Trip to Mexico

A team from Aim Right spent the day in Mexico on Saturday. The primary purpose of the trip was to visit the i6eight ministry in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point).

Some highlights were meeting i6eight leaders and visiting children and their families in the community. Click here to view photos from the day.

Needed: Youth Groups to Teach VBS

Do you know of a youth group that may be looking for a summer missions opportunity?

Aim Right has openings for two youth groups who would be willing to come and serve for a week this June. The primary responsibility would be teaching VBS, but other urban ministry opportunities are available as well.

For more details, read the info. here.

Spring Break

Students are enjoying Spring Break this week, and that means extra time for OFR's (Opportunities For Relationships). Interns planned some fun activities with the children and teens, including trips to the train park, volleyball games, and a Fun Night for Kids Klub.

Alexa was able to pray with a young boy to receive Christ during water games on Monday. He had told one of the youth group members, "I want to know more about Jesus," and the youth group member found one of our staff to talk to him.

There's a lanyard here that one of the youth from Oklahoma seems to have left behind. Printed on the back of the name tag is this:

How to Know Jesus
God created us to be with Him.
Our sins separate us from God.
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds.
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again.
Everyone who trusts in Him alone has eternal life.
Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever.

He came for water games. He left with Living Water.

Mustang, OK Youth Group

It's a fact that many of the youth we minister to rarely go out of state. When funds are limited at home, or you don't own a vehicle, that makes trips and vacations impossible or rare. When groups come here from various states and serve, though, I believe it's a special blessing for the kids, and in a small way, expands their horizons.

A large group of 6th-12th graders from the First Baptist Church in Mustang, OK, are in Phoenix for a Spring Break missions trip and stopped by Aim Right today for a few hours. Half of the group organized water games for neighborhood kiddos that just kept coming and coming, while the other half served across the street at Garfield Elementary, cleaning classrooms and willingly tackling other not-so-fun yet necessary cleaning projects.

The youth group will be spotted at various locations around the Valley throughout the week, singing (they're a choir) and serving. We're just blessed that they were able to come here for a few hours.

Auction Week & Mobile Pantry

The countdown is on: two days until our annual benefit auction! The auditorium is being readied for our preview, which will be held this Friday from 3:30 - 7:00 p.m. The public is invited to come and see the items that will be sold on Saturday.

For more information about the auction, visit our auction website. Also, our Facebook page has several photos of items on display (you need not have a Facebook account to view the photos).


And...the staff may have let out a few moans and groans several weeks ago when they realized that The Mobile Pantry also fell during auction week. However, God has blessed us with a beautiful morning and extra volunteers who are in town for the auction. Today, there's bok choy, grapefruit and oranges, apples, a variety of breads, and much more that we've given away.

Hungry

Fasting for 30 hours, nourished only by juice and water. An egg-cracking challenge -- forehead style. Meaningful times of worship. Making and distributing 50 lunches for the homeless. This occurrence. The smell of hot dogs at hour 27 and wanting to swipe one for yourself. Games and laughter. Challenging teaching on being hungry and desperate for Jesus. Praying for the homeless, huddled in sheltered areas to stay warm and dry. Learning how richly blessed we are.

This was Aim Right's 30 Hour Famine weekend.

Ann Voskamp is a gifted poetic writer, and her recent post, A North American Lent: When you Want to have an Appetite for More of God, is worth reading. Ann expresses so well some of the themes that were threaded throughout the Famine. A few excerpts from Ann's post:

"Buy more, consume more, have more -- and it'll suppress any appetite for God."

"When your comfort food is comfortable stuff -- when do you hunger for the comfort of the Bread of Life?"

"Ruin your appetite with stuff and you have no appetite for Christ."

"What God's graciously given you is always enough to be abundant grace for someone else."

"I'm done ruining my appetite with stuff."

"Nothing you can buy, order, save for, can compare to giving yourself away."

"Give us a Lent that fasts from the flyers and the free shipping that ruins our appetite for anything less than God. Give us a North American Lent that lends to the Lord and fasts from consumption because we want to consume God."

I grew up knowing more about the lint that came from the dryer than what it means to observe Lent, and I still don't attend a church that encourages its body to observe Lent. But I know this: Jesus calls us to give up and let go so that we can follow Him more fully. That's actually an every day challenge, but if you can let go of something for 40 days, it's a start.