Christians Loving the Lord

After a day of travel that included a little sight seeing and a couple of good meals, we have arrived at Zion Community Church.  We got settled in our rooms, met Pastor Kevin, and had our orientation meeting.   After that we met to practice our skit that we prepared to use this week.  We are excited to see how God will use us this week. 

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10 NIV

We are so thankful to the students of St. Gertrude's.  They stepped up and chose to parter with us in God's work in Tulsa.   We are so thankful.

We started today with an early morning devotional to prepare our hearts for the day.  We then headed off to the Tulsa Dream Center to help with the spring carnival.  The Spring Carnival is an event for youth and families in Tulsa consisting of rides, food, games, and live Christian music.   In this photo we are helping to setup for the carnival.  We are excited to see how God will use us today.

One of our tasks today was to provide games for the kids.  Here we are at the start of the day.  Hundreds of youth enjoyed this game.  

It is awesome to see and be a part of the impact The Tulsa Dream Center is having in their community.  The Dream Center is making a huge difference in Tulsa by meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of youth and families.  We are blessed to be a part of their ministry.

And yes, it was a little cold today.

At the Dream Center Spring Carnival we also helped bag popcorn, cotton candy,  distribute meals,  and some of us did face painting.  It was a great day! 

Praise God for this awesome opportunity to serve others in Jesus' holy name.

We were so excited to pack backpacks full of school supplies purchased with ministry money provided by St. Gertrude's.  These will be given out tomorrow at the Tulsa Indian United Methodist Church's youth rally.

At our morning devotional today we read and discussed the story of Nehemiah.  We discussed how God calls regular people such as ourselves to accomplish his work.  

On Sunday morning we had an inspiring time of worship at the Tulsa Indian United Methodist Church.  We enjoyed singing Native hymns in the Kiowa, Osage, and Muskogee languages.  Pastor Larry brought us an awesome message from 1st Peter.  

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:15?-?16 

Our day finished up by attending worship with Agape Church.   This was such a blessing!  Great worship music, deep and meaningful prayer, and a message about being "rooted" in Christ.

This morning we are back at the Tulsa Indian United Methodist Church.   We opened the food and clothing pantries to the local residents.   It was awesome to meet and pray with the people we met!  We hope they felt God's love.  

In John 6 Jesus met the people's physical need for bread when he fed the 5000.  Just following that He let them know that He is the bread of life.

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 6:35 NIV

While today we are meeting people's physical hunger,  our prayer is that they will come to Jesus to be fully satisfied.

We had a great time packing bags of produce and boxes of food at the Oklahoma Food Bank.  This food will be going to elderly residents of Tulsa.  We packed enough food to provide 3445 meals.  After packing we were able to pray God's blessing over the food and for the people who will be receiving it.

Monday night we visited Standpipe Hill.  We had a great view of the city where we prayed  for Tulsa residents and the work we are doing in Tulsa this week.

While at lunch we met Bobby Cevantes and were able to hear his testimony.  During his testimony he played us several beautiful songs that he had written.  Bobby was placed into hospice over a year ago and given a short time to live.  Since then he continued to pray that God would give him just one more day.   He has been using that time to give his testimony and play his music.  

It was such a blessing to meet him.

Tuesday evening we were invited to attend drum practice at Pastor Larry's church.  It was an awesome experience to hear the Native drums and songs.

We had our final opportunity to serve on this trip this morning.  We helped out at City Lights.  The word lights stands for Loving Individuals, Giving Hope, Touching Souls.  We helped prepare clothing for distribution at their Thursday night event.  City Lights is doing great things in Tulsa,  we loved our time with them.  

Our final evening was spent enjoying Indian tacos with Pastor Larry.   The tacos were sooo delicious!  We then shared some skits we had prepared and heard Pastor Larry's inspiring testimony.   What a great week we have had and how the Lord has challenged us to grow through the service opportunities we had in Tulsa!