The Best Is Yet to Come

  This week our team spent a lot of our time in the projects. We went Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the afternoon. We went to both Paradise Mills and Kennedy. On Wednesday we split up and went to both Paridise Mills and Kennedy to deliver potted plants that we put bible verses on. We also gave them a copy of a powerful love letter called The Fathers Love Letter, that takes a bunch of scriptures from the bible and puts them together to form a beautiful letter formed right from Gods word. Our team had so many encouraging words from the parents at Kennedy. They were so thankful and excited to recieve the plants. One lady told two of our team members that she had been praying for someone to come here and we were an answer to her prayers. Another mom told us she was so thankful we had been coming and she could tell the difference in the kids, and that we needed to come back, that we couldn't leave, because the kids need us. It was such a powerful time. And our team was encouraged to hear those words affirming the work we have been doing there! We also handed out invitations to a Family Fun Day that we are having in the Kennedy Terrace Project on Saturday the 25th. We have been planning for about a week and have been getting donations. We know that God is going to use this time as a huge ministry as well as a day full of fun and laughter! God is doing big things on this island. He is moving and things are shifting. We are hearing it from people all around us that the atmosphere in Kennedy and in  St.Croix is changing and they can feel it!! It is so excited! And our team is so thankful that the Lord brought us here for such a time as this.



Malene with Naishalin, one of the girls who accepted Jesus into her heart!!  



All the kids were doing jumps and flips off the slide!



Mindy with some of the kids  at Kennedy

   We have continued our ministry with the Lighthouse Mission and are so thankful that we have been given the opportunity to be there. We have heard from so many of the hhomeless there that they have been truly blessed to have us here. They tell us over and over how much they will miss us and are sad to see us go. It has been an incredible time of getting to know them and there stories. Malene gave the word this Friday and she spoke on how we have authority in Christ and that he wants to set us free and heal us. So we had a time of prayer and saw a lot of freedom and new attitudes! It was an incredible time of seeing Gods hand at work in the lives of his beloved.



Our Friend Cedric took us on a tour of the ancient graveyard behind his church



Jared praying for healing

   Our team also hosted a 72 hour prayer weekend for the St.Croix Christian Church. It started Thursday night at 6:30 and went all weekend and ended Sunday at 6:30. It was a great time of worship and prayer. We had worship every night and had stations throught the room where people could go and let go of burdens, give thanks, do artwork, pray over the world, and for here. It was a really great to see the church step up and and to hear their prayers for the island. At the end of the weekend we opened the time up for testimonies. We heard amazing stories about how God has been providing for his people. It was so encouraging!   One of the homeless guys, named Russel, that we met at the Lighthouse came to our prayer weekend. He has been receiving the word and experiencing God is incredible ways. He is hungry and seeking the Lord. He spent a lot of time with us this weekend and we are seeing him grow so much!

  Our team is SO excited for our last week of ministry! We have some big things coming up and know God is going to do some incredible things!! We have gotten the word that the best is yet to come!! So we are believing in faith for God to move and expecting lives to be transformed, restored, and saved! All in His might Name!

Our team with some of the kids from Kennedy

With all our love!! -St.Croix outreach team. 

A New Adventure

A suprise was waiting for our team last Monday. Our leaders Josh and Melissa presented an idea to us, that took us for a bit of a turn. They asked us how we felt about them leaving our team for a couple days and being able to experience the team leading on our own. After giving it thought and prayer we students felt like it was a good idea and were all at peace with the plan! So Tuesday morning Josh and Melissa drove away and we were on our own.

  Our team discovered that we work very well together even when our leaders are not here. We were able to take more ownership over our ministry and overall we communicated our plans very well.  Our team enjoyed the experience and are so thankful Josh and Melissa asked us to try it out. We grew closer as a team and feel more like a family than before.

  This week we volunteered at the Lighthouse Mission on Tuesday and Friday morning and were a part of the afterschool program on Wednesday. Our relationships with the homeless is growing so much! Anytime we drive through Christiansted and see one of them they wave and say hello. It makes us so happy. And we have been given so much postive feedback from the homeless about us preaching during breakfast on Fridays. Our teachings from the beginning have stuck with them and made an impact. So that has been really encouraging for us to hear!

Malene Preaching it at the Lighthouse!!

Solveig helping Miguel at the afterschool program

  One day this week we went to Chrisitansted and did the heart drama by the gazeebo. We had quite a few people watching and there were homeless from the lighthouse who watched  us as well. Our team loved doing our skit and being able to talk with people afterwards. We hope to be able to do that more in these last two weeks of ministry.

  This week we did skits for the kids in Kennedy on Monday and Thursday. We had a teaching to go with the skits. We talked about the armour of God and hearing Gods voice. The kids responded really well. After the hearing Gods voice teaching we split into small groups and prayed for eachother. And a couple girls prayed for God to come into their hearts! It was so exciting! The kids keep telling us that they love God and they are understanding that God loves them. They love it when we pray together too! Our time in Kennedy is more than fun and games with kids, it is heartwarming, life changing, and more powerful than any of us even comprehend. A couple parents have told us that they only let their kids come outside when we are there. There is a sense of trust between the kids, the parents, and our team. It has been a huge blessing from the Lord, and we are so thankful.



Kids coloring pictures of the armour of God



The girls love painting fingernails!

Jared teaching the kids how to skateboard



The kids walk us to the van and wave goodbye

  We also went to Paradise Mills this week and continued building our relationships there. We love going to Paradise Mills and are greatful that we have been able to make relationships with some parents as well as kids. We pray that ministry there continues to grow and God moves in that place.

Solveig getting her hair done by Quadiva

  Friday we had our 24 hour prayer again, and had a wonderful time. We prayed into the sphere of sports and entertainment. We had a really good time praying and hearing Gods heart in these areas. We started on thursday night at 7 p.m. so we could end at 7 p.m. on Friday and go to the local street fair called Jump Up.  




There were a bunch of guys on stilts dancing in the streets!



 



Most of our team with some guys taking a break after dancing

  Our team had an amazing night experiencing the culture here! There was music and dancing and vendors selling all sorts of things! We loved being able to take part in this event. Jump up only happens four times a year and we were fortunate to be here during one.

  Our team is so excited to give these last few weeks in St.Croix everything we have left! We are planning some amazing things for the kids and families in the projects. And doing more ministry with the St.Croix Christian Church. We are very excited to see what God does in these remaining days and pray to see even more lives changed! 

-With All Our Love, St.Croix outreach team!

A Long Awaited Visitor

''JOHNNY!!!''

Our team shouts as our compassion dts co-leader arrives at the ariport. Each of us dressed in the finest aparel we could muster up to greet our long awaited visitor....   

Here we are at the St.Croix airport

Back at the YWAM base

These are the lovely  faces and outfits that were Johnnys first impression of St.Croix, and he still got in the van with us!

  Our outreach leader Josh was given the opportunity to speak at the St. Croix Christian Church on sunday before Johnny arrived and he did an incredible job of bringing Gods heart to his people in the church.  He was really getting into his preaching. It was like a different side of him was coming out that we hadn't seen before. But it was totally God moving and doing a great thing in the church body here in St. Croix. We as a team truly believe that God is going to start something here and revival is coming. We have been praying for it along with the rest of the believers that we have talked too. We were called here for such a time as this, and know that God is doing a great thing here in St.Croix!!

Josh preaching

  Johnny spent Sunday through Thursday with our team. Throughout the week he did one on ones with all of the team members. Halfway through the week we had the privledge to take Johnny to our favorite beach Carambola. Much of our week was a jumble and scramble. Our routine was thrown off a bit by the one on ones but we all stayed flexible. Johnny was a great encouragement to our team. He was  really impressed by our relationships with the kids in the Kennedy Project. And said he had never seen anything like it before in all the years he has been in YWAM.

Part of our team after hiking to the tide pool with Johnny

  And of course we spent time with the kids in Kennedy. The children have been saying more and more that they love our teachings and have been learning that God loves them! And they tell us that they love us. It is the most heartwarming thing to hear these kids who you have only known for a little over two months say they love you. We did a teaching on their dreams and how the tihngs they love are from God.

Johnny jumped right into ministry with us and helped with our crafts

Hanna with Joshua and Jared with Angelina

One of our days at Kennedy we took fingernail polish and the kids loved it!! They wanted to paint OUR fingernails more than they wanted us to do theirs. It was so great! We had a blast!

  Our team has almost completely finished painting the apartment for the new base directors. So we are really excited about that. It is looking very good. And we are so glad we got to be a blessing to the long term missionaries here and help them out with such a big project.

  We continued our ministry with the Lighthouse and have grown in our relationships there as well. Joo preached this friday and all the people sitting at the table kept asking him to read more bible verses! It was incredible. Even the pastor that leads at the lighthouse said that they never ask for more scripture. The attitudes of the people there is just one transformation that we have seen in the Lighthouse.

Some of the regulars at the Lighthouse waiting for breakfast to be served

  Friday night we held a ministry night with St. Croix Christian Church. One of the members helped Jared, Melissa, and Hanna lead worship through the night, as the rest of the team members prayed for people. The Lord totally showed up and peoples hearts were ministered to in amazing ways only God can do. We had so many people in the church tell us how greatly they appreciated us doing a ministry night.We were able to witness pastors from two churches become united in Christ by embracing eachother with brotherly love that comes only from Jesus! We saw the church body rise up and intercede for their island and the people living here. We know that the time they have waited for is coming! God is going to move on this island. They have been crying out to God, and he is coming!! Our team loved putting this together and serving the church. We are so thankful for the Lord oppening the doors to this opportunity. We know that lives were changed and no one left the same way they came.

Some of the beautiful sights we have seen:

 

“Oh the beauty of Your majesty, On the cross You showed your love to me

Beautiful Lord, awesome and mighty, I’m captured by the love I see”

-leeland

  This song describes our hearts toward God and the work we are doing here for Him. Everywhere we look we see God moving and showing His beauty in St.Croix.

  Our team is very excited to continue our ministry in the projects. We have more teachings to do and we cannot wait to see how the kids respond. We are praying for more opportunities to talk to parents and keep bringing the joy of the Lord into every situation and place we go! God has done some amazing things in the hearts and lives of the church body, the projects, and our team itself. God you are soooo good! Thank you for being so faithful to us. We are ready to dive into our last few weeks full of supernatural energy and do everything God puts on our hearts to do. We will not leave this dts with any regrets!

With all our love-St.Croix outreach team