#BUMP15 -- Final Philly Moments

I got home from this week in Philly and promptly slept for 15 hours. This week was exhaustingly incredible and I wish that I could spend more time in the city I've grown to love with the people that I've grown to love. The second half of the week made me wish that there was another week that followed this one. We all got to know each other and we got to know the kids. There was beauty in doing ordinary things together. Serving with love for the Glory of and in the name of Jesus will change your life like nothing else.

 Wednesday was a day that God designed to His own agenda. We had plans of service and outreach, but He had plans of team building and God-honoring conversations. It was pouring for a good portion of the day and it cancelled our plans to go to Mantua and to the park. We shared testimonies and did a poverty simulation instead. Rejoicing in the work God had done in our lives and then experiencing some of the poverty that so many faced seemed to only fuel the fire that was in the hearts of the students and the leaders there. The desire to share Christ was almost tangible that afternoon. 

When I spoke to one of the students about the poverty simulation he seemed heartbroken for the brokenness that he glimpsed in that simulation. 

"The decisions were easy for us. The hard ones were the emotional and physical stuff. 

It was easy for us because it wasn’t real for us, but these people need this. 

They actually have to make these decisions every single day."

We were split into groups and had to answer questions about whether or not we went to the doctor to get our chest pains checked out or go to work. If you went to work you risked a heart attack, but if you went to the doctor you risked losing your job. We had to tell our "kid" that we couldn't afford for them to join a sports team because we needed food instead. It gave us a tiny glimpse into the lives of some of the VBS kids and deepened our compassion for them. It's a hard lesson, but a good one when you learn to be heartbroken for the things that break the heart of God.

Later in the afternoon a group went to a downtown subway station to hand out food and pray for the homeless. Some accepted the food and the prayers, others didn't want any help. One man offered to pray for our group instead of us praying for him. This day was interesting and ordained by God from start to finish.

Thursday was probably the hardest day of the week from my perspective. It was overwhelming and saddening and made you want to pray with all your might that the Lord would return in the middle of the day. Watching the kids enjoy VBS was energizing and encouraging. Serving with all those people was a joy. It was the day set aside to intentionally share the Gospel in the lesson during VBS. It was a day set aside to fight hard against Satan and the foothold he tried to get in the lives of these kids. It was a day that was to be mighty in the advances for the kingdom of God. It was a day that is counted victory because Christ prevailed and kids came to know Him as their Savior. Heaven was throwing a party this night.

However, the brokenness had never been more apparent. Students heard more heartbreak from the kids and their home situations. The team loved well, served well, and taught well. The stark contrast of the joy of the Gospel and the desperate situations they lived in was a heavy burden. We learned to truly depend on Christ this day and to stand in the gap and pray for these kids with all that we have. Not in our strength, but His.

Friday was our free day. Some of us went into the Philadelphia Zoo and explored downtown while others went in an old penitentiary. It was a great day of rest and relaxation for the team before our final VBS. A week in Philly would not be complete without a stop for cheesesteaks, which we got! More kids came to know Christ at that final VBS and we said tearful goodbyes to kids we just didn't have enough time with. It was a bittersweet day to end the week and be heading home, but saying goodbye to friends who had become so dear. 

This was easily one of the best weeks of my life. The Lord changed a lot of lives this week and I anxiously await to see how this gets carried out long past this week. Continue to pray that the things we learned this week are not forgotten and that the people serving faithfully at Grace Church Feltonville will be encouraged by the fruits of the labor this week. Pray that the kids who came to know Christ would continue to grow in Him and pray that there would be more kids and parents that would come to know Christ as well. 

A Student's View -- The Reality of Spiritual Poverty

     This week has been far more than what I expected. I have grown more than I ever thought possible. I have gone on other missions trips, but those were out of the country. I never thought that poverty and the need of Jesus could be so close to home. 

     I have experienced many different things this week. Both good and bad. On Tuesday we went to the park and played many different games with the kids. I was in the water games and connected really well with one kid named Eddy. Eddy decided that we were going to be on a team for the rest of the water fight. Later that night, he came to VBS. I saw him and went right over to him and talked with him for a while. He then came to the Discovery lab where we have science experiments for the kids to try out. I was in charge of the experiments that night and Eddy followed me around. He was my little buddy. Later in the evening, he told me a story about the parting of the Red Sea. He was so interested in it!! I was trying to think of some other cool stories that I thought he would think are awesome. So I told him the story of David and Goliath. He thought it was the coolest thing. He didn't know how tiny little David could knock out such a big giant. I told him it was because he had God on his side. He said that God probably knocked him out as soon as David hit him. 

     Finally, the night came to a close and we were talking about separation from God. We were singing a song that went "we all fall short, we all fall down..." Eddy then asked me what it meant to fall short or fall down. He also asked me, what is sin? Why do people sin? Why are we separated from God? Can we ever get back with God? Does God love us even though we sin? He seemed really interested and I was beyond blessed to have been the one to answer all of his questions. Throughout the next day, I thought of so many other things that I could've told Eddy. I decided I would tell him on Wednesday night. So Wednesday night came and I kept looking around for Eddy. When I couldn't find him, I got really discouraged. I kept asking around to see if people had found him. Nobody had seen him all night. I was really disappointed that he didn't show. I thought that maybe it was something I said or something I did. Maybe he didn't have fun. What if he never comes back? I began to blame myself for the fact that Eddy didn't show.

     At the end of the night I was just really upset. I didn't cry until my sister, Becky asked me what was wrong. I broke down and told her how I blamed myself. She reassured me that I didn't. She told me I planted a seed in him and whether it be tomorrow or 30 years from now, he's going to remember this week and what I shared with him. It will all make a connection. 

     After every VBS we break off into our church groups and discuss how the night went. Our leader, Jake, shared with the group how I was upset he didn't show. Everyone there told me what a great thing I had done and how Eddy will always remember me and what I said. Even though I may not have been able to water the seed, I planted it. God takes care of the rest. I made an impact on a child's life and that has been far more than I ever expected of this week. "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow." 1 Corinthians 3:6

--Jenny Schwarz, CT Student

#BUMP15 -- Dedication and Determination

The Philly Bump 2015 team is sitting eating dinner right now, as I am writing this, and if a stranger walked into the room they wouldn’t know that the team consisted of three different churches from three separate states. We are 41 strong this week and we’ve come from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The unity of the Body of Christ is a beautiful and precious gift.

We arrived over the weekend, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was go time from the time our feet hit the pavement. We spent Sunday in church and orientation as well as doing some VBS set up. Monday was all day doing VBS prep work and running VBS itself. The phrase above and beyond does not begin to cover the work all of these students have done. They are a group full of servant’s hearts and joyful attitudes. They engage with the kids even as exhaustion drags them down. They are eager to encourage and cheer each other on as well as their leaders.

The kids who come to VBS are so excited by all the activity and the lessons that are going on around them. Some are easy to love and some are a challenge, but each and every one of them is worth it. One of the preschoolers was so excited by what she was learning she shared the Gospel with her crew leader (who had already shared the Gospel with her)! The kids love the leaders that are here and some even came in requesting certain leaders they had met earlier that day in the park.

The teams have gone out and done work projects as well. They went into Mantua and cleaned up some of the streets around the city. A man named Antonio talked with them for hours about the city and the local sports. This man was one who was so dedicated to the community around him. He knew almost everyone he ran into on the street and he knew them by name. The students serving were given a tangible way to serve the Lord. A way that cleaned up His creation and blessed His people.

We also went into the park for several hours today and played games with the kids there. We had face painting and hula-hoops. Some kids played with a jump rope while others colored with sidewalk chalk. We also had sports and a popcorn machine! The biggest hit was the water games. The kids spent the afternoon pelting each other with water and the leaders loved it just as much as they did.

It has been a joy to watch these kids so selflessly serve and to be the hand and feet of Jesus with such grace and humility. They have stepped up and stepped out. I’m anxious to see what the Lord does with the remainder of this week and how He transforms each and every life that is here.

30 days to BUMP Philadelphia 2015!

BUMP teams are preparing to serve alongside Grace Church Philly and your prayers are fuel! 

"Pray first; pray often!"

Day #5 -- Growth and Taking it Home

Day five was nice because it was the teams’ free day, to see Philly as they pleased until they had to report back for dinner prior to VBS.

The free morning and afternoon was nice for me because it gave me time to rest, but also to reflect about the week. I’d like to share some stories of growth I saw over my week with these teams in Philly, and personally for me.  

Learning the Texan version of "Cotton-eyed Joe" on the free day

I’ll be honest; it can be a concern for the leaders in urban BUMP churches to know that an incoming team that has never done VBS’s before, or who have never been to a big city before. It can be a concern for parents and youth leaders, (especially of middle-school kids) because mission trips can be scary. Sleeping on an air mattress in a new place for a week can be hard.  But if you come, willing to serve, then God protects and He uses. God takes us out of our comfort zone. He raises us above physical issues of tiredness or sickness (and we had a few of those this week, but God is good!) to use us. He can inspire us in the midst of stressful situations, and fill us with the grace and love he expects us to show to those we serve as we strive to reflect God. And when we’re out of our comfort zone, we have no other option but to rely more and more on him to bring us through. I definitely saw God move this week, and he certainly surprised me in many ways.

While I saw growth from each and every BUMPer in the respect of growing in leadership and letting God take them out of their comfort zones, but I would especially like to tell Shannon’s story.

Shannon is one of our BUMPers. She is from Africa, originally, and only very recently came to America. Shannon was not the most comfortable with English, and consequently she was relatively quiet. Shannon was a crew leader, and she had some trouble communicating and interacting with her kids on the first day of VBS. However, where Shannon wasn’t as comfortable speaking, she had no trouble doing the dance moves at the opening and closing of the night with energy and skill. She was asked, on the second day of VBS, if she would consider being on the stage with the other dance leaders and helping to lead the music time.

She decided to do it, and on the second day’s VBS the kids in her crew thought she was the coolest ever, being in front, and it encouraged them to do the motions as well. For the rest of the week, it was clear that her kids were drawn to her and Shannon opened up, despite her having a hard time with English. She was able to show love in an incredible way, and her showing sent a message that was received by the kids in her crew loud and clear. At the end of the week, she was playing with them  smiling, and showing the kids the love of God in an incredibly effective, genuine way.

At the end of the day on Friday during our final debrief, she shared with the group (with Peter Ndaita translating) how much she had learned and how close she had grown with the members of the teams. It was a great moment and I wish I could better articulate how meaningful it was for Shannon and how touching her story was for all of us. It was especially was great for me to see, and know that beyond the stress of trying to keep everything running smoothly to take a step back and see how God had used this BUMP trip to move in a life, and see how He’d moved in the lives of the kids we ministered to at VBS and members of the teams.

Shannon and some of her crew-members

The final day of VBS was bittersweet, as they tend to be. It seems so simple to say, but it went well. It’s deceptive to think that just because something went well, without anything excessively good or bad happening, that we did well. And while I don’t want to diminish the good work of the teams and Becky and Debby, I know that things went well because God was with us. We served 91 kids and their families over the course of the week, including about 20 teens and 10 preschoolers. Some VBS’s end with extravagant tales of winning kids for Christ, or with parents asking to know more, but I got the sense that our victories of the week were much more successful, if not more subtle, by allowing Grace Church to shine with the light of Christ in Feltonville.    

It was a gentle ending to the week. There were lots of hugs and watching the VBS kids leave with their parents, with that odd feeling of not knowing if you’ll see them again, and wondering what they’ll do when they go home, or what this small blip of VBS in their summer and in their lives will have meant anything. But God was with us and he showed himself to these kids through the teams and the love of Grace Church, and I can only pray that the kids remember that love, and see that church people aren’t scary, and that there is a welcoming place in the community with open arms, ready to receive them with the love of Jesus. God’s will was done, and that is enough.

BUMP Philly 2014

Day 4 -- Building Relationships and Serving Joyfully

It was a slow start today…harder to get out of bed, less energy at breakfast, lagging getting out the door. Tiredness always sets in at the end of the week, but that knowledge doesn't make it any easier to deal with during the day.

It was the last day of work projects, and even though it was hard to keep the energy up, everyone did a great job. The first team went back to Center City with Pastor John Davis, to do some street ministry at Drexel and UPenn. One of the BUMPers, Joe, had a cool encounter with an elderly Italian man who’d come from Sicily when he was younger. Joe spoke with the man, who explained that he was raised Catholic but when his mother died, he ceased believing in God and decided that a good God could not exist. As Joe spoke with him, he felt like the words he were saying were just coming to him. He felt like he somehow had managed to ask all the right questions to keep the conversation with this elderly Italian man going, and the last thing he said to the man as he was walking away was “But, if you don’t give God a chance, how do you know you won’t see your Mom again, if she’s in heaven?”

Joe later said he had no idea if that was the right thing to say or if he should have said it, but the words just popped into his head. The Italian man stopped walking away, came back, and got the information for the church. Joe said he had no idea what he was really doing during the conversation, but he felt like God was there and using his words and being present in the conversation, reaching out to this Italian man through him. 

The second team stayed in Feltonville with me, and we went to the Community Center to clear the library’s garden. The library garden is an outdoor space with tables, sculptures, a birdbath, and even a stray cat that the library takes care of. However, there were lots of weeds, overgrown brush, low-hanging tree branches, and general overgrowth in the garden, so we spent most of the morning clearing out the garden, trying to make it a nice place hat the library could use and that the kids could utilize. We cleared nearly thirty bags of trash and nature that morning, so it was a job well done.

The fruit of our work, and the cat :-) 

The third group went to South Philly, to help Pastor Will and Sarah. I wish I could comment more on what the South Philly people did every day in that park, but I was never able to go down L

The post-lunch afternoon in the church was relatively quiet and lethargic as the teams rested before our final worship time and prayer for VBS. Pastor John Davis came and spoke about the city. He shared two opposing views of the city found in the Bible: Jonah’s view of Nineveh and Jesus’s view of Jerusalem. Pastor John spoke about what living in Philadelphia was like, and some of the ministry opportunities he found here. He spoke of loving urban ministry because of the city’s density (the amount of people to be reached), its diversity (reaching people from every nation and tongue), and its depravity (reaching out to people in the midst of and despite sin).

The fourth day of VBS did present some challenges, but they were challenges that were met head-on with the energy and hard work of the teams, and by God’ grace there weren’t any huge issues. The kids were a little rowdy and a little more willing to push buttons on Thursday, but every potential issue was handled by the BUMPers with patience, tact, and love.

It’s always great for me to see the BUMPers change and grow from their first day in the (sometimes terrifying) trenches of VBS ministry and leadership. Rowdy kids were kept engaged, quiet kids opened up, sassy kids met their match, and the gospel was preached through the actions, and words, and love of the BUMPers.

Secret Agent Superstar

The Food of BUMP Philly

I feel like BUMP Philly merits a post about food. BUMP Philly is relatively unique in that the food is provided by people from the church cooking every day, so the dishes are slightly more varied than one might expect on a normal missions trip.

When I did BUMPs growing up, one of the things I was nervous about was food. However, I think one of the most important ways that the church shows love to the Philly teams is in providing food for them. It’s important because it enhances one of BUMP’s goals of providing a cross-cultural experience to the teams, and part of that is manifested in the food of Grace Church.

Grace Church has a large African population, so there were several meals provided by Pastor Theodor, his wife Love, and members from the African congregation. This included beans and rice, chicken that was tender enough to fall off the bone, and most memorably, the following dish:

Fish and Plantains with spicy/sweet sauce

Don’t freak out; it was delicious. But it was very different from what most 13-18 year olds are used to eating (in fact, most of us!) but Peter and I thought it was important for the students to have the opportunity to have food that represented the culture of the church. While it might be hard to think about anything else than the fact you have a fish head staring back at you, it’s a reminder that the body of Christ is vast and diverse, and sharing a meal together like one eaten in the neighborhood was an important thing for the teams to see.

We also had “eat local” day midweek. We wanted the teams to have an opportunity to try food from restaurants in Feltonville, which included the Italian place, the Chinese place, the Mexican place, or (my personal favorite, and the one most of the BUMPers opted for) the diner on the corner run by three sassy Serbian sisters and their mother that make a killer cheesesteak.

The church thinks it’s important to support local businesses as much as possible, so we felt it was important to give the teams a chance to try the neighborhood food and be able to support the neighborhood at the same time.

A shout-out goes to Mrs. Mary, one of the long-time attenders of the church, who made homemade cakes for the groups and bought them the famous Philly pretzel rods for snacks one day. Another shout-out goes to Mrs. Chrisi Brown, who took time out of her rather scary week to make us chili on the last day as well.

And of course the biggest unsung hero of the week was Mr. John, who did a lot of the breakfasts and the rest of the dinners and lunches.

I know this might seem silly, but one of the wonderful things about BUMP Philly is how much love the church shows the groups, and one of those wonderful ways is through the love of providing a taste of the church and of Philly to the groups as a way to say thanks.       

Sometimes we got to eat the leftover VBS snacks too!