2009 Trip Summary

El Paso:

October

This trip has its first informational meeting Sunday, August 2, after church in the library. Exact dates will be decided by the group. Ministry will be to the physically and spiritually poor of this region through volunteering with several homeless shelters and community centers. This will be a short trip - about 4 days - and inexpensive - airfare plus $100 for ministry expense. No heavy construction involved. Contact Susan Sublett at sublettfamily@gmail.com.

Aurich, Germany

July 24-August 2

Please be in prayer for this group as they spread the gospel through baseball.

Nigeria

Early November

With Scott and Shirley Grigsby

Quito, Ecuador

First week of December

Karen and Sam Pedersen will be heading back to Ecuador to be a part of "Christmas at the Dump". Contact Sam or Karen at samnkaren@verizon.net. Cost: $2,000

Bogota, Colombia

August 8-15

Tickets have been purchased for this group but if you are interested contact Robyn Patzig at rpatzig@sbcglobal.net. Cost: $1,100

Cambodia

September 24-October 3

Tickets have been purchased for this trip, but we will head back next summer. We ask that you all be in prayer as we take the next step since adopting the Khmer people as our Unreached People Group.

Update from Adrienne Mickler

July 2009

Aunt Esther. She sits sideways in her big chair, smelling of alcohol, legs propped up on the arm, short white hairs poke out the sides of her lime green knitted hat as she carefully raises the floral porcelain teacup towards her mouth with fragile shaking hands. She is an adorable, elderly Afrikaner lady who is quite witty, despite the fact that she is nearly deaf and blind. When speaking with her, one must sit uncomfortably close and speak at a painfully loud volume. She has her door open from 4am until late at night, even during the colder winter months, for the sole purpose of being able to greet and be greeted by the strangers who happen to walk by. She feels forgotten and alone, and perhaps rightly so. Her family rarely visits and all her friends have passed away. I met her by accident several months ago and have been visiting her weekly ever since. She does not ever remember my name but she knows me as one of the girls that stop by on Thursday mornings for tea and conversation. She is teaching me the powerful value of being present. She cares little about what I could do for her and repeatedly expresses her gratitude for just being with her. She has taught me that my time is the most valuable gift I will ever have to offer.

“Hospitality is Resistance.” (from a book we just finished titled, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, by Christine D. Pohl) This is Christian hospitality: one that welcomes “the least”, which recognizes their equal value, and respects their dignity; one that goes against the hospitality that invites only those with whom we are comfortable. If we are truly welcoming people we must, again, be present and invite in the fashion that Jesus did: sitting side-by-side, face-to-face, engaging in equal relationship with everyone, especially those whom the world labels as inferior. I do not mean to say that if you are not considered lesser then you cannot receive the fruits of someone else's hospitality. But I would like to challenge us to remember those for whom hospitality was originally intended. True hospitality was meant to be a manner in which to care for the marginal groups in society; not as a means of entertaining the elite. I highly recommend reading Making Room. It addresses all the practical barriers that typically inhibit most of us from really engaging in this kind of hospitality.

It is now the middle of the year. Last week marked the completion of the “inviting posture”, where I began learning the fundamental importance of simply being present with people. Today is the beginning of the “Contending Posture” where we will be identifying and confronting issues of injustice, contending for peace and wholeness in people’s lives, and pursuing holiness together. We will spend time studying the prophetic literature in the Bible and continue reading other texts with a focus on contending.

If you are able, please continue praying for me during these upcoming months. I have reached a time of the year when I am struggling to stay focused, resulting in a lack of motivation to continue seeking as I should.

Thank you so much, for everything…

With Love,
Adrienne

Update from Adrienne Mickler

April 2009

You all have played an integral role in allowing me to be here and I want to include you on this journey in a more personal manner than I have in the past. You have given me a rare and beautiful gift: space and time to discover what it means to be attentive and listen with my heart.

The past six weeks (called the “listening posture”) have been a time of recognizing and learning to accept who God has created me to be; even in the ordinary: what I like and dislike, my fears and dreams, my strengths and weaknesses, my needs and interests, my natural inclinations, etc. I have done an incredible job of even deceiving myself about who I am. I believe that accepting my identity in Christ must happen in order for me to identify what I am meant to do and what God desires for my life.

Through this time of self-discovery, I am experiencing something new and exciting: freedom. When I remember that God fashioned me in His image, and I recognize myself as His daughter, whom He loves, I am free. God knows my innermost thoughts, and He created me to experience countless different emotions, each in a particular manner. Rather than negating the value of these, I am beginning to embrace them. The sense of guilt that often follows when I think or feel a certain way disappears when I acknowledge and include God in those thoughts and feelings. If He is welcomed into our mind and heart, we are free of condemnation. This is revolutionizing my life.

On a slightly different note, we are now entering into the “submerging posture”. This entails learning what it means to be more committed and submitted to one another, more connected with and actively serving our neighbors, and grasping the power of the incarnation. We will be focusing on the gospels in the Bible and reading some other texts as well. I will spend more time with a select few ministries in order to decide where to commit for the remainder of the year. Some include work with young girls who have experienced varying degrees of abuse, and working with an economically poor community to start a vegetable garden. The nutrients that vegetables provide are absolutely essential in the treatment of AIDS, which is rampant throughout Africa. The garden would allow for more people to have access to the essential nutrients their bodies need to stay alive.

With that, please pray that I would sense God’s leading in where I can best serve. There is also something of which I need prayer that I rarely reveal to people: I long to sense something that is undeniably from God. I constantly struggle with doubt and skepticism in this area. Although I am learning, I am easily bogged down with frustration for not being able to experience more of God in a personal way.

If you are interested in more detailed, weekly/daily updates and occasional photos, feel free to visit my blog: http://www.xanga.com/nom_AD_ic

Thank you for taking the time to read my updates. I don’t say it often enough but you all mean the world to me. And, if ever you are willing, I would love to know how you are doing as well.

With love,

Adrienne

Updated Trip List 2009

Here is an updated list of all of the mission trips and local mission opportunities for 2009:

Hurricane Ike Relief Trip (for men)
Dates: April 1-5
Cost: $100
Contact: Steve Niermann
(stevenniermann@tx.rr.com)

East Asia Vision Trip
Dates: March 13-22
Cost: Trip is full
Contact: Ellen Childress
(ellen.childress@verizon.net)

Quito, Ecuador
Dates: Late July
Cost: $2,000
Contact: Sharon Roelke
(roelke1@tx.rr.com)

Aurich, Germany
Dates: July 24 - August 2
Cost: approx. $1,500
Contact: Bruce & Joanna Breckenfeld
(breckenb@verizon.net)

Kenya
Dates: Late July
Cost: approx. $3,000
Contact: Sharon Roelke
(roelke1@tx.rr.com)

Cambodia
Dates: Late September
Cost: TBD
Contact: Sharon Roelke
(roelke1@tx.rr.com)

El Paso, TX
Local missions working with homeless, children, no heavy labor.
Dates: fall (a Thursday-Tuesday)
Cost: approx. $300
Contact: Susan Sublett
(sublettfamily@gmail.com)

Local Missions Opportunities:

Feed My Starving Children Meal-Packing Day
Dates: June 5-6
No costs, but donations welcome to help cover the cost of the food we are packing
Contact: Abbey Daniels (fmscdallas@gmail.com)

Sidewalk Bible School
Every Saturday 11-noon, in South Carrollton
Bringing Sunday School to underprivileged kids
Contact: Carolyn Giffen
(cgiffen@firstchurch.net)

Crossroads Community Services
Third Monday of every month from 6:30-8:30 (carpool from church at 5:30)
Variety of activities from serving meals to maintaining facilities
An optional dinner is provided for $10
www.ccsdallas.org
Contact Abbey Daniels for info
(abbeyrenee@gmail.com)

Feed My Starving Children

A great opportunity for local volunteering is coming up at our church this summer.

On June 5-6, we are hosting a Mobile Packing Day at the church (actually at CCA) where we will be packing 100,000 meals for children all over the world in a day and a half. We need at least 500 volunteers to be able to do it!

The meals are packets engineered specifically for malnourished children, and only cost 17 cents per meal. They contain rice, soy protein, dehydrated vegetables, and vitamin-fortified chicken flavoring. I have tasted the mixture once it's cooked up, it tastes a lot like Rice-A-Roni.

For more information about the organization that we are teaming with for this, go to www.fmsc.org. All of their meals are packed by volunteers.

Volunteers will work in manageable, two-hour shifts, with one shift on Friday from 6-8, and 6 shifts on Saturday, every two hours from 8am-8pm. If we fill up, more shifts may be added earlier Friday.

Kids and youth are more than welcome. Donations are also welcome, as we will be covering the cost of the meals ($17,000), but are not required.

If you would like to sign up to come pack meals with us, send a donation, or receive more information, email me (Abbey) at fmscdallas@gmail.com. Let me know your name, the best way to contact you (either email address or phone number), and which shift you would like to work.

Cambodia and Nigeria

There will be a trip going to Cambodia this fall (2009). This will be a much smaller trip to scope out and begin to pray for the trip that will go in 2010, which will be larger, youth-friendly, and will have a medical focus. The trip this year will not be open to youth, primarily because it will require two weeks and be during the school year. We hope to have some of our own Cambodian congregation come along.

The Grigsbys would like to lead another trip to Nigeria in November of this year, exact dates to be announced. It will likely be a two-week trip, but it won't be a big deal to have someone come late or leave early, I guess they'll be close to an airport. If anyone is interested in this trip, contact me and I'll get you in touch with Scott Grigsby.

Trips; Kenya, El Paso

Some more information about a couple more trips we will (likely) be taking this year:

Some of you are aware that our church took a group to Kenya last summer; I have posted notes from several people who went on that trip on this blog. Another trip is in the works for this year, but dates and details are not finalized just yet as they wait to hear from a doctor that they hope to take along.

Lois Evans would like to take a group from our church to El Paso for a senior-friendly mission trip. This trip is designed to keep travel stresses and costs to a minimum. Participants will stay in host homes and will collaborate with a network of homeless shelters in the downtown El Paso area to do volunteer work suitable for any physical condition. Cost will likely be around $350-$400. This trip will be in late September or October, but these dates are not finalized yet either.

Both of these trips are still in planning stages, please be sure to check back here regularly for more details as they come together if you are interested in going.