Brigantine/Atlantic City

Four jam-packed days in Brigantine were both a blast and draining. My church, Brigantine Bible, really encourages me and continues to blow me away with their support. The youth kept me busy most of the time: we had a game night on Friday, Youth Group on Sunday, and on Monday I met up with some of the guys in the park and played tag for a bit. These peeps are so awesome, I really hope to be able to take them to a missions trip or camp early next summer sometime. (Pray for us, and for new leadership for the group since I'm gone now and nobody's really stepped up yet.)

I also had the opportunity to speak on Sunday, you can listen to the talk here or at brigantinebible.com.

The hardest part about being in AC again was repacking all my stuff and all the memories and self-searching that involves. I spent the majority of two days going through things, only to end up leaving with about the same amount of stuff that I came to AC with. (2 boxes and 2 bags) :/

Pray also for Faith Community (and Covenant House). My housemate Stephanie is awesome, and continues to volunteer with five new volunteers in the house! This is an awesome program, but it's definitely something that needs some prayer if it's gonna be the force for good it could be.

On my last night in Jersey I went in to Covenant House ROP to talk the youth I had worked with, we had some really good conversations. Many of my peeps are out living in their own apartments now, praise God! They've still got a long ways to go, and some of them are worse off, but this is an exciting first step for many of them.

On my way out of town I decided to stop by work again and talk to my boss. I ran into Father Steve, an awesome Orthodox priest and one of my mentors, and he was like "hey are you busy?" and he invited me to help him help two Turkish girls change their flights back to Turkey in order to get out of a bad situation. I love how he just saw me and immediately involved me in ministry! :) He introduced me as someone who loves God and loves people, which was very humbling, I hope that is true of me. He really inspires me, he is very humble and thoughtful with the gospel, very slow to throw around God's name, but very deep in faith. He and his son Alex, and many others, continue to spend themselves for the youth of Atlantic City, and it's a tough job. Pray for continued strength and spirit.