cleaning at the RIC!

Playing in the snow!

Catching mice!

All 5 of us craming into Courtneys little car!

Packing things from the house!

Karen's first time at CiCi's!

Bowling!

Courtney cutting Kalen's hair!

Playing ping pong (shwing shwong)!

Needless to say there have been some awesome times so far and we are looking forward to more awesomeness. Sadly we dont have pictures to share from our outreaches... hopefully we will be able to get some at some point. Me personally have been so encouraged by our prayer times and just how much answer to prayer we have seen. I just thank you all so much for praying for us encourage you all to keep on praying because it DOES make a difference and God does hear and answer.

First off (these are in no particular order) we have the daring cook's assisstant, Karen Eash. The Karen Eash? Yes, folks, you heard me right (or read me right), it is Karen. She will be the one braving the many obstacles of the kitchen in the days to come. In fact, she has already proved triumphant on several occasions, producing a hearty meal to fill her fellow companions.

Next we shall meet Miss Stacey Mullet, keeper of the house (or hostess). But don't let that job title fool you, she doesn't just keep the house, she owns it (figuretively). There is no part of the house that will ever be able to slip past the careful scruitany of her watchful eye. Not only does she keep the house in order, she keeps the rest of us in order as well. This girl is on top of her game.

Now, in the far corner, he's big, he's bald, he drinks his coffee blacker than night, he's Jeremy Wilkerson! (please read this with a cool announcer voice)(it'll add effect) Don't be intimidated by his size folks, his heart is at least as big as he is, but he'll coordinate all your outreaches in a heart beat (haha, that was almost a pun). However, I feel as though I should warn you, he is not lacking in the gas department. At all. But we've come to accept that now.

Is your sink broken? Are the doors on your van falling off? Is your coffee grinder on the brink? Well then we have your man. Our very own mountain man / maintance man, Kalen Long. Not only can he fix any need you could possibly think up, he can also entertain you with an endless surplus of sounds. Where do they come from you're asking? I only wish I knew.

And last, but not least, there is me, the narrator. I am Courtney. Courtney Miller. I am formally called the intercessor by those who employ me, but to others I am known as...the intercessor. It's a good job, probably the best in the house actually (but don't let the others know that).

Well, I guess that about wraps it up for me. I hope you are more formally acquainted with us now, and maybe mildly entertained as well. Thanks for joining us. That's all for now.

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

One of the highlights of March was a week long trip to Bethel Camp in Kentucky. We went there for our yearly staff work trip in order to help out with cleaning up the camp for the summer. We enjoyed a really good week there and were able to get quite a bit of work done. We also being out of the city for a few days (some enjoyed it more than others) and we were able to hike up some mountains for some incredible views. Once again, some enjoyed the hiking much more than others of us.

We are now back into the full swing of things with outreach and VLI. We started a new quarter of VLI last week and have all different classes. On Tuesdays we have an evangelism class which covers evangelism both in our own culture and in others. It is definitely a lighter class than Pauline Theology and we are all enjoying it a lot and being really challenged by what we are hearing. We are also in an evangelism mentoring class on Saturday mornings.

There isn't much else to say. Spring is showing itself here in Columbus and I think we are all excited for some warmer weather. We are also all very much looking forward to the return of two teams in just under 2 months and the start of City Challenge.

VLI has been interesting and a challenge. We try to study and read in our spare time, well at least the others do i usually find other things to do that i think may be more productive which is a big fat lie and i definantly realized that after i took my midterm... lets just leave it at 'i passed'. On the spiritual side of things we've battled some funk and appathy... but God continues to show us His faithfulness in the midst of our struggles.

One thing that has been pretty exciting is that we have signed a contract of uhh what shall i call it, hmmm, maybe 'being fruggle' and have committed to only spending $25 of our $200 monthly food budget and giving the rest away to help others who are in need. We have not decided on an organization yet but we'll keep you posted... I bet your wondering 'what in the world??' Well, one night after bible study or should i say during... aahemm (it was my turn to lead and we kinda wandered off course) but needless to say we got to talikng about a speaker we heard at mechanicsburg christian fellowship for "Gospel for Asia" and Anthony Fisher who did something similar and decided we wanted to give it a try... So here are our terms of contract....
- Feb 17 - March 17
- $25 on food for the month
- $175 to somewhere
- We won't go out to eat
- No personal $ on food
- If we taste test for $ the $ is donated
- Any food given or found can be consumed
- Drinks are a personal choice (no alcohol)
So let me tell you it has been pretty amazing, so far we have not had to spend any money, either we still have a little bit of stuff from earlier or food has been given to us or retrieved by form of dumpster diving... one example, last week we went to mana and they sent home with us, 6 cupcakes, fresh veggies, a huge pan of turkey pot pie stuff and 3/4 gallon of milk (the kicker is they don't even know we are doing this and laura specifically prayed that our needs would be provided for earlier that day ... we were def WOWED!!!! anyway, that has pretty much how it has been working, plenty of food for us and the people who continue to stop by in need... So, there you have it. Well, it looks as though rambling may soon ensue so i guess i'll go ahead and sign off... To all the teams, we misssss you soo dearly and you are in our prayers constantly... To all our supporters, THANK YOU, we would not be here without you...

In Christ,
Teresa :O)

Community outreach consists of Manna Cafe on Wednesday nights and The Zone on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Manna Cafe is a meal for the homeless and poor of Columbus at Broad St. United Methodist Church. It's different in that real dishes are used, as well as cloth placemats and napkins, and the food is really good. We all enjoy helping out every week and look forward to forming relationships with some of the guests. The Zone is an after school program at Vineyard. We help out with homework, teaching, or just playing with the kids. We have only gone once, but we all had a good time and look forward to going all winter. We are also working on putting our own meal together in a park nearby for homeless, or whoever wants to come. We are working on logistics right now and getting the word out so that people actually are around. Believe it or not, homeless people do not just hang around in the park in the middle of January like they do during the summer. Who would have thought?

Other than class and outreach we keep ourselves occupied with reading (mainly for VLI), working at the Home (the new building on 5th St.) and various other activities. So far life in 2008 has been good and we're excited about what the rest of the year holds for us.

Other than REACH wrapping up, the big news in the SEND Department is that RMM has purchased a new building to be the training center. It is a rather large building so the department should have some room to expand. This means that, along with taking a few classes and doing some community outreach, the staff will keep busy this winter by getting the new training center ready for use.

Well, this will most likely not be updated during the month of December, so Merry Christmas everyone and we'll try to do better with updating in the new year.