Goodness and Joy

Wow. Time is flying so fast! I can't believe we just finished week 4 and only have 5 left! As I sit here in a REAL bed after taking a REAL shower brought with the visit of my wonderful Dad, I can't help thinking about the past weeks and get even more excited for the weeks to come. God has stretched me and pulled me and loved me and moved me in more ways than ever before and I am realizing how I could not be more grateful for his sovereignty and grace!

Kids Club Highlights:

• During week 3,there was a youth from Minneapolis who prayed with one of the kids, Miles at the Boys and Girls Club. Now, this is the site where we arent supposed to talk about Jesus so I was super surprised when I heard this story. As Miles was playing with the youth they began to talk about church which naturally lead to Jesus. There was conversation back and forth and eventually the youth asked Miles if he could pray with him. They were able to pray together and Miles accepted Jesus into his heart that day! How encouraging and wonderful to see God move in the places least expected! 

• Thursday is memory verse day. Two Thursday's ago I was talking with Dylan, a little boy who goes to Carver. He knew what Thursday meant and when he came up to talk with me, he proceeded to tell me the past 2 weeks memory verses and say that he was practicing the current verse in his head before he went to bed! There were 90 kids that Thursday that memorized 1 Peter 2:9. It is so encouraging to hear the voices of children shouting out the word of the Lord! I can only pray that what they are memorizing sticks and that God's love that is being shown to them through the participants can  impact them in some way! Here is a picture of a little girl looking up 1 Peter 2:9 and writing it down so that she could be able to memorize it.

• This past week (week 4) was all about joy. During Sharing Square, which is the time of Kids Club where I talk about the theme and the students act out a skit and lead song, I asked the question, "What makes you happy?". I got the normal answers such as, "Ice Cream", "My mom", "Swimming", and then I called on a little girl and she responded with "eternal life". As a 7 year old, I can pretty much guarantee I would not have responded with that answer.  It is so cool to see God's children grasping big concepts!

• These children and youth are teaching me far more than I could have ever imagined. After teaching them these past two weeks about goodness and joy, I realized that God was teaching me! These concepts seem so simple, yet what reminders they are! This past week was a specifically hard week for me because of more site transitions and extreme exhaustion. As I taught the kids about joy and helped the youth prepare activities, I realized I needed the lesson of joy just as much as they all did. How easy is it to forget the joy the Lord gives us deep down in our heart and how we should be joyful at all times, not matter what happens in life. Just like David (who was our bible super hero) I need to be joyful in all that God throws my way. Whether it be loosing amazing staff members but gaining incredible new ones, trying to guide adult leaders who just really don't seem to care, or being flexible with schedule changes, I need to be joyful and show the goodness of Him through all that I do! 

Weekly Highlights

• Every Thursday night YouthWorks! does a footwashing service. This is an incredible time where us as staff members get to wash the adult leader's feet while praying over them and then in turn, the adult leaders wash their students feet while praying over them. It is an experience that connects the leaders and their youth in unimaginable ways, but more importantly many of the youth experience God in a new and more intimate way then they have before. During week 3 one of the youth accepted Jesus into his heart and many others were moved in new and immense ways! 

• Last weekend, the team and I were able to finally relax a bit. We were able to go to a Lookouts minor league baseball game and then get Rita's while strolling the town. We ended the night by sitting on a stage watching fireworks. It was such a perfect night to relax and get out of the church for a bit! Here are some pictures from the night!

A little less exciting than Pirate games, but hey! its summer baseball!

Jonathan, Kial, me, and Garrett (awkward angle taken by awkward people. oh well)

My forever friend :-)

Beautiful Chattanooga!

• God has let me meet so many amazing people. One of them was with us for only a week yet, she was such a God send! Molly came for week 4 to act as site director for a week as Jonathan needed to go home for the week due to some medical issues. She is such an amazing woman and an inspiration. Wednesday morning Kial and I were doing devotions in the hallway together. We were both experiencing some frustration and remorse about different things and the unknown. I had seen someone post Psalm 143:8 as their status that morning and decided to read it aloud,

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,

for I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

for to you I entrust my life.

Psalm 143:8

          As that verse spoke to us about His guidance, we decided to continue reading from Kial's devotional book Jesus Calling.The entire passage was about God taking control and focusing on the present as he is in charge of the future and will not leave us behind. Lo and behold one of the two bible verses was Psalm 143:8. As if we couldn't see God speaking already we began to read the second bible verse Genesis 28:15,

I am with you and will watch over you where ever you will go,

and I will bring you back to this land.

I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.

Genesis 28:15

As Kial was reading this verse aloud we heard from down the hallway, "Shut Up!". We looked down and there was Molly who had literally just received the same exact verse in a text message from her mom. It is moments like these that I know with everything in my being that God is working, protecting, and guiding us all. He is continually teaching me to be present and focus on the now. How wonderful it is to have that companionship with others who are being taught the same thing, at the same exact time! God is so unbelievably good!

Prayer Requests:

• For good rest this weekend as the midsummer exhaustion kicks in
• For our team as we welcome in our new site director John tonight!
• For Jonathan, that he would be healed and would get well soon
• For the next week and our participants. That they would have servants hearts and be ready to serve this wonderful city :-)

Well onto another week and another adventure! I am going to close with the bible verse from "joy" week at kids club. A wonderful reminder of his joy and peace everlasting in our lives.

May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him,

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

P.S. I messed up my address in an earlier post! This is the correct one!

Hope Schrott

The Gathering attn: YouthWorks!

4445 Hixson Pike

Hixson, TN 37343

The Week the Holy Spirit Poured…Literally

Well, week 3 is about to start here in a couple hours so I figured I’d update y’all in my last few minutes of free time.  This past week presented new challenges, new successes, and more growth and excitement in multiple ways.

We had a total of 54 participants from three different churches from Hudson, OH, Greeneville, TN, and Orlando, FL. Going from 30 to 54 participants was an adjustment as the amount of food we needed quickly multiplied, the amount of bodies made our space tighter, and the number of participants to connect with and form relationships with grew. Nonetheless, we were all very excited to start week 2 and take on the challenges that it presented.

As Sunday evening rolled around everything seemed to be going smoothly. We were cooking dinner and groups started arriving. We then received word that the group from Ohio was caught in traffic resulting from a rock slide and would not be arriving until around 8 o’clock which threw our schedule completely off. We decided to keep going as normal and that I would stay back and feed the group when they arrived. Dinner was given and cleaned up and youth orientation had just begun. We were in the start of orientation when some of the youth raised their hands and told us the kitchen ceiling was leaking. As I looked back, I saw water gushing from the ceiling hitting a good portion of our pots and pans and flooding the floor. By God’s grace, dinner was over and our club room was moved to the dining room otherwise we might have not seen this until much later. At the same time the ceiling was leaking, the group from Ohio was arriving. Needless to say, the start of the evening was pretty hectic. We were able to put trash cans out to catch the water and the church’s maintenance man, John was able to come quickly and fix the problem. We proceeded with orientation and the rest of the night moved rather smoothly! One downside resulting from this was that we had to wash and sanitize all of the dishes and pots hit by the water (which we discovered was toilet water) later that night. We did finish before midnight though!!

All the dishes we had to do!!

This week was the first week of having all four kids clubs. Last week went relatively smoothly with doing two of the kids clubs at Carver and the Boys and Girls Club so I wasn’t super nervous, although I knew there would be challenges that I would face. I was able to created four bins for each site with different craft materials and games for the participants to take. We had orientation Monday morning and everything seemed to go well. The adult leaders and youth acted excited for the week. The groups headed out to their specific sites and I started my rotations between the four sites. My first stop was the Boys and Girls Club. This is the site where we cannot talk about Jesus therefore, we focus on just the fruit of the spirit which happened to be patience last week. This was our second week at the Boys and Girls Club so the staff there and the kids knew what to expect when we arrived. I had no trouble getting this group started off and it was wonderful going back and hearing “Miss Hope you came back like you said you would!”.

My next stop was to Glenwood Rec Center. This was our first week so I knew that it would be a little more challenging to get started. However, I was not prepared for the seemingly mad chaos that I walked into. There were about 80 kids and they were all over the place. The adult leaders were very frustrated and stressed and rightly so. The kids were supposed to go swimming but because of the weather that did not happen. Because they couldn’t swim, the kids were out of control and so was their behavior. I decided to wait and see how Tuesday went before taking any action to fix anything because I knew Monday was an off day. However, Tuesday was not any different. After talking with my area and site director, we decided that I should meet with the main contact and get on the same page, expressing my concerns and seeing what changes could be made. We were able to eliminate the 11-12 year old group and have staff members in each room to help control the kids. Wednesday and Thursday were worlds apart from the first two days. When I walked into sharing square on Wednesday I almost cried at the attention the kids gave and the attentiveness the possessed. God is good!

This is a picture of the youth leading the kids in a song!

The last two sites, Avondale and Carver ran relatively smoothly. I am super excited to go back tomorrow and start a new week with the 4 sites. It is amazing to me the impact that is being made on the kids. Because of the youth and their amazing teaching, 75 kids total from all four sites were able to memorize the bible verse of the week! I am hoping to up that number to 100 in the next couple of weeks!

Sharing Square at Avondale!!

Sometimes I feel that I am not making relationships with the kids because I am only at each site for about 30 minutes every day and during that time I am teaching them, not interacting in the way that I wish I could. It is easy for me to be frustrated and upset that I am not forming these relationships in the way that I want to. But God is using me still and he is constantly reminding me of that. As we were shopping at SAM’S Club for next week’s food a little girl approached me as I walked out of the store. She asked me, “Are you Hope?” “Yes, I am!” “You work at Avondale!”. A little girl whose name I don’t know and who I only met this past week knew who I was. God has tricky but amazing ways of showing me that he is using me and that if an impact was made in just one week, he has big plans for the rest of the summer!

This coming week we have a total of 69 people (including staff members). We have a group from Florida, Michigan, and Minnesota this week. Please pray for the students and adult leaders who are currently on their way to Chattanooga. Pray for open hearts, minds, and souls. That God would use them in unforeseeable ways this week and that they would be able to serve with their whole hearts, experiences new things every day. Also, please pray for our staff as we had some changes that were made this past weekend. We have an amazing new program staff named Garrett and we are all very excited to work with him the rest of the summer. Please pray that we would be able to bond as a team and grow with each other and in God together. Pray that we could effectively lead these youth and show them, along with their adult leaders the love of God!

This week’s theme for kids club is Goodness and the Bible superhero is Noah. It is amazing that I am learning just as much, if not more, than I am teaching each week. God is good in so many ways! Here is the kid’s club memory verse for the week, one that is a wonderful reminder of God’s goodness and his purpose for each of us:

“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people…you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”  1 Peter 2:9

We Had Early Bird and Caught Some Worms

Week 1 of programming is complete! Last week was our first week of programming and was also Early Bird. This means that our whole area comes together to run a week of programming at one sight and Chattanooga was the site for our area. It was a stressful couple of days before the participants came. We welcomed the Atlanta and Birmingham teams to our home at The Gathering and spent countless hours practicing club, putting up signs, and planning the week together. Admits much laughter, we were able to get everything set and were ready to go on Sunday afternoon.

Here is a picture of our area (Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Atlanta ) aka Chatlantaham. This is Monday night evening activity at Lookout Mountain. We call ourselves district 9 (because we're area 9) hence the Hunger Games pose!

Our first group of participants was a group from Atlanta, Georgia and had only 24 students and 5 adult leaders. That means that there was pretty much a 2 to 1, student to staff ratio which was really nice to have. I was super nervous going into the week. I was starting two kids clubs, had never lead dinner before, and wasn't 100% sure how everything was supposed to run. I forgot how great middle schoolers are though. As soon as they walked in and I saw them my nerves went away. Even though it is clearly needed, I tend to get too caught up in the logistics and planning causing me to forget the true reason I am here this summer. To love God and love his people. It is so refreshing to be around youth and their energy.

Because we had so few participants and because it was the first week of programming, we decided to only run two kids clubs. One was held at a boys and girls club and the other was held at one of the 3 rec centers we will be going to. As the Kids Club coordinator, I give the main talk but let the youth come up with the crafts, games, and reading activities. This was (and still kind of is) hard for me to do. I am a planner and I want to have everything organized, planning it out by myself. Yet, this isn't the point. I need to empower the youth and encourage their adult leaders to do so as well.

I was blown away by what the students came up with and the passion that they showed. It was so refreshing and encouraging to see them teaching the kids, playing with them, reading with them, and doing crafts with them. I was able to see students love on these children who do not get much love anywhere else. The curriculum focus was kindness and the "superhero" was Ruth. The kids seemed to really grasp this concept throughout the week!! We had 15 kids memorize the bible verse for the week which just goes to show how amazing the middle schoolers were as they were the ones who taught them!

Here is a picture of some of the crafts they did! How refreshing it is to walk into kids club and see that the youth have had the kids write the bible verse on their coloring sheet!

Some of the youth leading the kids in a song at the Boys and Girls Club!

I just can not wait to see what God has in store for this coming week. Although we will be starting up 4 kids clubs, I just know that God has some amazing plans! Plus the kids at the kids clubs are hilarious. One little boy came to Kids Club the second day with a cast on. We asked him how long he has to have it on and he responded with, "3 or 4"...we asked 3 or 4 days or weeks? and he responded with "3 or 4". The same little boy also was asked if he wanted to play kickball. He said that he couldn't so he decided to run around in circles. A couple of my fellow staff members are trying to start at # on twitter for him #castkid so if you see me tweet about it, you'll know who I'm talking about!

This coming week is going to be a great week but will also be more challenging. We will have over double the amount of participants and less than a third of the staff. We are going from 4 service crews to 6 and had to move a couple of the rooms around in order to fit everyone. Although it is going to be harder, I am super excited to see what God has in store! Please pray that God would use Jonathan, Bryan, Kial and I as we work with the youth, their leaders, service partners, and kids at kids clubs this week. Pray for safety, laughter, and growth!

The theme for Kids Club this week patience which is a perfect reminder for the week. As week two starts, this summer is becoming more and more real and patience is something that has the potential to become harder and harder to have. I have a feeling I will be learning more than I will be teaching this week!

Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. 

Psalm 27:14

(memory verse for Kids Club this week)