Iglesia Corona de Amor

We arrived safely to Minneapolis yesterday! A long day of travel built up our appetite for Culver's, so we ate dinner there and had our orientation meeting for the week. Attached is a photo of us at Culver's last night! Excited for the week ahead!

This morning we attended Sunday school, worship service and lunch at our church partner for the week: Alfa y Omega. Nick introduced our team. Pastor Donaldo preached about the three gates of the heart and how we need to guard them; our ears, our eyes and our mouth. After a full morning of worship together (similar to our home church service!) we enjoyed lunch in the fellowship hall. This congregation eats lunch together after church every week--very sweet.

In the afternoon, we took some time exploring more of Minneapolis and the many cultures that come together here.  Here is a photo of our group at Midtown Global Market where we heard music from Chile enjoyed some snacks and shopping.  

After dinner we talked about our overview of the week and the ways we will be ministering here. We learned there are many reasons to pray for Minneapolis and we look forward to getting more connected with the people more.

Today we're working at Alfa y Omega church on a fence project! This morning we've been preparing the surface of the fence to be painted later today. Pastor Donaldo brought us watermelon to enjoy together! Here's our watermelon smile picture! 

Our day's work has brought us to this point; we've begun painting the rails outside of the church doors! We're confident in our painting abilities, so hopefully we won't leave with more paint on us than the railing. 

Today we ate a delicious lunch prepared by one of the women from the church. She made handmade tortillas that were extra tasty. For dessert we had banana bread bars that Nick's Mom had baked! Needless to say, we were very content (and full!) after lunch.

As the afternoon wraps up we will finish painting the railings outside of the church, and eat dinner together. Tonight we will be going out into the neighborhood by Alfa y Omega with a few of the church members for evangelism. Please pray that the Lord touches the lives of the folks we visit tonight and for his protection over us.

After that, we'll shower and return to our lodging site for a quick meeting and discussion time! 

What a day! And it's not quite over yet :)

Attached is a photo of us painting this afternoon.

We had a last-minute change in plans for the evening. Instead of doing evangelism tonight, we will do it tomorrow night with Alfa y Omega. 

With our unexpexted free time tonight we decided to treat ourselves to Nelson's Ice Cream in St. Paul! Believe it or not, we all got kid's size ice creams! We might have to eat our leftovers for breakfast ;)

This morning we served at FMSC packing food for children in need. Here's a photo of us at work! 

Tuesday morning we spent a few hours serving at Feed My Starving Children. All together we packed enough food to feed 104 children for one year! Granted, we had ALOT more people than just us, it was cool to see the work we could do when we all came together. 

After FMSC we drove to Blue Door Pub and enjoyed the Minneapolis famous "juicy lucy" burger. All of us tried, and most for the first time, Spam bites! I think most of us liked them, so we might just have to start cooking with Spam more often ;) 

Tuesday afternoon we spent some time at the Stone Arch Bridge doing a prayer walk. The Stone Arch Bridge spans the Mississippi River as it curves through the city of Minneapolis. We prayed against human trafficking at the upcoming Super Bowl, for the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments, and for the friends and families of the victims of the 35-W bridge collapse. 

Later in the afternoon we met up with Jennifer from St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church for a tour of the Phillips neighborhood. Jennifer works for a ministry called Mission Shift which operates out of St. Paul's ELC. This was a very educational tour as we learned so much about the neighborhood, the people that live here, and some of the history of Minneapolis. We took a lot away from this tour, so ask about it when we're home! Brian cooked us dinner later that night before we left the church to go to Alfa y Omega for evangelism.

We loaded packages of food into Pastor Donaldo's car and prepared other materials for evangelism, and drove to an apartment complex not too far from Alfa y Omega. Once we arrived we could not believe how quickly we distributed the food we had brought. It wasn't before long that a handful of tenants from the apartment building came out to greet us. This experience was new for all of us as we had never done evangelism before. Despite this being the case, we were inspired to see how easy building a relationship with these folks was, and it was Pastor's hope and ours that later down the line the opportunity would come for them to hear the Gospel. 

Yesterday was another great day of service here in Minneapolis. We started the day by serving at a non-profit called Good in the Hood.

Good in the Hood collects shoes from folks all across the Twin Cities. At their warehouse then, the shoes are sorted into "great", "good" and "recycle" categories. The great shoes are eventually sold on a school bus that Good in the Hood drives to impoverished communities within a roughly 200 mile radius around the Twin Cities. The profits from shoe sales are then given to Good in the Hood's counterpart charity/food shelf called Shoe Away Hunger. The funds keep the shelves at the food shelf stocked, and provide hot meals for people in Minneapolis. 

Anyhow, we served at Good in the Hood sorting through donated shoes! By the end of the morning we had sorted through over 600 pairs of shoes! Good in the Hood had a shoe sale that afternoon, so we also got to help them load shoes on to the bus. What a creative organization and awesome ministry! 

As our service time concluded there we prayed with the warehouse staff and Pastor Jamie, who oversees Good in the Hood. It was about midday, and we left Good in the Hood RUNNING! :) Not at all because of our experience, but rather, because it was pouring rain!!

Unfortunately due to the rain our afternoon plans were cancelled, and so we devised another plan for the rest of the day over lunch at Chick-Fil-A. We ended up going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, or as the locals refer to it, the MIA. We enjoyed our time there and were inspired by the beautiful works of art and creativity in the pieces. 

Traffic got the best of us as we traveled to the YMCA to shower, but nonetheless we made it there and back for dinner with Brian at St. Paul's ELC. After dinner we drove to Alfa y Omega for the last time to attend their Wednesday night church service. 

Pastor Jon preached, and Silvia, Ashley, Jackie and Sarai shared their reflections on the week with the church. All together it was a sweet way to conclude our time with Alfa y Omega. We will miss them and certainly keep them in our prayers! 

Tomorrow (Thursday) we're going to the Mall of America! Stay tuned!

Us at City View apartments doing evangelism- check out our neon shirts!

Silvia and Acacia speaking with a woman at the apartments.

Here's a photo of the Stone Arch Bridge where we did our prayer walk on Tuesday!

Here we are with Pastor Donaldo and some of the folks from Alfa y Omega last night after the church service. 

Today is Thursday which means one thing- today is recreation day! We arrived this morning and have already gone on a few rides at Nickelodeon Universe (the indoor theme park) and are now walking through the mall! There are SO many stores here, so we'll be diligent in our shopping :)

We are here until this afternoon, and then we're off to Nick's house for a Minnesota dinner and a relaxing evening!

A few of us dared to ride the Spongebob Squarepants Rock Bottom Plunge! Here we are riding the plunge! Pictured: Pastor Jon, Raquel, Jackie, Ashley and Sarai.

(P.S.: Pastor Jon definitely screamed the loudest ;)

Last night we spent the evening at Nick's family's house. His Mom prepared us Tater Tot Hotdish as well as Pizza Hotdish accompanied by an orange jello salad. It was deeeelish! 

After dinner we gathered together and debriefed about the week, and how we are going to take this experience home with us. We're excited to come home and tell you about what God did this week; both in our lives and in the lives of others. 

We'll be on the road later this morning and through the afternoon, so please pray for traveling mercies and a safe drive back home. 

See ya soon!

(Attached is a group selfie with "Mongo" the moose at the Lowery's house)