I once again have become the bad blogger I hate. Not updating my blog. Im determined to get back on track so hopefully you will stay with me my friends and supporters!
The fall has been a fantastic season thus far. Here's a few updates on the ongoings of my life and activities of EOC.
- The fall months mean planning, visioning, implementing new programs and ideas, and improving on past ones! When teams aren't in we still have lots of work to do and my list of things to do and projects to work on, never seem to disappear!
- We have hosted teams from Petaluma, San Diego, & Idaho to build houses, install bunkbeds, and run VBS programs! We enjoy having small teams in at this time as we really have a chance to connect & build relationships. I really enjoy the bigness of the busy weeks in the summer, but also enjoy the intimacy of these smaller teams as well! This past week we hosted a team of folks where the majority of the members were retired seniors! I was so impressed by their passion, love for Jesus, and stamina!
- We have converted the “ camp store” to more of a “coffee shop”. (C3 - coffee, community, connect). The hope is that it can be also be a place open to local community - especially local youth to use internet, have a safe place to hang out, and raise awareness about the world around them. We have been enjoying the new look and feel of the place!
- Our video guy, Marvin, who many of you know and love, recently celebrated the birth of his first daughter! He and his wife Monica welcomed Natalia into the world October 23.
- More local youth have been hanging out the EOC which makes us very excited! Roberto hosted a night of games, hang out, and movie on the big screen and over 40 youth from the community and various churches showed up! We also hosted our first weekend retreat for a local youth group! We are excited about opening up our doors more and more for the local community. Its cool to get connected more into youth ministry world again. Although Im still a bit timid in up front leadership b/c of my spanish, I am hopeful I will be able to serve and connect more with local youth groups and pastors in the upcoming months.
- Ive become more involved in the "homes of hope" program - the house construction ministry. I am now facilitating the team that helps monitor the selection of the families, interviewing potential recipients, and programming the calender. It has been a very rich experience as it provides me with more 'front line contact' with the people we are serving. I love meeting the families before they receive a home and building a relationship with them. Now when the teams are in, and I visit the progress of their home, it is that much more significant! It's been a pleasure to work alongside Pastor Abraham, Juan, and Ana on this.
- A team from my church (wellington square) as well as two other teams from Southern Ontario will be coming here next week! Im soooooo excited! To have familiar faces here and share my home with my community from back home! I have started the countdown of "how many more sleeps!" It should be a great week!
- Our staff team and their families will be building a home and working on a few other projects together in a few weeks. This is an exciting chance for our staff to come together! We will end off the week together with a fantastic Thanksgiving feast! Later in December, a team of pastors that we work with will be building a house together! What an amazing opportunity this will be for these brothers to come together with one purpose and focus! We are excited about these opportunities to empower the local church - these are homes that teams from canada and the states have sponsored but are wanting local hands to build. How cool eh?! We are excited about this new step in the ministry!
So that's a quick glance of some updates of the happenings around here over the past while.
Oh! And for my Ontario peeps, i've booked my flight home for a visit - Dec 15 - Jan 6! Hope to get lots of great visits in!
