covered it quite well. Last weekend's intensives were (in her words) intense! :-) But we made it through alive, and hopefully with more knowledge. We'll see when it comes to testing-time. We have one more lecture, two more mentoring classes and an exam for the Winter VLI quarter. I'm personally nervous for the final, but excited to have a week off, too. Oh, our Leadership Project Reports are due on Tuesday, so please pray that we'll be able to get those done!

If you would like to pray for us, we'd love you to! Please pray that we'd be organized and in good communication with each other. You can also pray for our relationships that we've been building at our community outreaches. And for the groups that come through the house. Presently, we have a group staying the night here, but at a conference during the day (Maple City Chapel). We have TWO groups next weekend, too. Servant Leadership Teams will be here Thursday and Friday, and Mechanicsburg Christian Fellowship will be here Friday and Saturday.

For personal prayer, please pray for my motivation with school work, and peace and focus. Thanks so much!

Blessings,
Kayla

Posted by SEND Staff at 05:24 PM | Permalink

on february 2nd, we started a month-long fast of fruits and vegetables for breakfast, and rice and beans for lunch and supper. the purpose of this fast is to pray for RMM's capital campaign to raise money for the renovations at the new 5th avenue training center, and to save as much money as possible from our food budget to donate to RMM.

we decided at the beginning of the month to take a break for two occasions: one was brittany's birthday, and the second was valentine's day. we went out to eat at applebee's for brittany's birthday and had a little party with birthday cake and a couple friends over afterwards. we hosted a valentine's day party on the 14th and had a group of friends over. i really enjoyed decorating and make appetizers and desserts for the party. after this past weekend (valentine's day weekend), we realized we weren't saving as much money as we wanted to because we were having to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, which aren't so cheap. so we decided to not buy anything else at all for the rest of the month, and instead decided to just eat what we already have here at the house. we also decided to accept left-over food from manna cafe and other places that offered food to us. i still make rice and beans for lunch and supper... until we run out, i guess. :) anyway, you can be praying with us for RMM and the capital campaign.

outreaches have been going well. i think aaron talked on here about kayla and i going to manna cafe on wednesdays and open shelter on thursdays, and brittany, cassandra and aaron going to blackburn recreational center on tuesdays and thursdays. on wednesdays, brittany and cassy have started babysitting for a 12-week Bible Study that the church we attend (Village Vineyard) is doing. this past wednesday was their first time, and they babysat 6 kids, but there will be more kids coming.

kayla and brittany were gone all of last week promoting REACH in kansas at hesston, bethel and tabor. they reported that it went well and there were a good number of interested young people, so that's exciting! we were glad to be re-united as a team when they got back.

this past week, we took our first VLI midterms. we had one midterm on interpreting scripture, and the other on the latter prophets I. it was a lot of information to remember, but i think overall, they both went well. kayla, aaron and brittany have been busy preparing and giving sermons in their preaching & teaching class, and cassy and i have both led service projects in our evangelism class. also for VLI, we are required to do leadership projects. brittany, kayla and i shopped for, put together and gave out 44 packed lunches to needy people, and that went really well. aaron and cassy gave out hot drinks at kroger, and are going to do the same at save-a-lot tomorrow night.

this weekend is our second VLI intensive. what are intensives like? they're uh... intense. :) the saturday class goes from 9 AM to 4:30 PM with a lunch break, and sunday from 2 PM to 7:30 PM. you can pray for that too, that we'll be able to stay focused.

thank you for your prayers and support!
-wendy for the staff

Posted by SEND Staff at 03:37 PM | Permalink

It's hard to believe that it's already been a whole month since we got here. Let's see what have we been up to? I'll tell you about outreach first. For outreach we are split up into two groups. Kayla and Wendy are helping out at mana cafe and Brittany, Cassy, and I are hanging out with the kids at Blackburn, a youth center near the house. Someimes we all go to mana but for the most part we're split up. At Blackburn we are voulentiering to help out with home work. The kids don't seem to be intrested in that so we have just been hanging out, playing basket ball, pool or ping pong. It's fun but sometimes it doesn't feel like we are very useful. You can pray for good ideas for us to do with the kids. We are now into the full swing of our school work with our mid term for VLI next week, and Prespectives started two Mondays ago. They are both really good classes. Prespectives is easier then VLI just because now we are auditing it. So we don't have to study, which is a big relief for us all. Right now we're learning about "the Glory of God", which has been refreshing. In VLI we are learning how to intreperet scripture. This has been really challenging not only with all the reading and asignments we have but also just learning to look at the Bible differently. I find myself applying what we've been learning without even thinking about it when I read my Bible now. All this stuff is good but sometimes it can be a little overwhelming.
Please pray for focus for school, for good relationships in our outreaches, for continued unity in our team, for continued vision.

Posted by SEND Staff at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Hi everyone! It's now 2009! And there is a new staff on board at the SEND House! I would like to briefly introduce us and give a quick run-down of our first month! :-D

Aaron Biscup -- Maintenance
Brittany Nisley -- Community Outreach Coordinator
Cassandra Yoder -- Intercessor
Wendy Orozco -- Food Service Administrator
Kayla Novak -- Hostess (this is me)

We moved into the house on the 4th of the month (January). We jumped right into Vineyard Leadership Institute (on Tuesday nights with mentoring classes on Saturday mornings). Our second weekend at the house was very busy! We had an "Intensive" for VLI and a group (Columbus Network of Micro-churches) at our house for a retreat. For me, it was very stressful, and I was very overwhelmed! But God is so good to us. HE made everything work wonderfully. So far, our community outreaches have been Manna Cafe (Wendy even organized a very successful meal there the FIRST Wednesday we were here! I'm so proud of her! Plus the chili was DELICIOUS!), Open Shelter, and Blackburn. Manna Cafe and Open Shelter are both "soup kitchens". A meal is served, but they are two entirely different feels. Blackburn is the Community/Recreation Center in our neighborhood. We're excited to see how God plans to use these things!

Last night (Monday the 26th), we started Perspectives. I am actually fairly nervous about having both Perspectives and VLI at the same time. I hope it's not too much school work. We are about to find out how it goes.

Well. I think that's all for now! Thanks for reading. Please keep us in your prayers. Especially pray that we will be effective and stay focused on God all year long!

Peace and Love!

Posted by SEND Staff at 01:18 PM | Permalink