Heading to Brazil! Need all who will pray!

Hello : - )

thanks for being a part of this group. I hope that it blesses you.
I would like to invite you to please pray for our Brazil outreach (which starts today! June 29 - July 13, our team of 14 flys out of JFK at 7:40pm)

2 big prayer requests:
- that people on the streets of Brazil would KNOW and EXPERIENCE God's love for them and that they would choose to believe in Him - to allow His love to actually change their lives as it has many of ours.
- that I would continually seek God's grace for strength to endure and enjoy hard work and physically intense ministry (there's only 5 guys, and I'm the youngest so I need step up and serve wholeheartedly without complaint - and there's lots of music equipment to be moved, as well as the drama we do, and other things daily)

I hope to update more when we return (communication is fairly limited when we're down there)

YOUR PRAYER SOWS INTO MANY LIVES AND IS NEVER A WASTE OF TIME! IT HAS A GREATER IMPACT THAN WE COULD EVER POSSIBLY KNOW! BELIEVE THE PRAYERS YOU PRAY AND IT WILL BE SO, BECAUSE GOD SAYS SO. (John 15:7, James 1:5, James 5:15)

Love ya, Thanks for participating in this outreach with us! Your part is just as important.
Riley

In Need!

sad to see - a man named Edward consumed by alcohol... but others praying for him can affect his life!

King's Fellowship Tonight

Got to talk a bit tonight with a man named Danny. One of the team members met him on the street a few weeks ago and invited him to our weekly gathering (The King's Fellowship). It was cool, because we hadn't seen him in a while and we were praying beforehand that we would see Danny again tonight. 10 minutes after we prayed that he came walking down the stairs to join us for dinner and worship! We got to talk one-on-one at the end of the night. He reads a lot about many different philosophies and theories and says that he believes in Jesus. Danny asked me to pray for him to have a peace of mind. Let's also pray that his relationship with God will be real and alive! That it won't just be something he acknolwedges, but something he experiences.

Orchestration!

We had a team from Ohio stay with us at Street LIFE last week. It was cool because their church isn't too far from where my parents live and we ended up knowing some of the same people from UD and such. One of the days they were here we went to the Love Kitchen (a soup kitchen) in the Bronx to serve a meal for the poor. Long story short - there was a miscommunication and it ended up not working out (it was closed for other ministry purposes). And it was the last day of the trip so the team had already gone to all the other ministry sites planned for the week - they were the most excited about the Love Kitchen though. So there we were, 23 of us, standing on the sidewalk in front of the Love Kitchen, unsure of what the day was going to look like. It wasn't long before we started praying that God would work out the details of our day and that He would provide an even better opportunity to show His love to people in the city. The team particularly asked if there were any parks nearby. A few phone calls were made - we got some directions and the ok to go to a park. Now we had a plan, but not really. We arrived at the park and unloaded from the vans.

Here's what happened - dozens of kids were playing in the park because it was the one day of the year when their school had a field day. If it were not field day we would have went to the park and there would have been no one there. We walked inside the fence to approach the crowded area (usually people on the streets are not allowed to just go up and play with kids during school, for good reasons). Our leader finds the principal, who welcomes us to openly play with the kids, probably because there were a lot of kids and seemingly not enough staff. This is the best part - there was supposed to be someone to make balloon animals for the kids that day, but he never showed up. IT JUST SO HAPPENED that one of the girls on the team knew how to make balloon animals and brought her balloons and pump along with her. So she spent nearly 2 hours wrenching her hands making flowers, and swords and dogs for the kids (some who waited at least 10 minutes just to get one - that's a long time for a 6 year old). It ended up being one of the best days of outreach that we had that week. It may seem like a small thing, but it brought so much joy to the kids that day.

Coincidence that this all worked out the way that it did?
No.
The greatest orchestrator of circumstances and opportunities - GOD!

Talking with Terry at the park. He's a Taoist so we don't exactly believe the same things, but we did have a great convo and shared some banana bread together. And we were able to pray together too. Will hopefully see him again and be able to continue building a relationship.

My friend bought me a CD by Jake Hamilton - Marked by Heaven. AWESOME! You should get it too.

an awesome day doing a prayer station in Jamaica, Queens... the elevator to the subway was broke so some of our time was spent carrying babies in strollers (and in one case, a woman in a wheelchair) down the stairs to get on the train. The team with us this week really stepped up - even people walking by on the streets helped out! God pours out His love through the smallest of acts sometimes.

he answered, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

One way that God is helping people on the streets.