Servant of Christ Lutheran Church

The team arrived in Minneapolis this morning and jumped right into a service project this afternoon. We had a chance to look around the church we will be staying at in downtown Minneapolis before we headed off to our work site in St. Paul.  We are ready for a full week of ministry!!

This morning we started working with one of our ministry partners for this week, the Salvation Army in East St. Paul. We split up into groups and accomplished a variety of projects! 

Owen and Calvin were our fruit ninjas this morning and did a great job chopping up fresh fruit and veggies for the hot lunch being served for the community! 

A few of our group members were in the back pantry sorting out food and compiling boxes of food to give to families who are in need of groceries! There is a variety of food offered for families including African and Asian cuisine. 

Today was our last afternoon spent in the Loaves & Fishes garden. We accomplished so much in such a short time!! We planted mustard seeds in one of the garden beds and were reminded of Jesus' teaching on having faith as small as a mustard seed. So cool to see that illustration in real life! 

We had the chance to serve dinner at one of the Loaves and Fishes locations in inner city Minneapolis, just a few blocks from the church we are staying at. It was incredible to see how many people came to receive dinner! The site coordinator said there is an average of about 200-250 people a night, Monday-Friday that come to receive dinner. 

Our team is turning into quite the gardeners this week!! They have done so awesome with pulling weeds, planting seeds, and everything in between! 

Kylie and Michelle did an awesome job planting the seeds with care in the Coon Rapids garden site. The seeds we planted will grow into fruits and veggies that will be used for meals all over the twin cities! 

Rich, Cade, and Griffin have done a great job working in the food shelf and stocking orders at the Salvation Army. They even managed to sort all those Twix bars without eating any of them!!! 

Chef Owen and Chef Calvin did a fantastic job preparing the hot lunch served at the Salvation Army. They loved working in the kitchen!! 

This afternoon we went to Midtown Global Market in downtown Minneapolis. The youth participated in a scavenger hunt and then got to try out the various tastes and treats offered in the shops and stands. We got to eat various foods from Africa, Asia, Italy, and Central America! 

Later in the afternoon, we walked to Powdehorn Park in Minneapolis and did a prayer training together. We broke down the Lord's Prayer in matthew and discussed what each line meant. Then we paraprahsed each line in our own words to make a personal prayer for ourselves! It was cool to bring new meaning to a passage many of us are familiar with! 

Team bonding at the park! We love our leaders, Rachel and Nikki :) 

This evening we walked around the Phillips neighborhood, which is where we have been calling home this week. The church we are staying at has been in Minneapolis since the late 1800s and has seen a lot of history! It was interesting to hear one of the church staff members, Jennifer, share a lot of history and information about the Phillips neighborhood and Minneapolis in general! 

This morning we went to the Salvation Army location we have been partnering with this week. Instead of the jobs we have been doing all week, we got to spend the morning with the kids that are in the summer Day camp program! It was a blast to play games with them. We spent sometime outside before we got rained out and had to play inside, but we still had lots of fun! 

We had a great time playing games inside with the kids! The especially loved duck duck goose, beat master, and four corners! It was so fun to play and talk with the kiddos in the day camp...there were close to thirty kids here today! 

We took the whole team to Wal Mart to purchase supplies that will be used to make Blessings bags- bags full of hygiene items that we will hand out to the homeless individuals we meet tonight at the soup kitchen! Look at the length of that receipt!!!! 

We took time to write little notes of encouragement and scripture verses on cards that we will put in the bags! 

We dined on a delicious breakfast of donuts and milk this morning at the famous Glam doll donuts!! Great fuel to start our last day of ministry before heading home. 

What a great closing meeting, discussing highlights from the week and sharing how we all saw God moving! It was so fun to be able to share this time with parents and family members of the team who served in Minneapolis this week! It was such a blessing to serve with Servant of Christ this week. God is so good!!