Summer Ministry @ Urban Hope

Almost finished at Urban Hope with only two weeks to go.

The previous four weeks at Urban Hope have been consistently stretching and challenging.

The week of June 25th to the 1st we were hosting about 65 people on three different teams; a Grace College volleyball team, a youth group from Manheim, PA, and a youth group from Marysville, OH. Those teams engaged in our homeless ministry, water-ice ministry, prayer walks, invited kids to day-camp, and also helped us run a park program in in Mifflin park with is located about 10 miles away from our church in a mostly Asian/ Cambodian neighborhood. For June 28th, 29th, and 30th our roommate Devin organized a park program/ volleyball camp for any children in the area who were interested in participating. On day one we performed a skit that demonstrated how Jesus could make the impossible possible and told the story about Jesus feeding 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish (Mathew 14:13-21). On day two we performed a skit telling the story of Jesus' death and resurrection (Mathew 27:50 and Mathew 28:1-10).  

Then on day three we told the story about how Thomas doubted that Jesus had really come back to life and how he refused to believe it until he saw Jesus himself (John 20:25-29).  

Our cutest little volleyball player

Each day we also learned and practiced Hebrew 11:1 which is "faith is being sure of what we hope for, faith is being sure of what we do not see". (I too have memorized a lot of scripture throughout this summer while working with kids). We also of course played some games, ate some snacks, prayed with the children, and played volleyball with the Grace College team.



I also had the opportunity to share the gospel with two young ladies who I found out later were raised Catholic and Muslim. It was a cool time of talking about our different beliefs and sharing about who I believe Jesus is. The one young lady who did not want to talk about Jesus on the first day did come to our park program the next day and though she sat through the songs and activities she still came.

My roommate Devin who organized the park program

Overall the park-program felt like a huge success because many of those children may never have heard of Jesus before so it was really awesome to be able to begin the process of breaking down those barriers to the gospel in that community.    

The week after this we began Kingdom Kids day-camp. Our theme scripture for the week was:

Ephesians 2:1-5 

You were living in your sins and lawless ways. But in fact you were dead. You used to live as sinners when you followed the ways of this world. You served the one who rules over the spiritual forces of evil. He is the spirit who is now at work in those who don’t obey God. At one time we all lived among them. Our desires were controlled by sin. We tried to satisfy what they wanted us to do. We followed our desires and thoughts. God was angry with us like he was with everyone else. That’s because of the kind of people we all were. But God loves us deeply. He is full of mercy. So he gave us new life because of what Christ has done. He gave us life even when we were dead in sin. God’s grace has saved you. 

Prepping for day camp

We had about 70 team members staying with Urban Hope to do ministry and staff the camp as team and activity leaders along side the rest of the Urban Hope staff. Around 300 different children attended the day-camp throughout the week and about 200 children attended daily. The camp was separated into the East-side and West-side; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Throughout the camp over 40 children made some type of profession of faith at camp. 

Our team also tries to squeeze in rest time and fun so for the Fourth of July weekend we had a couple off days. My college roommate Megan came to visit and we had a couple of days to celebrate independence day where our country's independence all began. We heard the Declaration of Independence read on the stairs of Independence Hall, went to the parade, ate American flag cupcakes with Betsy Ross, and had an evening picnic by the Schuylkill River. 

On Tuesday we all got back to work to prep our facilities for Streetwise, an apologetics training weekend, hosted by the Urban Hope Training Center. Unfortunately Streetwise and Sami's wedding were at the same time so I missed the training and ministry that week to be in Lancaster with one of my GAP year roommates to prepare for and celebrate her big day. Her wedding was beautiful and I was honored to have been part of it. 

Craft time

And just this last week Urban Hope had their second week of Kingdom Kids day-camp. 
Our theme scripture this week was Ephesians 2:6-10 God raised us up with Christ. He has seated us with him in his heavenly kingdom because we belong to Christ Jesus. He has done it to show the riches of his grace for all time to come. His grace can't be compared with anything else. He has shown it by being kind to us because of what Christ Jesus has done. God's grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ. Your salvation doesn't come from anything you do. It is God's gift. It is not based on anything you have done. No one can brag about earning it. God made us. He created us to belong to Christ Jesus. Now we can do good things. Long ago God prepared them for us to do.

This past week we had a team of about 50 people from Ohio here to help us with camp. We had over 200 children who came to camp this week and about 14 more who made professions of faith. 

Please be praying for those children who have been deeply impacted by the Gospel throughout camp. Pray that they will grow in their relationships with their gracious and loving heavenly Father and that the church will be able to develop a connection with the families of those children also. God doesn't promise following Him will be easy. No one's faith can survive here if they think God has promised us an easy life. He has not promised any one of us an easy life because we chose to follow Christ. Instead He promises that He will be our strength. 

Love has no borders, 
Rachel Martha