Last week was what we call, "Ministry Week." What this means is, that this week is set aside for each Reacher to focus on their own personal walk with Christ. To spend time seeking the Father as to whether there is anything that they need to ask forgiveness for, extend forgiveness for, or receive healing from. It can be from anytime in their lives. It's a time of much prayer, confessing, and encouraging each other. God was moving through this week. He brought courage, brokeness, healing, freedom, and so much more. It was a good bonding time for all of us. God is really challenging people and drawing them deeper to Himself.
Some hightlights for me:
One would be, three or four times a week Kristyn (one of the Reachers) and I go walking in the morning in the neighbourhood. I love having this chance to talk with her and catch up while we do our exercise.
One night I went with the Malawi team on their lifegroup. Lifegroup is just a set aside time for the team to do something together, just their team. Well, since I am the Malawi team's sponser, they invited me to join them. It was lots of fun. We first went to the World Market store. This place has lots of different things from different places around the world. It has from cards to food. It is a fun place to browse through. After that we then went to Cup O'Joe and played Rook. I love hanging out with Jeremy, Kristyn, Nathan, and Ally. They are lots of fun.
Another hightlight would be some of the speakers we have had here. I loved hearing about character and what Godly character would be. I also enjoyed the session on Worship by Michael Hansen. His heart for worship shines through as he teaches.
I know this only gives you a little window into what has been happening around here but hopefully it has left you with a little more understand of what God is doing here. God has been faithful and He will continue to be so. He is good. May His peace rest on each of you. Take care, Rachel

As we see the Lord work we can't help but be changed by it. Here are some thoughts from the staff about this summer and what it was like for them. To all you City Challengers keep up the MOMENTUM!! Thanks for a sweet summer!

The past 2 months of City Challenge has been great. This summer I have seen the Lord move in so many amazing ways in each group that came into the RIC. Probably one of the things that stood out to me the most was just how faithful God was to me each week. Anybody that has gone through the City Challenge program knows that it is not a week known for lots of rest. The pace is very fast and week in and week out can be extremely wearing on the body both physically and mentally but the lord week in and week out gave me the energy that I needed to keep going. It was amazing to hear from the different groups how I and the rest of the staff where being used by God in ways that we didn't even know and at times even when we didn't feel like giving anything. If there is one thing I learned about God this summer it is that he is faithful to complete what he starts and he can use anybody to do it. It was a very trying summer but I learned a lot about God and about myself. One of the highlights each week for me was the Prayer Walk. The groups would walk around the Shepard Community and pray for the people in the community. It was great to hear the different stories each group had every week. It was cool how the people in the neighborhood knew why we were out each week and what we were doing. One time a car even stopped and asked a group if they were going around praying for people because they wanted prayer themselves. It was a great way to bless the neighborhood and show the kids that it was something that they could do in their own home towns. Over all it was a very tiring and stretching summer but also very rewarding.
Toby

Wow, how do you go about trying to sum up a summer in one paragraph? I have to say, God is so faithful and good. He was so faithful to show up each week of City Challenge and speak into the young people's lives. I loved building relationships with the young people and just being apart of what God was doing here. I want to share a story with you that was really neat for me personally. On Wednesday nights, we take the young people out and do different outreaches to homeless people. One Wednesday night I helped to lead a group of young people at "Fruit of the Vine" which is an outreach that drives around to different homeless camps, praying for people, giving out food and clothes, and building friendships. On this particular night, I met a young lady who had been at this homeless camp for not that long. Soon after introducing myself and talking with her, she began to share her story. A little while ago, she had given up her home and moved in with her brother along with her children. Soon after, though, her brother started to be abusive and she knew she couldn't stay there. She had no where to go so she ended up on the streets while someone took in her children. She said how she had grown up in the church and had been very involved in her youth group. She never thought she would end up here. My heart went out to her. What is the difference between her and me? Nothing. We are both human and loved by God. It just reminded me of how much I have to be thankful and how there are so many people who just need someone to love on them and be there friend. I can do that. So this summer the young people coming to City Challenge were not the only ones being challenged but I was as well. I am so thankful for all that God has been teaching me and just for Him allowing me to be apart of His work here through City Challenge.
Rachel

There is no doubt that God was working in and around the RIC this summer. From the very little (answered prayers for good weather, energy that didn't run out, etc.), to the very big (a gracious and accepting staff, changed lives, times of healing, and so much more), God was moving and making himself known in Columbus.

I began the summer by asking God to open doors for me to share a deep and intentional connection with one girl from each group. With only 5 days to establish a friendship worthy of trust and influence, this was a bigger request than initially thought. Though this was asking much, week after week God continually brought a specific girl to my attention - every week! Through common hurts, through shared experiences, or even a cheesy sense of humor - God used my flaws and failures as a way to draw young hearts to His own, as we shared and lifted one another up and spurred each other on to dig deeper.

A song that we worshipped with each week this summer says, "Jesus, hold me into your heart, into your heart. And Lord, my soul delights, and I know you hear my prayer. Take me deeper, Lord." We serve a God that is living and active; He hears our prayers. It continues, "And by Your love, Lord You've opened my heart, and Your light will shine always. And by Your Word, Lord your promise secure, and my soul will live always." We love because He first loved us, and He invites us to share in His work.

God didn't need to use me this summer to accomplish all the great things He did, but he invites me to present my life to him as a living offering. He invited me to go deeper into His heart, and by doing so He has blessed me by using me as an instrument to do His work. God is most certainly alive and well here in Columbus, and we will continue to press on to reflect His light and love to our community.
Beth

City challenge has been incredible, my emotions are so bittersweet coming out of this stage. I have never been so blessed, energized, worn out and tired at the same time. To me the most amazing part of City challenge was simply God's faithfulness in everything even the little things and how He worked in and threw the kids each week. I will share a few stories. A big thing was that every day that it was raining and we needed to have outreach, prayer walk, prayer challenge or anything outside God would always take away the rain when we needed gone. I remember one time specifically, I woke up and looked out side to it dumping down rain, we had one of our largest groups here and I couldn't just change up outreaches. So us staff prayed about it clearing up from 1-4 when we had outreach. We went and looked at the hourly forecast after that. It said that rain was 85% up until 1, then from 1-4 it was only 15% and then 4 till evening was back to 85%...and it did exactly that. It rained until 12:30ish and then didn't rain again until a little after 4. Seriously all summer every time that it was going to rain God would always clear it up for us! Another story we were doing our brown bag outreach where we pack lunches and walk around downtown Columbus passing out lunches and water to people and then ask if we can pray for them. The one group came up to a man down on his luck at a bus stop and asked him if he would like prayer. He said yes, and that he had just got off work from a 12 hour shift and his ride had left without him and it was a 2 hour walk home and he had no money and needed a bus pass or ride or something. So they prayed for him, he was grateful and then they were walking away when they heard him yell "stop, wait. God really does answer prayers!!!" as he was running towards them waving a bus pass that someone gave him in his hand. Another time on brown bagging we ran into a guy named Justin that I had giving lunches to almost all 8 weeks but he would never receive prayer. Of all the people down on their luck he stood out to me as being truly down and homeless, I had seen him big up cigarette butts from the ground and try and smoke them. Anyways both of our brown bag groups gave him lunches without knowing it and we both asked to pray for him and he shot us down. Both of us groups felt something very dark and hard there. So both groups without knowing bout the other stopped and prayed for him and whatever that was in his life causing him to reject prayer. The next day at prayer challenge a group bought him lunch, ate with him and then asked if they could pray for him...he said YES!! He is someone that I have been praying for a long time and it pumped me up and the group so much!! I could go on forever but I'll stop there. I saw God change so many kids, I saw them grow in knowing who their God is, what it means to be running this race as a Christian and how that should look, and just the truth of God and who He is in their lives. I saw people become clean and give everything up to the Lord at very young ages, I saw relationships healed and love for each other and for complete strangers in every group. I have never been so blessed to be a part of and be used by God in such great ways. God aloud us all to speak truth and love into so many kids lives, yet we were always blessed by the groups and people just as much. So ya these past 8 weeks of City Challenge have given me hope, joy, courage, strength, love, passion, and influence in who I am, who God is, in this generation, and who God is to me. I can honestly say that no one has a better job than me, because I get to see lives transformed for and by God!!

Our God is faithful
Brian "BAM" Troyer

I learned so much this summer, so much that it's hard to sum it all up. Every week I learned something new about God. How He is a provider of energy, and how His faithfulness is new every morning. How we are there to be a blessing but yet end up being blessed in return. I was impacted and humbled the most by the fact that I was a vessel sharing only a small portion of His love. There were so many ministry nights or days when I didn't feel like I had anything to give, but then God would come and surprise me. I remember smiling at how God had showed up through my prayers. Who am I? It's humbling to be apart of His Kingdom work. I never want to take for granted what I hear from Him. I saw God use everyone of us staff this summer. In every way, small and big, it was all for His glory. And he chose to let us be apart of that. Wow!
One thing that's really cool about City Challenge is that it's challenging for the youth groups that come in, but on the flip side it's also challenging for us as staff. I know for myself there were several different times when I was challenged in my faith by some of the groups. It also challenged me in my leadership skills. I remember the first time I led a group to a soup kitchen that I had never been to. I was terrified! How was I to be confident and act like I knew what I was doing when I had no clue? It ended up being a good thing and God used us there that day. It's cool to think that the kids leave having learned something new but so did we as staff. The biggest thing for me this summer was that God speaks in real and personal ways. But He doesn't just speak to the people that we think He should speak to. We often create stereotypes in our heads of what a Christian should like and how they should act. But I saw Christians this summer that didn't look like your typical Christian. Yet their faith was bigger than mine. Their joy was greater. And God was speaking to them. I think so often we forget that God looks at the heart. So I was not only challenged by some of the groups that came in, but by the people that we interacted with during outreach. I hope I never put myself in the position where I can't be challenged by simple faith. All in all I came away from City Challenge with a better view of who my God is. City Challenge was probably the hardest and yet the most faith building summer of my life.
Sam

As I reflect back on what has been the best summer of my life so far, I can only thank God for the priviledge of being a part of what He did here. Being a summer urban volunteer at the Rosedale International Center was an awesome experience! Working together with the program facilitator, Austin Beachy, the staff interns, Sam, Rachel, Brian, Toby, and Jesse, and the other summer urban volunteer, Beth, was awesome in itself. As a team, we saw God work in amazing ways throughout the two months of running the City Challenge program. And He did not restrict Himself to working solely in the lives of the youth groups that came each week; He worked in our lives as well.

I would like to share two of the many, many ways we saw His hand this summer. One way was prior to the groups even arriving. Wednesday mornings were our prep time each week that we had a group coming. As our team had a group devotional, sang, and prayed specifically for the groups, God would reveal to us His heart for the group coming as well as specific areas that we were to target with prayer. Every time, Scripture and words we received that morning were applicable throughout the week. Another way that we saw God at work was in the enormous growth that we saw in many lives of the youth from the time they arrived to the time they left. Those who came having never prayed for a stranger or shared their faith often found themselves enjoying it, or at least not afraid of it anymore. Many were set free from bondages in their lives, while others learned how much God loves them.

1 Corinthians 3:7, "So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth" (NASB), took on new meaning for me this summer. My team had the priviledge of being tools in God's hands as he worked in the lives of the young people, but none of us can take any credit for what He did. We serve a MIGHTY GOD who is at work here and around the world!!! I'm so glad He allowed me to be involved for two months in what He is doing here in Columbus, Ohio. "Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city.
Heidi

So the summer has been crazy, stretching, out of control and so much fun. It has been crazy for the simple fact that we had 300 some kids come through City Challenge this year. It was nuts most of the time. I am not really sure how we made it through other than God was giving us energy and the strength to go on. So over the summer I again learned to trust in God no matter what came our way or how tired we where. That we can always trust in Him no matter what comes our way.
The stretching part of the summer was that we had 300 plus kids come in and trying to connect with them and learning their names was really stretching. We also had to just be flex able with things that where going on. A lot of the weeks didn’t always go the way that other weeks had gone. So we had to work on the fly sometimes. So being flexible was a wonderful thing to be able to do.
The out of control part was pretty much the whole summer. We had so much fun just getting to know all the kids and just talking with them.
Well the whole summer was pretty much awesome. It was fun and it was wonderful to see God show up every week and just blow us away with how awesome that He was. I have seen God show up and blow us away with some crazy stuff. It was a wonderful summer and one of the most crazy summers that I have ever had.

Jesse

OK this week was our last week of our Perspectives class. But with that we had project due on a people group, as well as two other homework assignments. So we were fairly busy with those. I tackled the two homework assignments on Monday and got them both done. It was a pretty awesome feeling to have that done already. I then proceeded to prepare a speech for our ministry and leadership class. It went really well and if your curious on how to make a delicious steak for half the price of a restaurants steak, then you should talk to me, because thats what I spoke on. I think it went well everyone was hungry afterwards....sadly no steak for lunch though. I then proceeded to finish my paper that I had been doing on reaching out to Arab, Moroccans. It was really cool to research and try to make a strategy for reaching this people group. Especially since I had been there before for a week during my time in Spain with REACH, and in that short amount of time formed a heart for the people there. This caused the paper to be extremely interesting for me and something I was able to tackle in a matter of minutes it seemed like. With that Perspectives has been an incredible class and I would recommend it to anyone. It just opened our eyes to a wider view of missions and what missions really are. Robert Coleman came and spoke at our last class and commissioned us out. He spoke on discipleship and how it is a part of missions and how it should be done. He had lots of incredible stories. He was either my favorite speaker or real close to the top at least. He had some awesome stuff and had an incredible passion for discipleship. The thing that struck me the most from this lesson was that if we do any action that is not furthering God kingdom, not discipling others then that action is all futile. Everything we should do for God it's useless if we don't. Why aren't we always trying to disciple others as well. This class has been extremely beneficial and growing for all of us...lots of homework with it but it was well worth it i think.

Jesse and I went to rebuilding together on Thursday morning, and went to Jocelyn's house, a place we have worked before, and hauled moldy boxes out of the basement, scraped paint off the window trim and repainted it, cleaned the cold air returns and repainted the registers on them as well. She was extremely kind and grateful for our help in fixing up her house. We then got to talk with some of the staff at Rebuilding Together about SEND and what we are doing, it was really cool and they really appreciate our help and our program. It was really cool and they are awesome people that need to know the Lord as well.

Oh and probably the biggest event of the week was that Samantha had surgery on her nose, she had a deviated septum, so they fixed it and cleaned out her sinuses. She is still weak and recovering from that. She has some soreness with it as well. So be praying for her recovery and health from this. Hopefully she will be raring and ready to go for city challenges coming up. Speaking of which we have our second cc next week, we have Kingsway Christian School's Sophomore class. So be praying for that as well. Also those six month teams are coming back here really soon so be praying for that as well!

We appreciate all your prayers and thoughts for us here at the RIC

God's blessing on you all,
Brian Troyer

About half way through the day we split up. Samantha and I (Toby) went to an after school program called Bezalell that was run by the organization that was hosting us (Youth Works) and got to help the kids with some homework and read to some of them a little. The kids where anywhere from 10-14 years old so we got to have a lot of fun playing games with them as well. After that we went to where we would be staying which was an old monastery. We got settled in and then found out that a guy that knew the people at youth works had come over and told them that they had 6 tickets and a parking pass for the Tigers vs. Mariners Game at tiger stadium and they could have them for free. Seeing as there where 6 of us and a van that needed parking they decided to give them to us. Needless to say we took the hint from God that we where supposed to go to this game for free and got to enjoy a major league baseball game. Sadly our sixth ticket went to waist as Rachel was not feeling good.

The next day was just as packed as the first. Us guys got to go pray with a house full of guys know as “The Brothers”. They where a bunch of guys that had devoted there lives to serving Christ and also took a vow of celibacy. Each morning at 6am we would drive over to there house for an hour of prayer and worship with them. After that we got to split up again. Jesse, Brian and I got to go with brother Ed, who had helped get two soup kitchens up and running in Detroit, to an AA meeting/bible study. That was a lot of fun getting to talk to some of the people there and hear there testimonies. It was amazing to see how God was working in those peoples lives. While we did that the girls and Austin got to go help a lady known as sister Judy. Sister Judy for the past 7 years had packed 80 lunches five day a week and handed them out to the people living on the street or in rundown houses. After that we all met up again and all of us got to go to Bezalel and spend time with the kids there.

Thursday morning everybody but Austin and I went to a community garden and helped out with planting some stuff for the lady that had started it. It was amazing to see how these people where starting these rather big gardens in the middle of the city. We found out that 2/3 houses in Detroit are abandoned because of the decline in the Auto industry. 20,000 people move out of Detroit every year leaving it almost like a ghost town but that also makes room for a lot of urban farming. IT was amazing to hear the stories of how starting these gardens has brought the community together in some really cool ways and made opportunity for Christ to be shared with people that otherwise would probably never be reached out to. Also it really cleaned up some of the neighborhoods because the people were working for a common goal. After that we got to lead the last Bezalel that we went to. We got to make up some games for the kids that taught them a little about all the countries that we had been to and that was a lot of fun to play with the kids and just love on them. Most of the kids came from very broken homes and it was really cool to see how they opened up when you just showed them that you cared about them and loved them.

Over all it was an amazing week. We got to do a lot of really fun stuff and meet lots of really cool people. Above everything else though we got to see God working in a very big way. The city of Detroit is very much in need of Christ and God is working in very big ways there. It was cool to see how some of the ministries there now have sprung up from almost nothing because a person saw a need and felt God asking them to fill it. One of the coolest ministries that we got to see a little bit of was a Bakery that Brother Ed started. Brother Ed saw that there where a lot of people coming out of prison that had felonies and could not get a Job so he started a Bakery that would only hire people with felonies. After the Bakery started to blossom and do well he started turning it more into a discipleship program that would get the guys off there drug addictions and help integrate them back into society. After doing this for a while a guy from the Michigan rehab facility came in and told him that there program met every requirement to be a full fledged rehabilitation program and wanted to know how he got all of his recourses to make such an effective program and he told him “The bible”. Now the bakery has had one class of four graduate and three of them already have Jobs in the city while the fourth stayed to work at the Bakery.

Again There are lots of stories of how God is working in Detroit and other things that we experienced but it was cool to see how God was coming through in a place that seemed so hopeless. There was a lot of need for sure but God is raising people up that will one day, I believe, turn things around in Detroit and Gods glory will be shown through it.

Toby

This past weekend we had the 2020 vision here. It was really interesting. I am not part of CMC, but it was neat to be able to hear from church leaders and gain wisdom from them. I was able to give a little wisdom too!...at least I hope it was wisdom! It was encouraging to see that people have a heart to reach out.

This weekend Rachel and I are going with Carmal to Grantsville, MD for a womens retreat. I'm looking forward to it! Rachel and I are doing a few skits and sharing our testimonies. God is going to move this weekend!

We're almost done with Perspectives. Only 4 more weeks. I will be glad to no longer have the homework hanging over my head each week, but I really enjoyed the class. I feel like it changed my perspective so much and made me think of things I'd never thought of before. I don't think I'll be able to live a normal life and be satisfied. I want to be a part of what God is doing in missions.

Samantha

Brian

Prayer Request: Getting everything cleaned up for the groups coming during the week with ease, cooperation, and stress free.
Get stuff scheduled for city challenge groups
God to move through our relationships with people we meet and work with
Samantha going home to this week to visit her family and get her car
Diligence and growth in our homework
God to speak to us in our quiet times

Peace and Love
Brian