I never thought about how intense these five weeks are until now. Thanksgiving is self explanatory•Christmas is filled with emotion for me•New Years is a reflection of a year gone by and a vision of hope for the future•

Thank Christ for New.

My mind and heart are filled with Thanksgiving for what Christ has done for me and the Newness He gives me everyday not just once a year.

I realize the tradition of Thanksgiving is a celebration of the wonderful country, America that I live in. I am very thankful for the freedoms I have by just living in this country, but my Thanksgiving is geared more to my appreciation for what Christ has done for me and everyone else who believes in His unconditional love.

Christmas, when I allow myself the time to sit and think about what we are actually celebrating it it quite sobering.
A baby sent to die...for me.

What? A precious newborn born to die for the sins of man. If we actually saw and held that new baby in our arms, looked into His eyes, kissed His rosy cheeks and nestled our face against His...how would our life be different? Knowing that He would die a painful, bloody death for me? For us? For the world? A mother, a father, a Heavenly Father giving up their precious Son for me? Sometimes it is just overwhelming to even think about.

Reflecting on the past year I can hardly believe the amount of answered prayers I have experienced. To spite my sinfulness, God has chosen to bless me beyond measure. As I have mentioned before I can't really share the extend of my answered prayers because of the involvement of other people, but what I can say is, very specific prayers have been answered for me. Relationships have been healed, relationships have been nurtured, relationships have grown to a new level and new relationships in Christ have been created. Every need has been met and many wants have been fulfilled and life long prayers involving my children have come to fruition. God has opened my eyes to His abilities, His creativity and His plan. It's amazing how different I view life, when I remember that God is in charge and He will be with me through life no matter what. It makes it easier to live life when I know that in the end no matter what happens I get to spend eternity with the Creator of the universe, and that He loves me and gives me a New beginning when ever I need it.

One of the amazing things about God is that He has the ability to love, take care of and answer the prayers of every single person in the world. Calling on the Name of the Lord involves our heart, God judges us on the motives of our heart, if our motives are to please Him and love others God is faithful to answer our prayers. We have to be looking and ready to accept the answers God has given us and work with in the guidelines He has laid out for us in the Bible. When we do that He is ready and willing to give us the desires of our heart. The desires of my heart in the past year was to love others with the help of God, and in doing so I have experienced an unfathomable amount of love myself. A love that I know comes directly from God Himself.

Just a glimpse of some of the people I have had the privilege of spending time with this year.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Facebook or No Facebook, this is the question.

So many people I know have been taking a Facebook vacation. I have heard recently of a pastor who wants everyone to delete his or her facebook accounts due to the amount of gossiping and inappropriateness that is on facebook. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the subject.


Facebook is a place to keep up with friends and family, share pictures, express yourself, share events, and basically get information out to as many people as you want to. Can facebook be used for evil and inappropriate things, of course? Facebook itself is not evil though; it’s the people that use it for inappropriate things that are evil. Similar to the Internet, is it evil? Evil no, but people use it for evil. TV? Cell phones? Cars? Money? Cameras? Ok, I think you get my point.

Everything created has the potential to be used for evil. Why? Because humans are basically evil, and it’s people that turn these cool inventions into evil. Last I checked an automobile did not randomly run itself into a family and kill them. I’ve never seen $20 bills pick themselves up and buy crack or pay for a prostitute. I’ve never seen a cell phone dial itself up and send out inappropriate pictures to someone. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, is a quote that I really like and it’s true for many things. Facebook doesn’t gossip about people, people gossip about people.


I have an idea for people that think Facebook is evil, use it for something good. Be that person that uses their facebook for encouraging others, sharing pictures and other respectable things.

What man intends for evil, God uses for good.

Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder

God and His creativity strikes again. Only a loving and creative God could mix music, food, a gifted teacher, wrestling, the Bible, a midnight run to Meijer, dancing and water to get a large group of happy broken people who want to live their life for Jesus Christ together in one place.

He’s so amazingly fun.

“Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder”, is a quote I haven’t given much thought to until this moment. To me seeing a newborn baby being born is one of the most beautiful things that anyone could ever experience, my husband on the other hand who has seen five live births up close and personal thinks quite the opposite. But any opportunity that he gets to be in an airplane, he thinks is a beautiful thing, me the only time I want to be near an airplane is if I am flying somewhere warm. What we see as beautiful is a personal preference, no one can tell us whether or not what we think is beautiful is right or wrong, we put our own life experiences and our tastes into the making of this decision. So yes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Telling someone that an adolescent teenager of either gender is a beautiful thing could definitely be up for discussion, unless of course you know the teenagers that I know. Young men and women that live beautiful and broken lives, due to their own choices or the choices of others, these are teenagers of extreme depth. They deal with loneliness, depression, eating disorders, unreliable adults, peer issues, control issues, anger, abuse and the list goes on. But what do they choose to do, to spend their time hearing from God? These students (for the most part) chose to attend a weekend where they knew the Bible was going to be taught and they would be hearing from God, that is a beautiful thing, especially “in the eyes of the Beholder”. Even a few that didn’t want to be there ended up hearing from God, and their lives are forever changed.

Sitting and listening to a very gifted communicator isn’t typically on the priority list of a teenager, but this weekend these students sat and attentively listened to someone use the life of David as a spring board for teaching Biblical truths, being taught in a way that even a teenager with an attention span of 20 seconds was able to sit, listen and learn.

Being a part of the student ministry has been so eye opening for me. People are shaped and molded into the adults they will become by their childhood and adolescent experiences. (The “nurture vs. nature” debate continues, I am a strong “nurture” supporter and I love to talk about it!!!) Spending time with high school students has shown me how important it is to “nurture” their hearts. Deep down inside of those crazy, impulsive, self-conscience hearts there is a soft, yearning to learn, loving heart that is often buried by life’s circumstances. When you can prove to a teenager that you have their best interest in mind some of those layers of protection they have placed on themselves begin to fall away. When the layers of protection begin to disappear and the heart is slowly exposed and begins to trust, this is the beginning of a heart shaped for and by God. A heart too protected is a heart protected not only from humans but also from God. When that heart begins to poke it’s way out from the walls of protection, it begins to see that God is real, when these wonderful developing creatures begin to see God working in their lives, they want to learn and experience more. During this time of growing and maturing in their abilities to trust God they learn that it’s not always easy, fun, and pain free, but no matter what their circumstance God will see them through and will give them the people, the power, and ability to see Light even on the darkest day.

“Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder”, the beauties are the students I know and love. The Beholder is our wonderful Creator, the “holder” of our hearts, the source of who we are, all we do, all we give and all we desire.

"I am so unworthy, but still He loves me" enough to allow me to be a small part of the changing lives of some sweet teenagers.

Why I am going PINK for the month of OCTOBER

It's been 23 years since my mom died of breast cancer. She only lived for 11 months after she was diagnosed. If you've read my "Mother's Day" blog you know that she was only 44 years old. Too young to die. When I think of what she must have gone through the last few months of her life, it's quite sobering. Saying good bye to her kids, her husband, her friends, wow, she always seemed so composed.
My mom had the
"peace that passes all understanding".

I have never gone "PINK" before this is the first year that I feel compelled to spread "PINK". A simple reminder that there are women that are leaving their loves behind because of breast cancer. If going "PINK" puts a reminder in one women's mind to get a mammogram, encourages one person to give a donation to the Breast Cancer Research Fund or encourages someone to do the "Three Day Walk"....then going "PINK" for a month is the least I can do.

The women in our lives are very important...let's do all we can to make sure they are with us for a long, long time.

Patricia Joyce Wilkinson Shelton:
daughter, sister, wife, mother of 4, friend to many,
follower of Jesus Christ.

The Broken-Healed Heart

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

The heart is a fragile organ, it's soft, it's warm and it's easily broken, with one thoughtless move the flow of blood to the heart can be stopped forever. No wonder we refer to our emotional state as the "heart" of the matter. Our emotional state of mind is fragile, soft, warm and easily broken, and with one thoughtless move it can be stopped or damaged forever.

If we considered how our words and actions can stop the "heart" of a person, we might choose our words and actions more carefully. One thoughtless word, one careless action or one neglectful moment can stop that fragile, soft, warm "heart" from beating. The pain is real, the ache is indescribable.

Our broken heart can only be brought back to life by the creator of it. God. Only God can mend the broken heart, and He wants to mend it. He wants us to be whole, to have a soft, warm, and tender heart. A heart that is softened by love, love for people, all people the precious people that God puts in our path. Before the beginning of time God knew who we would affect and who would affect us. He also knew which of those people would stop, break or damage our "heart" but He made a way to put our heart back together. Each time we allow God to put our heart back together He adds a little something, He adds His power, the power we need to move forward, start over, create new, love more, forgive, restore and to give just a little more of that "broken-healed" heart to someone else. God makes our "broken-healed" heart bigger in order for us to give more of it away. When we give our "broken-healed" heart away, we give a little of ourselves but we also give a piece of the understanding we have of who our Lord and Savior is.

It's a beating heart slowed down by hurt, then we let God put it back together and when He does He always gives us a little extra to give to someone else. God's love always means more when it is given through the love of another person, there is a special bond between people that share in the Power that heals a broken heart.

Burning the Koran

I have something to say about this…typically I don’t comment on current affairs or the news I find them to be depressing and believe whole-heartedly that God is in control. And unless I am planning on taking a political stand of high exposure that might actually change the world I would much rather talk about something that actually matters in my circles of influence. But I do have something to say about this person’s approach.

If someone is going to call him or herself a Christian, a follower or an imitator of Christ they need to get familiar with what the Word of God says, the Bible is God’s words, and a manual (sorta speak) and instructions for us to live by. For anyone that has studied the Bible and is aware that Christ is God’s son, and the whole New Testament especially is our guide to live by.

It is stated CLEARLY, in the Bible that we are to love our enemies. If we are to love our enemy that means we are to love everyone, you are either friend or foe.

Matthew 5:43-44 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy, But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute yo

Luke 6:27 "But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

These verses are just a beginning to what God has to say about loving your enemy. I can’t find anywhere is the Bible that God tells us to take revenge or be hateful to anyone, but I do see this is scripture.

Romans 12:19 “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.”

So here is a message for the originator of this non-Christian, un-Godly idea, “READ your BIBLE or Don’t Call YOURSELF a CHRISTIAN” and for any of my friends that think that this is acceptable, READ YOUR BIBLE.

Just some off the top of my head thoughts.

My Three Words

Faith••••Teach••••People

Faith: Faith is something I use everyday, I rely very heavily on the fact that God has me in the palm of His hand. It has taken many years, but I truly believe that God has my best interest in mind. My faith in God leads me to trust that what His word, the Bible says is true, a love letter to me, it's hard to believe that the God of the universe wrote a love letter for me to have and read anytime I want to. In the Bible I can find the answers to any life questions I have, and where faith comes in, is I can't always see with my human eyes that God is with me, but I can feel in my heart that He has a plan and purpose for me and loves me just the way I am.

{God will not push His way into my life...I have to want Him to be a part of my life.}

Teach: I love to teach. I also love to study. I study...then I teach. It's fun to see if what I teach sticks, whether it's the babies at work, my own kids, a Bible study or my small group!

{There isn't anything more fulfilling than studying, teaching and watching.}

People: I really enjoy people, big people, little people and medium sized people. I spend my work day with toddling people, I spend my family time with big boys, little boys, and a variety of girls. I spend my free time with high school people and girlfriend people. Although, I do enjoy alone time~I am happiest when I am with people. I have made an attempt, (an attempt) to love people, based solely on the fact that God commanded me to.

{If God loved me so much that He gave His one and only son to die as a sacrifice for my sins, the least I can do is love people.}

I am learning to love all people, not just the people I consider acceptable or easy to get along with but everyone I meet. I do believe that each person I come in contact with is an opportunity that God has set up for me. I am not always successful at loving everyone I meet, it's a process. I'm a work in process!!

A Youth Leader?

“A student ministry, high school leader?” That's what I said when Jerry Hines, pastor of Woodside Student Ministries, first asked me to help out in his ministry four years ago. I had teenagers of my own, why would I want to spend my free time with more teenagers? I told him I would help out until he built up his team of leaders. Well, here I am. After numerous retreats, small group "get togethers", Project Radiates and hundreds of hours on buses, I can't imagine my life without the high school students of Woodside Bible Church.
As a parent and a high school leader I think I have an interesting perspective. Teenagers seem to get a bad rap in our society. They are considered selfish, impulsive, lazy, and rebellious and yes, some can be. Spending what could seem like endless hours with WSM students I am confident that teenagers can be selfless,caring, cautious, hardworking and surprisingly pliable. The students I have spent time with want to do what is right in the eyes of God and their parents. Do they always do the right thing, no, but who does?

The students of Woodside are a good representation of their schools and our neighborhoods. There are teens that take drugs, have been abused, have parents who are divorced or divorcing, are having sex, are failing school and have very little hope in their future. I have spoken to teens that have been in all of these situations and it's heart breaking. The difference between WSM students and the average teenager is Jesus Christ. When students begin to study God’s word and realize what Christ has done for them they gain the confidence they need to start making better choices. I have personally watched a teenage girl go from obnoxious and depressed to cheerful and respectful, because of her realization that Christ cared for her and that there are people on this earth that love and cared for her other than her parents. I've talked to a teenage boy that had so much hatred for the bullies at his school, that he wanted to kill them. After talking to him about making Godly choices and the hard choice to love his enemies, I witnessed the weight of the world being lifted and his attitude changed. He realized that God could help him love his enemies.

The point of this information is to encourage parents. Parents of young children, work diligently at keeping your kids in church. Instead of offering it as a choice, make it a regular and consistent priority in the life of your family. Hebrews 10:25 says: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” This applies to children as well as adults. When kids are in a church that meets their age appropriate needs, they will be far less likely to stop attending as they grow. A church that meets age appropriate needs becomes a church that also teaches age appropriate obedience, service to others, worship, humility and other important Biblical principles. I am not saying that keeping kids, especially teens, in church is easy but I do think that it makes a difference in the choices that they make. Proverbs 22:6 says: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

Hope Community Church: East Detroit.

The beauty of living a life for God is that there is never a dull moment. Strangely enough followers of Christ have had a reputation for being boring, stuffy, mundane and dull and I do know a few people like that. But the God I serve has chosen to surround me with people that are fun, loving, creative and crazy in love with the children of God. Where was this proven: on the last week of Kids Camp for the "Hope Community" kids.

On Tuesday of "Citiweek" WSM students took over Kid's Camp for "Hope Community", they wrote skits, learned and sung songs, studied God's word, came up with crafts and loved on kids they had never met. All of this plus more to show God's love to people that may not know love.

On Wednesday of Citiweek we took 40 "Hope" kids, 10 staff and 16 Woodsiders to the Detroit Zoo. I have to admit the details were a little distracting for me, transportation, food, weather, budget and safety all were on my mind the weeks before our trip to Detroit. Then as if I was being spoken to directly by God this verse came to me....

Proverbs 16:3 "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

So I did just that, a few days before we left for Citiweek I sat at a picnic table at a park looking over and praying through the details of our upcoming trip. I prayed for each of the students in my group and committed each detail to God, even the silliest detail which I think was how I was going to get 50 "Happy Meals" from McDonald's to the zoo. Well, I can say with confidence that every single detail worked out perfectly, every student was wonderful, there was never a complaint or a bad attitude and each detail I had on a list was crossed off, not by me but by my detail driven God. The God of the universe, busy I'm sure, still took care of the details on a list that I wrote, right down to the silliest detail of getting 50 Happy Meals from McDonald's to the Zoo. Other precious lovers of God were used to help with these details, people that love the Lord so much that they would volunteer to spend hours right in the middle of their day to serve God by serving the people of Detroit. Amy for instance, who had just returned from vacation the day before drove from Oakland Twp. to Royal Oak volunteered to pick up 50 Happy Meals. Who would do that? Marlene and Sue volunteered to drive our students from Warren to Royal Oak so I could use the bus to pick up the "Hope" kids, and picked them up at the end of the day to.

Who would do that? Selfless lovers of God.

While at the zoo each WSM student was responsible for a couple of "Hope" kids, they took them to see the animals, carried them, talked to them, ate lunch with them, took pictures of them and it was nearly 90 degrees & raining for part of the day. Again, not one word of complaining and actually just the opposite, the WSM students amazed me at how kind and loving they were.

Emily, especially had her hands full she had 10 middle school students in her group. I decided to follow her group just as a back up, she didn't really need me, she did a wonderful job leading, playing, racing, and loving each of the kids in her group, all ten. Even at the end of the day when one of the girls was dragging her feet and was way behind the rest of the group Emily told her to hop on her back and she gave her a "piggy back" ride to catch up with the rest of the group.

Why would anyone do this? Well, from what I can see...because the love of Jesus pours out of the hearts of many people I know.

On Thursday the official last day of Kids Camp for "Hope Community" the WSM students took over again. This was kind of a surprise for us, we had been told we were going off site, but we stayed at the church and again pulled together with a skit, songs, and water play like none other. All of the kids walked a few houses down to a lot where we set up an industrial "slip and slide" which was loaned to us free of charge by another lover of God, and it was a huge hit. "Slip and Slide", water balloons, sidewalk chalk and squirt guns made for a fabulous end of summer party.

Why do the followers of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit have a reputation for being boring?

Freedom in Christ can be clearly witnessed watching kids...we have freedom to do what we want to and all we have to do is to implement the simple standards God has set for us. I have never read in scripture where it says we can't jump, dance, laugh or throw a water balloon.

Psalm 126:2 "Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, The LORD has done great things for them."

The love of Jesus was shared with the kids of Detroit during Citiweek.

Blessing's Door

Is it possible that God is blessing me beyond anything I have ever expected? YES. Just when God closes one door, (one I have been trying to go through for years)....HE opens different doors in the most unexpected beautiful places.

If we could see what God sees...we would see that HE has beautiful things planned for us. The key is...we have to be looking, listening and ready for God's plan to be revealed. We do this through obedience to HIM, even when we would rather live for ourself.

Citiweek 2010

Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen REMARKABLE things today." Luke 5:26

Wow… being back from Citiweek: 2010 for 24 hours now...it almost seems like it was all just a dream.

There were so many REMARKABLE situations; I would love to write about each experience in order to share the excitement with everyone I know, as well as to have in writing the details so I will never forget. I chose the word remarkable because “awesome” is over used; “wonderful” seems too light and “crazy good” is just not strong enough to describe the past six days I spent with 122 High school students and leaders from Woodside Bible Church in the city of Detroit.

{Someone has a dream, a thought, a conviction, one person alone typically can not make a dream come true, a thought become reality or a conviction become a blessing}

Is it possible that God can use me to help HIM? He has allowed me to be an instrument in HIS orchestra [a large group of musicians, whose members play a variety of different instruments] An orchestra is made up of many different instruments that make beautiful music. Yes, the instruments can play alone and sound okay, but when they are put together the music is much more powerful. This is how I see my experience last week in Detroit.

{Powerful:Remarkable:God Ordained}

God is the composer of the “music”, our pastors are the conductors, and the leaders are the principal players {the lead player of each orchestral section who is required to guide the section} The students are the section players {members of each section}. If we stretched this word picture to include a performance we would add to the cast of characters, ticket takers, concessions, custodians ect...each on our own makes a noise but together we make a memorable moment in time. God’s orchestra performed and it was amazing.

I will be posting some individual stories of how God's purpose was fulfilled in the days we spent showing love and giving hope to Detroit.

More About Detroit!

Who in their right mind would take 100 suburban high school students to Detroit? What kind of high school student would want to take a week of their Summer vacation to go to Detroit? How many high school students do you know that would go into a stranger’s home and clean their basement that was littered with animal feces, dead mice, broken furniture, thick cob webs hanging everywhere and to top it off the basement flooded with all of these things on the floor? Let me answer these questions for you.

The STUDENTS of Woodside Bible Church and their “not always” fearless leaders, that sing this line from a song called “Our God” by Chris Tomlin, “If our God is for us who could ever stop us?” with passion. The most selfless, hardworking, non-complaining, loving, kind-hearted, gentle and faithful teenagers attend WBC. These are the students I am privileged to know, spend time with and serve God with.

{God is so good to me}

Some of the highlights from the “D-Town Driven” team will be shared in this blog but there are many fascinating stories from the other three teams that were serving in Detroit as well.

Our team put together 50 brown handled bags filled with food, water and a sweet hand written note, our students donated all of the items. We decided that we would pass out the bags any time we saw a homeless person, and let’s just say we could have past out 50 more bags. There were many situations during the passing out of bags that were memorable, like when we saw a man in a wheel chair going down the street and two of our students hopped out of the bus and gave the man a bag, Keith, he smiled from ear to ear, like he just received a birthday gift. Then there was the man sitting on the steps of a church, two of our students jumped out and gave him a bag, and as we were driving away he was waving saying, "thank you" and asking for another one to give to his wife. Then there was "Regina" sitting on the corner and not only did our students give her a bag, they got to sit and chat with her for a few minutes. This is what is so amazing to me, teenagers that could be at home in their clean comfy homes, hanging out with their friends at a coffee shop are excited to share food, conversation and the love of God with people they have never met and will probably never see again. There is only one explanation for this kind of selflessness, Jesus. If anyone ever questions whether God is real and working miracles in the 21st century they should meet some of the high school students I know. It’s a beautiful thing to see teenagers moved by the Holy Spirit to serve, love and worship.

{It’s remarkable}

"Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it's needed Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you." Hebrews 14:1

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mso-style-locked:yes; mso-style-link:"Heading 4"; font-family:Times; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; font-weight:bold; mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Who in their right mind would take 100 suburban high school students to Detroit?<span style=""> </span>What kind of high school student would want to take a week of their Summer vacation to go to Detroit?<span style=""> </span>How many high school students do you know that would go into a stranger’s home and clean their basement that was littered with animal feces, dead mice, broken furniture, thick cob webs hanging everywhere and to top it off the basement flooded with all of these things on the floor?<span style=""> </span>Let me answer these questions for you.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The STUDENTS of Woodside Bible Church and their “not always” fearless leaders, that sing this line from a song called “Our God” by Chris Tomlin, “<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;">If our God is for us who could ever stop us</span>?” with passion. <span style=""> </span>The most selfless, hardworking, non-complaining, loving, kind-hearted, gentle and faithful teenagers attend WBC.<span style=""> </span>These are the students I am privileged to know, spend time with and serve God with.<span style=""> </span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">God is so good to me. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">Some of the highlights from the “D-Town Driven” team will be shared in this blog but there are many fascinating stories from the other three teams that were serving in Detroit as well.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style=""><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our team put together 50 brown handled bags filled with food, water and a sweet hand written note, our students donated all of the items.<span style=""> </span>We decided that we would pass out the bags any time we saw a homeless person, and let’s just say we could have past out 50 more bags.<span style=""> </span>There were many situations during the passing out of bags that were memorable, like when we saw a man in a wheel chair going down the street and two of our students hopped out of the bus and gave the man a bag, Keith, he smiled from ear to ear, like he just received a birthday gift.<span style=""> </span>Then there was the man sitting on the steps of a church, two of our students jumped out and gave him a bag, and as we were driving away he was waving saying, "thank you" and asking for another one to give to his wife.<span style=""> </span>Then there was the lady "Regina" sitting on the corner and not only did our students give her a bag, they got to sit and chat with her for a few minutes.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>This is what is so amazing to me, teenagers that could be at home in their clean comfy homes, hanging out with their friends at a coffee shop are excited to share food, conversation and the love of God with people they have never met and will probably never see again.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>There is only one explanation for this kind of selflessness, Jesus.<span style=""> </span>If anyone ever questions whether God is real and working miracles in the 21 century should meet some of the high school students I know.<span style=""> </span>It’s a beautiful thing to see teenagers moved by the Holy Spirit to serve, love and worship.<span style=""> </span>It’s remarkable.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> "Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it's needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you." Hebrews 14:1</span> </h4> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></h4> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Painting the garage, this was a hot, hot day by 11:00 AM it was at least 90 degrees and the humidity was about 90%.<span style=""> </span>Marianne, she is a “hoarder”, she had piles of junk in three different spots on her property, and every seat in her car was filled with stuff except for the driver’s seat.<span style=""> </span>She also had a collection of bracelets, rings and a key chain around her wrist that had at least 25 old keys on it.<span style=""> </span>When we asked her if she wanted us to throw away the old broken glass leaning on her garage, she was quite firm in saying, “NO, don’t throw anything away.”<span style=""> </span>Our students scrapped, sanded and painted the whole garage, cleaned up her yard, pulled weeds and made her yard look much better.<span style=""> </span>When we were leaving she told me her car wasn’t starting, so of course one of our students was excited to help her, these kids are so great.<span style=""> </span>We tried to get her car started and when it didn’t she asked for a ride to the corner repair shop, so we dropped her off and I am pretty sure if we would have had the means the kids would have taken up a collection and bought her a new car.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h4> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></span></h4> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On Wednesday night we attended a church in Detroit, the pastor was great and he said something that just made me smile, God is so cool how He puts things together for us.<span style=""> </span>The pastor made this statement, “We need to stand on the shoulders of other believers.”<span style=""> </span>Well, as you can see in the picture, the day before we heard this pastor, while painting the garage we did not have a ladder so our students used their height and strength to lift each other up on their shoulders to finish painting the high spots of the garage. <span style=""> </span>How can anyone deny that God is orchestrating the lives of believers to pull together and make beautiful things happen.<span style=""> </span><span style=""></span></span></h4><span style="font-size:78%;"> More stories to come. </span> <h4 style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></h4> <!--EndFragment-->

Painting the garage: this was a hot, hot day by 11:00 AM it was at least 90 degrees and the humidity was about 90%. Marianne, she is a “hoarder”, she had piles of junk in three different spots on her property, and every seat in her car was filled with stuff except for the driver’s seat. She also had a collection of bracelets, rings and a key chain around her wrist that had at least 25 old keys on it. When we asked her if she wanted us to throw away the old broken glass leaning on her garage, she was quite firm in saying, “NO, don’t throw anything away.” Our students scrapped, sanded and painted the whole garage, cleaned up her yard, pulled weeds and made her yard look much better. When we were leaving she told me her car wasn’t starting, so of course one of our students was excited to help her. We tried to get her car started and when it didn’t start she asked for a ride to the corner repair shop, so we dropped her off and I am pretty sure if we would have had the means the kids would have taken up a collection and bought her a new car.

{Love others as you love yourself}

On Wednesday night we attended a church in Detroit, the pastor was great and he said something that just made me smile, God is so cool how He puts things together for us. The pastor made this statement, “We need to stand on the shoulders of other believers.” Well, as you can see in the picture, the day before we heard this pastor, while painting the garage we did not have a ladder so our students used their height and strength to lift each other up on their shoulders to finish painting the high spots of the garage. How can anyone deny that God is at work orchestrating the lives of believers when you see teenagers doing an act of kindness and a pastor they don't even know mentions that exact thing they did in his message the next day.

{There is no coincidence, only a well orchestrated plan}.

More stories to come.