Happy New Year!

Hope your Christmas last week was great! We had a lot of fun on Christmas Eve with the service. The kids put on a play (here are Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) and we sang songs, were challenged by Ed, and hung out while drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies. Nikki checked that she had committed her life to Jesus for the first time, so pray that we would have a good conversation about that soon!

Carmen is a faithful helper in the nursery monthly. She loves children and uses the gifts that God has given her to serve the church joyfully. Her family is here for Christmas break from Reading, PA, New York, and the Dominican Republic. She has a big heart for her family to know God, so please pray that God would use this trip especially to Himself to them.

It is so wonderful to watch the changes that God is making in Cheryl's life already since she decided to follow Jesus last week. Please pray for His love and truth to go down deep and penetrate her heart and that her walk would Him would mature everyday.

Mike and Darcy are wonderful friends of ours who serve the church here with us. They invited us over to their house for Christmas and it was so fun to spend the day with them. Pray for those of us who don't have family around or older adults to disciple us. It's hard and very lonely sometimes. Pray that God would answer this prayer and bring someone to us, but that we would also find our satisfaction and encouragement from Him first.

This will be the last time I write as the Urban Hope Staff Missionary. This is my last week of working in the office. I will miss helping the church in this way, but I'm excited to be home instead with our baby and more available for foster children. I hope you have enjoyed hearing some updates of what God is doing in our church!

Merry Christmas!

Last Sunday morning, despite all of the snow that came down on Saturday (22 inches!), we had a great time at Celebration. There was a Kingdom Kids choir, a group of teens and helpers rapping the books of the Bible, people doing special music, Ed playing the piano, and an amazing message of Jesus. I'm so thankful and proud to be a part of Urban Hope Community Church!
Jess and Pete help with Kingdom Kids and the youth group and live just a few blocks from the church. God used them big time this week to help provide Christmas presents for a family without any this Christmas. It's amazing to see people being so generous with what God has given them.

These guys are some of our leaders and core teens. What an honor it is to be a part of the body of Christ with them.

Here's some of Mary, Melissa, and April's kids. They are so precious! Melissa decided to follow Jesus last Sunday, so we are praising God for a new sister. Cheryl, another friend and lady from our church, decided to follow Jesus this past Sunday, too. Praise Him! Thank you to those of you from other churches who provided Christmas presents again this year for these kids. I'm sure God has used that to encourge them and draw them closer to Him!

April has been living for God and praising him for everything! Derrick has not had a seizure for over four weeks and doesn't have to have surgery. God is good! She cooked lunch for everyone after Celebration two weeks ago (50+ people) because she was feeling so thankful for God's goodness and just wanted to bless other people because of it. Who does that???!! We've been having fun making healthy food together because she wants to feed her children better food.

Carmen lives across the street from the church and her grandson Jose came to Celebration with her on Sunday. Carmen decided to follow Jesus a few months ago and has been coming to our house church some. She works often on Sundays, but pray that she will really get connected and serve God with her whole life along with us.

Have a merry Christmas from Urban Hope!

This is the last Sunday for Kingdom Kids for the year. It's crazy to think that it's almost the end of the year already. Please pray that lots of kids would come and hear the truth! It's been a great semester so far. The PBU students who help every week--led by Neil--have been in charge of the Bible lessons every week. They have done a fabulous job!!! The theme of the semester has been that we live in a broken world and there is a rescuer coming to fix it. Last week we met the rescuer--a tiny baby who is God and man. This week that rescuer will be grown up and will die for the sins of the world. What a powerful message--the only message that can change lives! The PBU students head home for Christmas break and then we will begin Kingdom Kids again at the end of January. Please pray that those of us who live here would keep the relationships strong with the kids even during the break.
Cornerstone is going well on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. There are at least ten kids that come consistantly. The theme this week is cooperation and the Bible lesson on Tuesday was about the first churches in Acts. Wow, I want our church to be like those churches. Pray that us and the kids would really get that. The kids are practicing for a play that they will put on for the Christmas Eve service. It would be great to see lots of parents come to see their kids perform.
Wednesday night youth group is now called Crossover I have just been informed. It sounds like the high school group has a solid group of students, but there are only about four junior highers who have been coming. It's awesome that there are actually more leaders than kids so everyone gets a lot of attention, but we would love to see this group grow. There's been some great Bible teaching about the resurrection and the power of Jesus over death.
In Celebration, we have been learning about some of the people in the Bible who God used in big ways for His glory. It's crazy that these people were just ordinary people like us who said yes to God working in their lives. On December 20, we will have a kids choir composed of kids from Kingdom Kids singing some Christmas songs. This is another great way to get to know some parents who will hopefully come see their kids sing. Pray that God is working big time in the hearts of these kids!

Thanksgiving Meals

Thanks so much to those of you who donated money for Thanksgiving meals for our neighbors this year. We had a great time delivering them as a church family last Tuesday afternoon and evening. Brent did a great job organizing things this year. We delivered 225 meals to families in our neighborhood. They were so appreciative of getting all of that food for only $5. In the picture above, Ed was the driver of the delivery van for Water Street. He did a great job circling while we hopped out with the turkeys and bags of groceries to deliever on each block. It's hard doing this on a one-way street with no parking spots! The two guys in the picture were helping deliver meals as well and Shalia, my next door neighbor, helped for about 4 hours on Water Street. She was so tired when I walked her back home!
April was one of the workers who was able to be paid with the money that we charge for the meals. She did an awesome job overseeing everything and making sure we stayed organized. Here she is marking off people's names as meals were delivered to their homes.

Here's Nathan and David, two other teen guys who helped out. Nikki was another one of the paid workers and helped us out a lot with delievering meals on Water Street. She has been bringing her six kids to Celebration on Sundays for a couple of months now. She asked me last week if my husband and I could start doing a Bible study with her, her husband, and kids in their home. We're going to do it this Friday night for the first time. We'll be watching some of the Hope video, which goes through the whole story of the Bible, and getting to share lots of exciting truth with them. Please pray for wisdom for us and soft hearts that say yes to Him. And of course, Shalia jumped in this picture, too. :)