Center for Students Missions

FOCUS (the Katy youth group) headed to inner city Houston for a short term mission trip! Ed and I really enjoyed our time watching the kids serve and love others.

Here is a picture of our blue van. We are heading to St. John's church where we experienced worship in another culture. The church is predominantly African American. It's also known as home church of this famous singer.

here is our team pyramid

here is Josh F. working at Open Door Mission

Here is just a quick summary of all we did! If you ever get the chance to work with CSM, we highly recommend it. We felt very blessed to be a part of the ministry.

Thursday: We arrived at CSM headquarters (Presbyterian church) and unloaded all of our stuff. 2 shower stalls for the girls, 2 shower stalls for the boys = 5 minutes showers! We ate soul food at a place called "This is it!". The kids loved it. I had a huge plate of mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and yams. Yum.

Friday: We split into different groups and traveled to ministry sites. Ed and Alicia's groups went to the Ripley House and Clayton Homes. Ripley House allowed us to package tons of bags with apples, juices, and sandwiches for low income kids. We delivered the lunch bags to homes throughout nearby neighborhoods. It's a Meals on Wheels program but specifically for children. Clayton Homes is a boys and girls club that is next to a government housing project. The youth were awesome as they played with the kids at the center. We played a couple of hours with them doing all sorts of activities (foosball, pool, video games, LIFE, checkers, baseball, etc.) We took the kids to Guatamalan restaurant. MMMmmm...loved the tostados!

Saturday: We headed to Houston's food bank. If you've never been there, it is HUGE! We got to sort food cans and package them up. Ed and Alicia kept on laughing because our youth are very task oriented. They were sooooo fast and efficient! Open Door Mission was our next stop. It is a place where recovering drug addicts or alcholics can stay. It's an all male facility. Our task was to help prepare dinner for over 200 men. Chef Charles (who is a past resident of Open Door) got us cutting onions, carrots, washing dishes, and whatever else needed to be done. We had to leave before we got to serve the guys, but it was a place that we all really liked. Easy to talk to people and easy to see God working in the lives of the men. For dinner, we had an Indian food buffet. Spicy!

Sunday: Both youth groups (KCCC and WHCC) traveled to a local church called St. John's. We got to groove, raise our hands, and see a female preacher! One of the youth next to Alicia kept on turning to her with wide eyes saying, "Wow!" We enjoyed participating in the service and seeing how people openly shared to the church family. It was so encouraging to see such a healthy, growing church!

one of the blessings of CSM was watching our youth group serve without complaint. we were very proud of their attitudes all week!

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR US!