Wow Jam 2012 Detroit - Day 5/6

Wow, What a couple of days. We hit the ground running and haven't stopped till we arrived at home.

Saturday morning we arrived at the Woodbridge Community Yourh Center to setup for the days event - we already had several people waiting for us in a line for their bikes to be repaired- this was two hours before the event started. By 2 pm they were probably 30 people waiting in line. Within 1 hour I believe Abigail had checked in more than 50 bikes with another 20 in line and the line was closed. She was a trooper. On top of that Hector was fixing bikes outside the bike area for passing folks with minor assistance. All in all we estimate about 90 bikes were repaired by 8 mechanics with another 10 Angel bikes left with the community center for them to bless other with as they see fit. When finally repaired the last bike at 8 pm.

These folks are in need. Several people tried to pay us. They really appreciated the love that was shared by the entire Wow Jam event - everyone.

Best if all, 333 people were saved and 100 were baptized before they left the grounds. A special blessing was the dedication of more than 10 babies.
Halleluia What a day - there was a celebrating in heaven.
What a week. Lives were changed in Wayne and Detroit. Pleas keep the local churches/groups in your prayers as the remain there and continue to reach and minister to the needs of their communities.

We then started our drive home yesterday morning and arrived home around 10 pm last night. What a site it was to start down the NC side of the mountains on 77. Again the Lord blessed us with excellent traveling conditions. His mercies are new each day.

All glory to God!! For the Harvest of 676 souls and others seeds that were planted for future harvest.

In His service
His GCC Bike repair team.

WowJam 2012 Detroit - Day 4

Today we arrived at tomorrow’s WOW site, the Woodbridge Community Youth center 

and packed 1000 bags of groceries to give away and bless our WOW attendees.  What a joy! 

They appear to be a flower bed full of hope.

We then ate lunch and took a tour of the city and the devastation from abandonment to some degree as a result of the failure of the economy here in Detroit.  It was said to us that the city was once populated by 2.3 Million people.  It is now been reduced to just ~700,000 people – that is smaller than the city of Charlotte.  More than 30 schools have closed and more than 4500 homes have been torn down and returned to farm land.  We witnessed the despair that is plaguing the city form Center city to the outskirts. 

We all then separated into teams and distributed more “Tickets to Salvation” flyers for the WOW event tomorrow.  To see the eyes light up with some men, women and children at a homeless shelter was an incredible experience and has confirmed the mission for us tomorrow.

Please be in prayer as tomorrow's Wow event starts at 2 pm and runs through 6pm.  There will be folks there that are coming from utter despair.  Pray that we are able to truly Love them to Jesus and change their lives forever.

WowJam Detroit 2012 - Day 4 Am

Well we are off to pack groceries in the inner city Detroit location. Today's weather is Looking good and we are all looking forward to blessing Detroit.

WowJam Detroit 2012 Day3 - WOW event

PRAISE the LORD - WHAT AN INCREDIBLE DAY

PRAISE the LORD - WHAT AN INCREDIBLE DAY

First - with an 80% chance of rain and especially the idea that 1.5" of Rain was to fall during the 4 to 6 time frame - THE precise time for the WOW event.  Halleluiah - not only did the rain come and go while we were meeting together inside, God kept the clouds there to keep it cool - temps around 78-80.  GOD IS GREAT!

Stephen encourages to lay aside the things of this world that so easily entangle us and encumber us to serve.  We should lay the unnecessary things aside so we can LOVE the people who came to day........ 

Second, - we were blessed to have a local bike shop donate labor and supplies for the day along with a team made up of brothers from Cornerstone City Church(local host church) and Work of Life Church(Fontana CA).  The team repaired 30 bikes.  We were blessed to be a part of blessing with a bike we were able to supply to a woman who no longer had a car and now her daughter will be able to make it to her job.  Praise the Lord...... HE DOES IT AGAIN.. 

Finally, with more than a thousand people in attendance (man the covered the grounds) we saw 343 salvations.  I hear it now.....dancing, shouting , rejoicing in heaven...

Stephen then followed up with some fun - Pie eating........... 

Topping off the evening the entire WOW team was treated to a Jumble-ye pasta(I am sure the spelling is wrong - doesn't matter  - IT WAS GOOD), Bread pudding with sauce and so many other fixings from our caterer, Glenn Guidry and his team from New Orleans.  They had already provided us Red Beans and Rice(New Orleans Style) for lunch.

Now we head back to our hotel for some sleep is preparation for a day of Food packing and seeing Detroit.

WOW Jam Detroit 2012 - Day 3 am

The morning heavy rains have moved on but they are projecting more heavy rain around 4-5. In Stephens words we r doing this thing rain or shine, outside it inside.

We are ready to crank it up and SERVE.

WOW Jam Detroit 2012 - Day 2

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT and Praise the Lord for the blessing from two families at Grace the for the 24' trailer and Extra-cab truck.  We finally made it in at 10 pm Last night after a CARE-FULL ride from Cornelius through VA,WV, OH and finally to Dearborn, MI. God really had his hand on us.

We met briefly with Kathy Hernandez (WOWJam Director) and then went to our rooms and Passed Out for the night - with only a little snoring...... but no where near enough to keep any of us up.

This morning after a great breakfast we met with Stephen and Kathy to review our Mission for this week.  We then traveled a short distance to Cornerstone City Church fir flyer distribution to the neighbors of cornerstone Church - the site of our first Wow Jam event tomorrow.

Abigail, Hactor, Narss adn kathy distribute flyers to local homes (a mixture of occupied and abandoned/vacant  homes.

An interesting find here in this is not the Middle East - this is Dearborn/Detroit.   W e 

We returned to Cornerstone later this evening for dinner prepared by Glen Guidry, a New Orleans Chef gone wild - I mean gone WOW and our Kick-Off Rally.  What an amazing time of prayer and petition for the Cities  of Canton, Wayne and Detroit.

CONTENDING and Standing in the Gap.

Praising in anticipation for God's mighty hands.

We TRULY need your prayers for the Canton/Wayne and Detroit Wow Jam events - and beign prepared to minister to them in their despair.

WOW Jam Detroit - Day 1 - The drive

On the heals of our Belize team arriving safe and sound at home last night, our Wow Jam team has departed this morning for Detroit with trailer in tow for a nice 10-12 hour ride. We loaded all our bicycles, tools and supplies earlier this week. We met at the church and hitched the wagon and are heading north. We covet your prayers as it will be a slow ride.

Sunday, July 15 (Day 7)
This morning after breakfast, our team left for Life.net Church.  Pastor Lee's church meets at the George Price Freedom and Peace Center.  George Price is considered the founder of modern day Belize, having served the country for 40 years and securing independence from England during his time in office.

Cade (guitar), Austin (drums) and Chapman (singer) helped out with the worship team.  Pastor Lee expressed his great appreciation for our team helping out and said that worship was very dynamic and very much a God-experience this morning.  Our team sang and played "Oh How He Loves" and was very moving, with many raising their hands in praise to our Creator.

After the singing portion of the service was over, kids aged 3-10 came downstairs for children's church.  Kim Palmer led a team of youth in singing, games, crafts, story time and snacks.  Ericka one of Pastor Lee's daughters could not stop talking about how much fun she had in children's service today.

Cade (narrator), Isaac (Goliath) and Austin (David) sang in operatic style the most hilarious, and yet most exciting rendition of the classic Bible story.  Cade sang the story of how David slayed Goliath.  Kim Palmer jumped in several times to get the kids involved having them say things like "Goliath is Big", "David is small", "Oh No!"....

We had the kids assembled a shield with stickers, putting the full armor of God on a soldier.  Then Margo led the kids in playing "Simon-Says and finally we had snack time.  Before we knew it, church was over and it was time to say good-bye to the kids.

Pastor Lee invited us all to his house for lunch (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken salad, watermelon, chips and sodas or water).  It was a good time for all of us to get to know Pastor Lee and his family better.  Pastor Lee and his wife shared a home-made video with all of us highlighting their marriage and kids (anniversary video).  Then we all chatted or rested.

In the afternoon we went to Maya Mopan.  This is a neighborhood not too far from Pastor Lee's church.  Mayan's live in thatched roof, primitive housing.  Today was a real eye opener for many on our team.  Many of them saw extreme poverty, but in the midst of it all they all experienced God's love and joy in the hearts of the kids to which we ministered.  Our team went door to door inviting all of the kids in the village to a mini-VBS.

About 75 kids showed up and we had an awesome time!  Austin, Mike, Kim and others made balloon hats swords, dogs and other inflatable animals.  Others on the team:   Bailey, Mikyla, Margo and some other girls from Lee's cell group painted faces.  Isaac, Chapman and Cade played ball with the kids.  Aaron made sure that we had plenty of photos of the day.  And Karen held lots of babies and talked with the locals about Christ.  Cade, Isaac, Austin and Kim performed the David and Goliath opera and received many laughs and a ton of interaction from the kids of Maya Mopan.  

Even though we were only in the Maya Mopan village for a couple of hours, our hearts were all touched deeply.  Pastor Lee explained how they had built a wooden house for a family in his church for about $6,000.  He hopes to be able to build more houses in the future in this area.  Some of the craftsman in the village brought out jewelry, bags, bowls and baskets to sell.  Many of us picked up small items to take back home to remember this trip or to bless family and friends.

Our team de-briefed and prayed this evening, prior to packing for our return to the USA.  This trip has touched the lives of not only the youth, but also the adult chaperons on the trip.  We received much more than we could ever give and we all realized that none of us will ever be the same person we were before this trip began.  Each of us will now hold a special place for Belize in our hearts and hope to return again one day, God willing.

Saturday, July 14 (Day 6)

After breakfast at the hotel our team walked to a park one block from the El Reyes Hotel. Pastor Lee had asked our team to help fix up the park for children in the community.  9 of the 10 swings were missing and trash and limbs were littered throughout the park. What we all thought would be a simple project took several hours as we were missing several parts needed to hang the swings.  Pastor Lee went to four hardware stores to find the necessary parts.  Each swing seat has a LIFE.net stamp imprinted on hardwood.  Each swing seat costs $20, but provides a great service to the community.  Pastor Lee has replaced swing seats in several parks in surrounding neighborhoods and intends to do more in the future.  It was an extremely hot morning in Belize, so our team tried to stay well hydrated with lots of water.  Several of the gals on the team assembled the swing seats, several guys hung the swings and made sure they were level and others on the team picked up trash.  It was a great feeling knowing that we have improved this park for the kids of Belize and gotten the word out about Pastor Lee's church.

For lunch our team was treated to pizza at a restaurant called Peppers.  We had cheese and pepperoni pizzas, garlic bread and waters or sodas.

After lunch we went door to door in the Belmopan community, passing out flyers, inviting people to LIFE,net church and praying for those that expressed various needs.

At our evening team dinner we surprised our team leader Mike Diefenbach with a carrot cake for his 49th birthday.  Each team member took time to share "words of affirmation" with Mike by telling him one way in which he has touched their life.