Friday marked our final day in Camden. Before we left the Urban Promise campus, our entire group signed and presented to the Founder and Executive Director of Urban Promise ("UP") a basketball that we used throughout the week in games against Camden youth. The Street Leaders from Urban Promise were continually complementing us on how nice the ball was.

We presented it by stating how much the state of Kentucky has a love affair with basketball. As an expression of our love and appreciation for the ministry being conducted, we wanted to leave a small token of encouragement for those remaining. We felt the basketball represented tremendous strides taken in the relationships we built through friendly competition between our students and their students/staff.

As we leave Camden, we will certainly reflect on our time spent there. Perhaps the most significant reflection to me personally is truly seeing the hand of God at work. So much of the time, we fail as Christians to see where God is active. Our busy lives and our self-sufficient attitudes "blind us" and prevent us from experiencing the blessings that God would love to pour out on each of us. For example, many of our students have expressed that they felt like they were not doing "enough" or at least not as much as they were expecting to do. The reality of the situation is that the expectations that we placed on our participation were not necessarily what God had in store for our group.

In what God had planned for our group, however, our students (and adults) performed wonderfully. Both students and UP staff continuously praised and thanked us for our hard work and willing attitudes in whatever requested of us. They especially appreciated the friendship that we extended to and accepted from them from the moment we first walked off the bus to the moment we left for the final time. We were the first group ever to challenge them to a basketball game and show extended interest in spending time with them (Amazing!).

Our experiences remind us that God is so much bigger than we are. He can take what we feel is small and make it HUGE! He took what we might be tempted to consider under-utilization and affected the lives of others in a tremendous way. A couple fish and a few loaves can still go a long way in God's economy.

When we have enough, we often don't see the need for God's provision. When we feel we are in control, we often don't seek God's power. The fact is that we continually need to be reminded that God's strength is seen in our weakness; likewise, God's riches are arguably seen most clearly in our poverty.

God was visibly at work in Camden. My prayer is that each participant took the time to see and appreciate what God was doing even if this work conflicted with their pre-conceived notions. After all, God's perfect plan always trumps our imperfect plans.

Please pray for the leaders of UP as they have 5 more weeks of camp!

Wally

THE UNEXPECTED

WOW. It has been an amazing week. God has blessed us more than we can imagine through the people of Camden. Today (Friday) is our last day with UrbanPromise. Yesterday was a long but great day. We helped lead Camps that share the Hope of Christ with nearly 500 kids for 6 weeks throughout the summer. We also finished up our work projects yesterday. We...

• Updated bathrooms stalls from yellow to white
• Worked in the yard (weeding, mowing grass, etc.)
• Organized 3 basements and got rid of mounds of trash in the basement of the Art Building here at Urban Promise
• Put together 4 basketball goals for sports ministry
• Did prep wok for painting next week.
• Moved furniture so that new carpet could b installed

One of the most exciting events from yesterday was the big game of basketball in the gym between St. Matthews Youth and the streetleaders here at Urban Promise. It was fun! Chris Cherry had a great blocked shot this week and the streetleaders were quite impressed with the skills of Wally. All of our guys played well.

We also spent time in worship last night. We praised God for who he is and what he has done for us. Jim Cummings, the workproject director, asked us to think about two questions this week. First, why does Jesus say that the poor will always be with us? Second, why does God give but he doesn't share?

I challenge you to think about those questions. Our adults and students will share a few of their answers at worship on July 15.

God Bless! T-baby Out!

July 03, 2007 - Lots of work and lots of friends!!!

Hey everyone! Its Dylan Gerlach and I'm just writing to tell everyone about the awesome missions and awesome friends weve made today. Today has been an extremely busy day. We had to arrive at 8 at Urban Promise to hear a really cool devotion on how people are tuned into what they choose to listen to and how we actually need to be tuned and focused in on God. After we finished the devotion we headed off to our camp sites. I got the oppotunity to hang out with the 8th graders as they traveled around to their different classes. I made a really cool friend named Brandon who I became pretty close with as I hung out with him throughout the remainder of the day. It was a really cool experience to help him during Bible class as we read through the first chapter and a half of Genesis learning about God's creations.

After finishing up at Camp Spirit, we went to our mission work sites where in my group, we had to organize a basement. We were constantly moving large furniture and it gave us a great exercise. Other mission sites were setting up to paint along with mowing yards and pulling weeds. After mission sites we were given time to do what we wanted and we chose to play basketball with some of the local street leaders and one of them was making a run for a basket and I attempted to get the charge but instead he went over top of me. What a scary site!

We ended the night with a tight conversation with locals that are involved with the camp and have come out of the crime, poverty and drug trafficing in the local area. It was a chance to see how people who come from complete different backgrounds still have such clsoe simliarities. We concluded the session with a new song we learned - The chicken song and Boom Chicka Boom. We'll fill you in on those when we get back but for now goodnight and sleep tight.

Dylan Gerlach

Mission Day 1 Report

Hey everyone! I hope that everything in Kentucky and St. Matthews is still functioning without the vital members of society that are now in Camden, NJ. So far we have had a long bus ride, split up with a night in a hotel, a full day in NYC, a day to worship at a new church in the Philadelphia area, a worship time of our own, and finally a day of a VBS-esque camp on several of the Urban Promise Campuses followed by work projects including painting and prep work, weeding, mowing, organizing, making a basketball goal, etc. After that we had a very interesting tour of one of the poorest cities/counties in the entire country. It is actually hard to believe that it is as poor as they say because the kids are all dressed well, have excellent manners (for the most part), and are fun to be around.

Enough of the boring run down. The personal aspect of the trip is often the most significant for the students as we grow in old relationships and form new ones with people in our youth group and from the sites. We've had time to spend with each other and just be real in assessing relationships and basically life as we know it. It was a good reality check that brought the group closer by allowing people to ask peers for forgiveness to each other.

Anyways, it has been fun so far and I look forward to letting you know more about the trip and the cool experiences that we have. Thanks for supporting us in this in your prayers!

-John Weber