An inexpressibly beautiful mess!

An inexpressibly beautiful mess is the only way that I could think to summarize how things are going. Hang with me as I attempt to explain :)

I would be a total fake if I glamorized this summer and only gave one perspective, which I confess I am tempted to do. As my supporters I long to tell you the awesome things that the Lord is doing and how much He is changing lifes but I also long to be real, raw, and upfront with you guys. So please extend me lots of grace as I attempt to really let you guys walk beside me to common ground.

All of the interns are seeing loads of our sin and ways in our lives that don't honor the Lord. We have studied how we should really question and wrestle with how well we know Him if we don't care for the poor as he talks about them in scripture. He continually links them to himself DIRECTLY like in Matthew 25 and demands for a specific life style that makes the poor our neighbors. This has been messing me up in such wonderful ways but let me tell you..it's been HARD!

Time with the kids has been utterly exhausting but SUCH a privilege, joy, and and monumental blessing and grace. We have a total of 120 kids and in my group specifically we have about 16 girls. We break into small groups from this total and in my small group I have about 5-8 consistently show up. Our small groups have been filled with, as we study creation/fall/redemption, confusion...tears..anger..joy..and better understanding. When I say these girls are wrestling with these concepts...they have them in a choke hold for real! Some of the small groups that have really struck me so far is this past week I felt extremely burdened to take a huge chunk of our small group time to just talk about what is REALLY going on in their lives. With ease words and situations were talked about..drugs..guns..yelling & arguing.. no power..gangs. This is their normal. They go home and are around chaotic damaging things. There weren't many dry eyes in that small group time that day. Another small group we were talking through Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God." " and I posed the question "What does this make you think/feel when we live in a word that tells us in essence we are good people and are capable of that?" I had girls LITERALLY jump out of their seats and I heard statements like "WHAT MS. BFREE?! No one...like...NO ONE is good...wait?!?! NO ONE??". True choke holds..they really want to think about these things. The Lord has been smashing walls with the older girls! We have had to have A LOT of hard conversations filled with tension and discipline but the Lord is so great and so sweet! He has used it to really break the ice and allow me to plead with them to let me love them and be in their lives.

Today my heart melted as I walked up to Washington park outside from the building and some of my girls were walking towards me (as I thought they were going to the triangle store aka the candy store to get food) I said "Where are YALL going?" and they said "DUH to meet you Ms. Bfree!!" One of my girls ran up to me and gave me a HUGE hug and then others followed. Uhhh water works!!

Another update that I have neglected is Common Grounds sweet church! We go on Sunday nights at 'the building' (that's what we call the community center we are at 24/7) It has about 40 members with loads of kids running around. It's so sweet to have acoustic worship at the building in the middle of the projects..we are singing out sweet Jesus! The sermons are so down to earth and really challenge you and because it's smaller we get to respond and all talk about it every sunday. After church everyone eats together and we hang out for however long. It's such a privilege to be apart this body of believers!

So..in summary. We are all struggling greatly but the Lord is SO great and SO good! Mostly..he is perfectly committed to the advancement of His kingdom!

Prayer requests: Please pray for all of the kids..that the Lord would protect them and call them to himself at a young age..that these truths would rock their worlds. Pray for the interns as we are all utterly exhausted but long to run hard for the Lord. Pray for me and my patience with the older girls that I would persevere well. Pray for Washington Park area of Montgomery..that this would become a whole part of Montgomery that would stand for Christ and long to see His name magnified.