So what exactly do we do...

As we've said, we've been living here at North Myrtle Beach, SC for the last 4 weeks with a few more to go. I thought I'd try to illustrate just a little of what we're doing here and what ministry is like during this time that we call a summer project.

We have 26 staff (a few staff kids :) and over 60 students living here. We do a variety of things with the students, but one of the primary things we do is coach students in how to have a ministry of their own. Throughout the week, the staff lead a small group of students in a Bible study, have a 1 on 1 mentoring time, we have an outreach night, a weekly meeting with music and a speaker, and a planning night for the staff and students that lead different administrative teams that help keep this project running. So everyone stays really busy.

We believe that making a decision to ask Jesus to forgive your sins and be the Lord of your life is the most important decision a person can make. This past week was our big week of talking to as many people as we can (on the beach, main street, for the students - at their day jobs) and trying to talk to them and tell them about who Jesus is, that he died for their sins, and that they can have a personal relationship with him. So on Monday night we we hosted a large block party for all the just-graduated high schoolers that are living around us (call Senior Week - these students rent out the beach houses around us in big groups and basically lay on the beach during the day and drink/party late into the night). It was fun to see how many people came - we offered some free food and had music going (provided by our mini-van :). So I got a few shots of what was going on - the students pictured are a mixture of our students and those living around us.

Here's where we had the food and music going.

The food line, people waiting for food, and conversations happening...

You can sortof see a little of what surrounds us, there's some condos across the street there, but pretty much all the housing around us is a dive. I heard one girl that had just arrived who was living in the house across from us ask her friend if her living situation was as gross and hers was... Really, the students come and just destroy these places for the week. We sometimes wake up to beer cans and plastic cups littering the street. And also, you can see our rockin' van in the picture :).

I'm so proud of our students. They've been really bold to just initiate conversations with people - not easy to do. They shared stories tonight of how the Lord had been working this week. It's always amazing to me to see how people are searching for God and ready to respond to Him when someone tells them how. It's also interesting to me to see how many people in this part of the country are well aware that Jesus existed and that He died on the cross, but they have no idea why He had to die. Why couldn't Jesus just say, "Hey, no problem, I forgive you..." Why did He have to die... We're all aware that we do wrong things, but don't always realize that all those wrong things earn us a spiritual death - not just a physical death because we all die, but a spiritual death = total separation from God or hell. But God loved us and didn't want us separated from Him; so instead of us taking the punishment for those wrong things, he made a way that He could take our punishment for us. Because Jesus came and was both God and Man, He could take not only the punishment for one person but for everyone. That's why He had to die - the debt we owed God for our wrong had to be paid - either by us or by Him. So He holds out that gift of our sin totally paid that we can take to be applied to our debt. So you can take that gift and surrender to Jesus with gratitude and as God knowing, then, that all the wrong you've done is forgiven, or you can choose to not take that gift (God won't force you - you exercise your will in chosing to accept or reject that gift) and therefore choose to pay the penalty for your own wrong and be separated from God when you die. This is why we feel this is such a crucial message to communicate to others - literally, heaven and hell hang in the balance. If you want a more full explanation of this go to www.Godlovestheworld.com . It explains this awesome message much better than I can. So that's a large part of what we're doing this summer.