The Final Count Down in Colorado

Mission Possible Colorado

The Final Count Down

The Amazing Snapshots of Mission Possible from the Eyes of Paige

Here on Mission Possible I have had such an encouraging experience. Through preaching the Gospel to people here in Colorado and teaching others how to use the sketch board we see growth. In seeing family and doing kids clubs we see love. By cleaning our room every single day so that the owners could show the house and having daily devotions with the team we see teamwork. By doing the girl part of the drama for the first time and singing on the streets with Seneca, Zana, and Sam we see action in learning. Through talking to people on the streets, and just sharing the Gospel in general we see God at work. All of these things have made this trip such a fun, encouraging and eye-opening time.

The devotions are one of the parts of the day I look forward to the most. Learning more about Jesus and who He is motivates me to be more like Him. Seeing some of the things we read about come to life during our ministry is so interesting to witness. Some people just make it their mission to denounce God. They make it their "job" to disprove Him, but then there are encouraging people who stop to say that what we do is so cool or they stop to thank us. I think the whole team, not just me, finds that encouraging, but the thing is, we don't just want Christians stopping to listen, we also want people to stop to listen who are not Christian so that we can talk to them and share the word of God with them.

I mostly enjoy doing the adult ministry, but teaching and playing with kids in bad homes, showing Gods love in what we do for them, is also a greatly encouraging part of ministry. You gain such a great relationship with each and every one of the kids, so much that you don't want to leave at the end of the week. It's so eye-opening for me to see that there are so many people, kids even, who need to hear the Gospel and learn about who He is and learn about His amazing love for us. 

Today we went to a new place for a kids club called Sun Valley housing projects in Denver. Carmina and I got to talk to a man who goes by Bless. He told us his testimony. When Bless was a teenager, he was selling drugs, and was involved in different things that mainly included breaking the law. He ended up going to jail. While he was in jail, he started up with boxing and when he got out, he pursued that. He wasn't allowed at first, but afterwards, he became a boxer, turning his life around. He was away from drugs, and away from breaking the law, and eventually became a well-known boxer in the area. He had a nice house, a motorcycle, and a nice truck, all because he was obeying the law.  A while later, he was pulled over for a rolling stop at a stop sign, and because he was still on probation, he was put in jail for 6 months. During this time,

he became depressed and was going to kill someone, anyone in the jail, but no one started anything so that never happened. He ended up going to the church that the jail provided, and started turning his life around again. All the while, he was put on medication for depression. This medicine made him hear voices, and hallucinate. When he got back out of jail, he turned back to selling drugs and using them also. In turn, those drugs enhanced the medication he was taking for depression. He would hear voices in his head and would have a conversation to himself in the mirror. Eventually it got to the point where the voices were telling him that if he wanted to get rid of the voices, he would have to kill himself. So he committed suicide. He shot himself in the side of his head. He was taken to the hospital, and was pronounced dead, but the doctors were able to bring him back to life. He was in a coma for 7 months. Before he woke up, he heard God telling him to go and share the love of Christ with others. When he woke up, he was told he would never walk, or speak, or let alone be able to live his life normally, but now he walks, he speaks and he lives his life, sharing the Gospel with his grandkids whenever he can. He loves the Lord and is so grateful for the second chance he was given. 

It was absolutely amazing to hear Bless's testimony and hearing how God used his life and struggles for the better. It was so encouraging, especially for me to hear, and I'm grateful for the time we spent talking with him. 

As you can probably see, I could easily go on and on about all of the ministry that we do on Mission Possible, but I want to say one final thing. My team is absolutely amazing. They are funny, kind, caring, outgoing, and their relationships with God are so amazing. I couldn't have asked for a more incredible, and encouraging group of people. That also includes the awesome leaders we have. I am so thankful for the people on this team and for having the opportunity to come on Mission Possible again this summer. -Paige

High Peaks

My time in Colorado has been quite a roller-coaster!  It could go from hanging out with the cutest kids during a kids club to driving up, down and around mountains getting really car sick! However, I must say that I learned a lot. I learned how to blend into a new group of people and how to not hold the paint jars while preaching. Well to be honest, I'm still working on that last one, but I've made some really nice friendships with my teammates that I didn't have before the trip.  Memories have been made that I won't easily forget. The ministry was such a learning experience this year.  Colorado was a tough place to preach to adults. We saw and talked to a lot of really interesting people! There were a lot of really nice encounters though as well. But I must say that the two kids clubs we did in Colorado have been my favorite Ive ever done. The kids were so open and loving and it was amazing to see them all learning about God! This being my third and final year of mission possible I'm glad I got to enjoy it wit a new team! This program has changed my life so much and I couldn't be more thankful for being given this experience every summer for the past three years. I will keep my Mission Possible memories for the rest of my life! -Zana  

Grateful Hearts
What a power-packed two weeks we have had.  We have had some really great kids clubs where as many as up to 40 kids came and heard the message of the Gospel.  Relationships formed and new friends were made in which it was very hard to say goodbye.  We are thankful to Raymond, who took the sketchbaord training, that came out with us on the last day of our kids club in Denver and who has already set up a day to come back to do kids clubs every week.  Although the adult ministry was hard, this past week in Denver we have had a variety of conversations with people from all walks of life.  Anywhere from poor people who live on the streets to a rich person who owns his own shipping company; from "born again atheists" to pantheists who say everything and everyone is god.  In this discussion with the pantheist, when he was told what Jesus did on the cross for us, he suddenly turned his thinking by saying that Jesus was a man just like us......"but wait, I thought a few minutes ago you said everyone was a god." Although, none of the adults received Jesus as their personal Savior, we pray that they will pondered on the things they heard, and that lives will be changed.

Our appreciative hearts of joy go out to Steve and Connie Johnson for allowing 10 teenagers, plus 2 adults to come and stay at their house while it is on the market.  What great faith they have to allow 10 enthusiastic teenagers to live and dwell in their house for these two weeks and want to use their house as a service to the Lord.  Not many would agree to this.  We also couldn't have asked for a better group of teens to be on this trip.  We know that it was God ordained to have such a great bunch of teens to repack their suitcases every morning and store them away in the closet; leaving the house in spick and span, show room condition everyday.  My hat goes off to all of you.

The incredible news is, praise the Lord, that Steve and Connie's house has just sold this week!  Please pray that the house will go through to closing with no complications and that the Lord will greatly bless them for being such a blessing to us.  Please also pray for them as they continue to seek the Lord in whether to come on staff, full-time with Open Air Campaigners, and the Lord will clear the path for them to do that if it is His will.

In summary, please pray for Bob, Kevin and Josh who took the sketchboard training and who are excited about the ministry and who each wanted to buy one of the stetchboards.  Pray that they continue using the sketchboard to preach the Gospel and that God would show them if they are to go into full-time ministry. 

As we go into our final count down for the Colorado portion of our trip, pray for the 4th of July adult ministry in Denver and our trip home on Saturday.  Five of the teens are then continuing on their weeks with Mission Possible, local team, and we pray that they will adjust with their new team and the ministry, work and growth will be fruitful.

Mission Possible Denver, Colorado Week 2

Popsicle People
Over the course of the week we did a training for some men and women from Mesa Hills Bible Church. This was my first training, so I was quite nervous when Paul made me a team leader. My group, consisting of Nate and Megan, taught a guy named Kevin. He was so excited to be learning which made things easier! First, I taught him the alphabet, which went well because I am pretty decent at block letters by now. But then came the time when I had to teach him how to draw people and mountains...not my strong suit! But soon the teaching of the dreaded popsicle people and much too pointy mountains was over and I painted up and preached an "If Only" sketch board message for the trainees.

This was also interesting considering I've never done that message before, but I obviously did a good job because the next night God was using Kevin to preach that same message to quite an impressive crowd in Downtown Colorado Springs! It was so nice to see all the people we had trained actually going out and doing messages for the first time! Josh, a man that Sam trained, liked the sketch board ministry so much that he generously donated to the Mission Possible fund! We left the church with paint kits, a sketch board, and paper to do open air ministry. It is awesome to know now that we have equipped people from Colorado to continue the ministry after we leave! -Zana

Suck It Up Buttercup  

   It was a hot day in Colorado. In fact, we chose the hottest day to do the hardest work. We went door to door to pass out around 750 flyers for the Mesa Hills Bible Church. Even though it was hard work we made it a lot of fun. Not being in the proper foot wear for an incredibly hot day, Lauren and I walked around barefoot for 4 hours through the neighborhood. Although at times we thought we were lost and had no water to quench our thirst, it all went towards a good cause and the church seemed thankful. Later we went to where we would've gone to do the kids club. It was upsetting because the manager wouldn't let us do the club for

the kids, but it all turned out for the better because we all knew it was part of God's plan. Tomorrow we're going to Denver for a kids club, teaching and bonding with the kids. I'm really excited for the next few day and I can't wait to see what God has planed.  - Megan 

Sour Tears
The team has been in Colorado for over a week now and I believe it has been a very different experience for everyone. During the week, all of us got to train the people at the local church on how to do paint board messages on their own in order to continue OAC work in Colorado after we leave. It was great to see the trainees preach their messages on the streets after they went through the process of learning and practicing them in the classroom, even if some of the hearts of people in the plaza were not receptive. We also got to do a day of kids ministry in Whitney Young apartments. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to come back because the manager did not like us preaching religion. Even though we have hit a few bumps in the road, overall it has been an encouraging experience for the team as a whole. We cannot wait to see how The Lord will use us in these final days in the city of Denver.  -Elizabeth 

                                                          

                                                          The Spade Song

Every city has different people, and different people react differently to the Gospel.  In a way, everyone has their own song they sing about their lives and who they are. Some people try to dig themselves out of their own sin while others realize that Jesus is the only way. When I was in San Francisco the people had very strong opinions about the Gospel (most of the opinions were negative). Here in Colorado, most people seem like they don't care. When we did adult ministry, people would stop for a few seconds to listen to the message and then they would leave. Even when some of us have talked to people, they seem apathetic.

 In places I have preached in the past, people will very quickly share their opinions with you, but here you have to ask people more questions to get them to talk. However children are still receptive to the Gospel. - Sam

                                                          Chunky Flowers

As some of the other posts have mentioned, the people of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs were very hardened to the Gospel. On Tuesday, we went to Denver. We set up along 16th Street Mall. We performed the Set Free drama multiple times and Matt, Sam, and I all preached. The people were more receptive to the Gospel and we had little crowds each time we preached. Paul was able to talk with a few people about their faith and he prayed with one person. We don't know what he will be going through after this but please pray that he would grow in faith. Carmina talked with a "born again atheist" and challenged him to read the Bible and see what he thought about it. Also pray that this man will see the light of Jesus and that God will transform his life. We were also able to go to another housing project in Denver. There is another Christian group that already goes to that area every Tuesday and the children displayed how much of an impact that group has been having on them. Pray that the children will "bloom" in Christ and become God-fearing and on fire for God. One of the parents told us about another project down the street which we will most likely be checking out tomorrow. All in all, the first day in Denver seemed to be a little more receptive than other areas of Colorado. We pray that God will continue to use us for his work and that He will be opening the hearts of the people who we meet. - Nate

Last day of the kids club

Matt teaching Josh "Lord Save Me"

Teaching The Karate Song

Puppets!