Service Opportunity for your Small Group

Here is the information for a great service opportunity in downtown Denver. Jason Shelton's company, Image AV, is helping find volunteers. If you or anyone in your small group is interested, please contact us ASAP, they are putting together a final count. RKShelton@hotmail.com

Hope Center, Downtown Denver
Saturday, May 31st
Meet at 8 am downtown, and then will be bused in to the school location
lunch is provided
entertainment (live music, etc) and beverages provided afterward
Project: painting the gymnasium, etc

Thanks!

The Finished Courtyard

I had posted a couple of weeks back with the 'before pictures' of the courtyard we were renovating at the local nursing home, the Castle Rock Care Center. Here are some pictures of the event, and the beautiful result.





Thanks to all three groups (Shelton, Reid, and Engquist groups) for stepping up and doing such an amazing job of serving the Care Center. I know they are going to be blessed by it!

Young Singles Wrecking Crew!

Hey -

I'm posting for our Young Singles' Journey Group (ages 18-20s). Chad Gunderson and Bryce Engquist gave leadership to this group. They have had a great run and plan on continuing. They had as many as 10 people attend.

Their service project was helping a family in Sedalia whose husband is in the final stages of cancer. The family will soon be selling their home. They did some cleaning, painting, tore down a shed and even hauled manure! The funds from the church were used to help purchase gas and food for the family.

Way to go crew!

Gary

Skate Park -- Talking With Pete

On Monday, I went back to the skate park and passed out about 48 water bottles to around 30 people throughout the park. They were grateful for the free drinks with how warm the weather is getting. One boy, Brendan, who is often there in the afternoons, saw me coming and shouted to his friends, "Hey! It's water time!" I had a crowd of a dozen kids around me within seconds, thankful for the free cold refreshments.

I shared the Gospel message with many people on that day, including Gary, a 16 year old biker, whose face showed conviction after talking about how some people die young, and Gabe, a 16 year old hackey sack player, who said that even knowing about Jesus Christ, he would still live the same life over, even if it meant going to Hell. Pray for these kids.

The video below is a chat I had with Pete, a 25 year old Roman Catholic, who said that he had 12 friends die in the last year alone. After we were done talking, he thanked me for sharing the Gospel with him, and said that he had never heard it presented like that before.

As you watch this video, think about how your small groups are sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with people who will perish without it. I hope you are challenged by the verse at the end of the video, from Romans 10:17, which says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."

Update from our group!!

So, of course I do not have our picture on this computer to post...so, I will need to post later. The best part of our group is that we have a professional photographer in the group, but we had a six year old take our picture...so, it is a bit crooked :-) Our group is working at the Oak Creek Apartments on the 21st of June. We will help seniors with chores and kind of their 'honey do list'!! This weekend, I am using the donation money to purchase diapers and cereal for the middle school project. We will be using the remainder of the money on supplies like paint for the seniors that need touch-ups!! We have had a great time meeting each week, and we hope to continue meeting about every three weeks for some sort of bible study.
-Andra Chikova

Plum Creekers in the Creek (er)

The Heldt Group, on our 3rd attempt, successfully completed a project to impact Castle Rock. We decided to help clean up the creek that runs under the bridge on Wilcox St at 2nd St. We all showed up bright and early and after some words from the organizers, we were off. While it might not have been the most noblest of projects, I think if the creek could talk, it would say, "gurgle, gurlge, swoosh" which as we all know means thank you. It was a great first step for our group to get out together. The kids had a blast and so did the rest of us.

All gloved up and ready to go

By the end, Erik and Brent were just standing in the creek. Now that's commitment!

The Joyful Journey Group

Well, better late then never. We are such slackers! Our group consists of Dave, Cathy, Dan, Amy, Linette and Peggy. We are called "Joyful" because when we get together we laugh a lot. Yes, we do the lesson also but we do have fun.

God has done tremendous things in our group. We each have grown as individuals and have grown closer as a group.

For our group project, we took the Task Force Thrift Shop by storm! We organized so fast and efficiently that they were having a hard time creating jobs for us to do. What a great feeling to have helped them.

Skate Park YouTube Video

Plum Creekers:

Here is a short video from the Janssen / Skate Park small group. This was filmed a couple of weeks ago by Christian Pruett when he checked out the park to see how to reach out to the kids. On that day, there were about 48 water bottles given out to around 30 kids around the park. Most of stayed around to listen to the Gospel being preached, and many had questions about our faith!

Please let us know what you think!

The Janssen / Skate Park Small Group

Greetings Fellow Plum Creekers!

Our service project is going to be a summer-long goal in reaching out to the kids in our community at the Castle Rock Skate Park. We will be using our funds to purchase bottled water and food during these warm months to give out to the kids who come by the park on the weekends, while sharing the Gospel message with them. Many of these kids have no adult influences in their lives, are addicted to drugs, and have never heard of Jesus Christ. They need our love and our Savior desperately.

We're hoping that we can arrange for things like our church band to come play sometimes, give away other freebies, and would love for anyone else to help join us along the way. We'll be posting some videos of how we're reaching out to the kids here soon.

The Janssen / Skate Park Small Group; Adults, Left to Right: Lavern and Mike Farina, Pat and Katie Janssen, Christian Pruett, Joe and Beth Alvarez, and Denise Pruett.

The Sundeen Group

We began our community service last Sunday by putting together care packages for the Perez family, who lost their Founders Village home to a fire on April 21st. The packages consisted of a basket full of things such as blankets and stuffed animals, and a box containing gift cards and cash. In addition to the money from the church, we received donations from our group and friends which together totaled almost $800. Our kids also got involved by gathering information about the family after the fire, and Shawn and Dee Lincoln's girls went around their neighborhood and collected an additional $600! The full (almost) $1400 went to the Perez family to help with life's necessities, as they lost just about everything in the fire.

Our next project is this Sunday as we are helping clean up a basement and get it ready for a Youth Group to meet in Strasburg. The house is the new home of Michelle Sokol's brother, who is the new Youth Pastor in Strasburg.

What a blessing it has been growing our relationships with God and with each other! We are looking forward to continuing group studies together after the "40 Days" is over. It has been so exciting to see the love of God working among us week after week! God has shown us how truly amazing He is!

The Sundeen Group; Front row: Brandon and Michelle Sokol, Dee and Shawn Lincoln. Middle row: Lisa Beaubouef, Deanne Head, Jill Copeland, Tammy Sundeen. Back row: Brett Beaubouef, Steve Head, Shawn Copeland, Dan Sundeen.