Nashville Pictures have been posted!

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for so faithfully praying for our students and leaders during our time in Nashville. It was a joy to serve Jesus along with our students. God did some amazing things and we were privileged to make some amazing memories along the way. Pictures have been posted on the HCC Student Ministries Page. For those of you who do not have a facebook account you can follow the links below and take a peek at some of the pictures. Feel free to ask our students questions on anything you see or places we went. They would LOVE to share with you what God did!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152395504986098.1073741842.392192771097&type=1&l=4801760217

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152395545221098.1073741843.392192771097&type=1&l=22c0414fa9

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152395579746098.1073741844.392192771097&type=1&l=676a1b6b4b

Encouragement from Pastor Tom

We have received some encouragement from our HCC Adult Ministries Pastor, Tom Dabasinskas. Read below and we pray that as our students continue to process and adjust to being home that they are still in tune to what God is wanting to teach them.

What’s next? Nashville can be the beginning of a life changing faith adventure with God. As you probably discovered in Nashville, serving others can be stretching and exhausting. It can also be a life shaping time for you and the people you serve. How did you see God working in those ways? What does it look like for you to continually take steps of faith now that you are home? Stepping out of your comfort zone can lead you right into the zone where God does some of his best work. How does God want to continue to do this good work in and through your life?

I encourage you to take time to think through these questions and find someone with whom you can share your answers. It is so important to have people who know you and can prayerfully support you as you take these steps of faith. Let me know what God is putting on your heart to do next and I will be one of those people who prays for you. I look forward to seeing what God has for you next!

Thank you for continuing to pray for our students and leaders as they all adjust back to 'normal' life with school, homework, work and family obligations.

 

Pictures have been posted

Friends and Family,

Thank you for following our journey preparing for Nashville and then serving in Nashville.  A lot of pictures have been posted on our Highlands Student Ministries page on Facebook. Please take a few minutes to browse the pictures and remember all that God did. Students, please feel free to tag people and add any commentary explaining pictures.


https://www.facebook.com/HCCStudentMinistries

We are Home!!

After a full morning of church at Station Hill (another Brentwood campus); then another service at the main Brentwood campus, our team headed to one final southern meal at cracker barrel. It was fun to begin the trip there and then end the trip there. We enjoyed every taste of sweet tea and cocoa cola dessert we could, packed up, got more gas in the vehicles and then headed to the airport.

Thank you to all the friends and family that greeted our students at baggage claim with balloons, noise makers and posters. We LOVED the chance for you to thoroughly embarrass your students. Way to go! :)

As we adjust to being back home, please do keep watching the blog for a few more updates on life back in Renton, some more pictures probably and hopefully more. Thank you for so faithfully lifting us to the Lord in prayer. We could not have done this without the strong group of men and women supporting us from back home!

Saturday Evening Update

This morning after a much-needed sleep in day, we surprised our students with a fun outing to go zipping! We had asked the parents before we left to sign wavers and keep a secret from their students. They did a great job and our students had no idea. They all did an amazing job and went full force at it...even working through some fears! Way to go students! After our afternoon adventure we sent them downtown to do some shopping and enjoy dinner. This evening we spent some time debriefing our day and our week. Talking about our comfort zones and what God asked us to do in faith this week. It was fun for us as leaders to hear some of the powerful things God did in the lives of our students. We look forward to sharing those when we return.

Tomorrow morning we will go to church at Station Hill - another site church from Brentwood, and then the second service at the main campus of Brentwood. We will make one last stop at Cracker Barrel and then it is time to head to the airport. It is so hard to believe that the week is almost over!! We are excited to be reunited with our families tomorrow - please pray for our day of traveling and for a healthy and smooth transition home for all!

Friday Evening Update

This morning our groups split up and each group went to a different location. Some went to work with the Siloam Clinic - giving teddy bears to the clinic for refugees who come into the building. They also spent some time praying for the clinic. Another group worked with a mobile dental clinic - a ministry of Brentwood. And finally, a group went to the Nashville Rescue Mission to help sort clothes and personal hygiene items. 

After working through the morning, we had lunch and then spent the afternoon touring the Country Music Hall of Fame. Our students enjoyed wearing 'regular clothes' after wearing work pants and our Ave South shirts after a full week. We even were able to meet with a song writer and made our own Nashville Mission trip song. We look forward to sharing it with you all! 

We had a delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant with enchilada's and make-your-own fajitas. We spent some time praying over Amy and Aaron and their family and the ministry of Avenue South. The students are settling into our hotel for the evening. Getting some energy out in the pool and planning on sleeping in tomorrow finally. 

Tomorrow holds a surprise adventure for our students, some team bonding and more play as we begin to transition from full days of service to more relaxed site seeing things. Looking forward to seeing our friends and family again soon!!

Student Story: Jackie Hazlett

Today we visited the Siloam clinic in Nashville. It was truly an amazing place. They started out with two apartment rooms and a mission inspired by John 9, "...And Jesus said to the blind man...Go into the pool of Siloam." Their goal was to reach out medically to the people who had no other choice. Their facility now is a huge blessing to so many. They reach out to the uninsured with their staff of fifteen and over 300 volunteers. It's not just a place to get your average care from a doctor, though. They have behavioral counselors, mental counselors and a spiritual team to truly reach the root of the problem. This facility also reaches out to refugees. Roughly 40 come in on Mondays to receive help. None of this is free though, but still obtainable. They have a scaler system based on the income of the patient that ranges from $7-60. This gives honor to the patients, that way they feel that they have earned what they receive. Siloam has become a place of hope to so many. We went there to bless them with books and stuffed animals for the younger children, and found ourselves on a prayer walk over the whole building. They blessed us too, teaching us so much about how we can reach out and love others.

Student Story: Noah Bilti

This past week, we have been staying at "host homes," where a group of students spend the night. My group, led by Derek and Sam, stayed at Aaron Bryant, a pastor at Brentwood, and his families' home. Aaron and his wife have two boys and one girl, Silas, Isaiah, and Ellis-Joy. In the first night, we had to shop for the week, breakfast and sometimes lunch, but Amy Bryant made us breakfast nearly everyday. This came as a surprise to me, I didn't think that the family would be willing to make us breakfast, even after we have been occupying their "Den" for the past nights. At first it seems to be just Tennessean hospitality, but I realized that these families really care about us, and love us enough to make us breakfast. I am really happy that these families received a calling from God, and I hope that I can return the favor by appreciating them and thanking them as much as possible.

Thursday Evening Update

This afternoon a group of students went to work at Set Free Church - putting in new ceiling tiles to replace some holes in their ceiling damaged due to water. The other group stayed at Ave South and continued working on clearing the brush - this time working on the area that is the Greek restaurants property. We also had a group of students form a large assembly line and put together gift baskets for the teachers at Carter Lawrence Elementary School.

Our group also spent an hour praying through the building. Construction is beginning this week so we had the students go around and write their prayers and Scripture onto the walls and floor. It was awesome to walk around and see the prayers our students were praying - for unity, families, children and so forth. Our students have a passion to follow Jesus and it was awesome to see some of their heart felt prayers written out, that we know will be a blessing to Aaron and the Ave South church. 

This is our last night in our Host Homes, so our students are packing up to head out tomorrow. It is unbelievable that this trip is nearly over. Tomorrow morning we will do some more serving then will transition into preparing to adjust back to our routine. Lots of exciting things still ahead for our students. Thank you for so faithfully praying!!

Thursday Morning Update

Our students are writing letters to put into gift baskets we are putting together for the teachers and faculty at Carter Lawrence Elementary School. The students wrote personal handwritten letters reminding the teachers that they are making a difference in the children's lives.

We are headed out now to the Ave South location to put together the gift baskets. We have lotions, notecards, candy, candles, etc to bless the teachers. Our students will be delivering these gift bags before we are finished with our week. This afternoon we will also be working on more yard work at the site and another group will be headed back to Set Free to help them with some roof repairs. 

Tonight we are looking forward to a Greek dinner from the restaurant next door to Ave South. It has been neat to see relationships form between Ave South and this restaurant owner. They are blessing our group with a dinner and are very excited that a church is coming into the neighborhood. They even mentioned that they are looking forward to worshiping there on Easter Sunday. Pretty cool to see our student's making a difference in this community.