Echo Ranch

So for Orientation, all of the men's project headed out to Echo Cove Ranch which is a camp for youth here in Southeast Alaska. We headed out to Echo to serve them and do some manual labor for them to help them get ready for the upcoming summer. One of their biggest needs was for firewood to be cut and split, so we did that almost all day on Thursday. There is just something about serving together with other guys and doing manual labor that brings guys together and helps bond them. After we got done serving, we had a meeting that night in their chapel building. One of the staff, Matthew ( aka MJ), gave a talk on being real with each other as brothers in Christ and helping each other through life. Later that night, each action group got to have time together and share each others' stories. It was a great time to get to know all of the other guys in your action group that you live with. On Friday, we just spent a lot of the day continuing to get to know each other and playing games. Friday morning, Vincent, gave a talk on the Spirit-filled life and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit each and every day. He did a great job speaking on just how important it is to walk in the Holy Spirit and realize that as Christians, the Holy Spirit lives in us and works through us. Later that night, we had another meeting with worship as guys. There is something about worshiping the Lord with just a group of guys that is so powerful to me. It was truly incredible to be praising God with all the other guys around me. Also, I got to share my heart for the summer as the project director.  I am not one who normally likes to speak in front of people, but I feel like I did a fairly decent job of getting my thoughts across and communicated them fairly well. I really harped on just our project's vision, core values, and especially our mission. The project's vision is to put the Gospel in arm's reach of everyone in Southeast Alaska. The core values are never walking alone, white hot faith, effective evangelism, and authentic relationships. With that being said, I mainly focused on the mission of our project which is to equip and send out lifelong Christ-centered laborers. I think this is so important. As believers in Christ, we are called to help fulfill the Great Commission. I don't necessarily think that we are all called to go into full time ministry, but we should live out a missional lifestyle in all that we do whether we are a banker, mechanic, teacher, missionary, pastor, stay at home mom, or whatever career path that God takes each and everyone of us. We should all live out Christ's love in the way we interact with our coworkers and just everyone that we encounter in our everyday life and the conversations that we have with each of them.

Thanks again for keeping up with what is going on this summer in Juneau.

For some reason, it won't let me upload photos right now.... I'll post a couple from Echo Ranch when the website will let me...