Intern Retreat

After returning from our Easter break where everyone was able to take nine days to go home or visit friends; we all met up at Jeff's cabin in Breckinridge, CO for an intern retreat. The retreat was designed to fulfill several purposes: to bring us all together as a group, to have some fun before we transitioned back into work, and ultimately to get our hearts focused and prepared for the fast approaching summer. The three day retreat consisted of snow shoeing for some, a Rockies game in Denver, and enough food to feed a small country! Our afternoons were filled with discussions on articles that we had read, mixed in with some affirmations. With most of the interns praying for discernment for what God has next for our lives, we have been using our meeting time to take one individual intern to affirm and challenge them in personal areas of their lives that we have seen over the course of this year. These timeshave proven to be very fruitful as we get to have our peers both affirm us on what they see our strengths to be, and yet challenge us in areas thatwe could work on. The entire retreat was interwoven with prayer; prayer for individual interns, prayer for the internship as a whole, and prayer for this summer and the challenges that may arise. One of the biggest topics of the weekend was getting our hearts ready for the summer and the summer staff who will be arriving in just a few weeks. We as the intern staff have an incredible oppurtunity to minister and be ministred to by these summer staff. All the interns are going to be leading a small group on sunday mornings for the summerstaff, and since most of us are in leadership positions this summer, we will have plenty of intentional interaction with them as we work.Probably the most impactfulpart of the retreat for me was meditating on an article we read. The article was talking about the necessity of being rooted in Christ. I realize that this seems so obvious, and something that my five year old niece could challenge you with, but it is a biblical truth that I forget so often. In my life it is all too easy for my identity to be put in things or other people, and if im perfectly honest with myself, I would go so far as to say that I care about what certain people in my life think about me more so than what God thinks about me. Isaiah 7:9b says that "If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all." I can't tell you how quickly my faith shifts form God to man, and then to see how quickly i fail to stand.Trying to put that in context of working here, living here, and even in regards to investing into the soon to arrive summer staff, I cannot be obedient to God's voiceif my ears aren't aimed at Him. All in all I would say it was a good time together, the rockies pulled out an overwhelming victory, pounds of beef and chicken were consumedin the form of fajitas, and God was able to meet us there and speak to our hearts.



Emily, Karn, and Kelsey at a Rookies Game



Karen, Christian, Jeff and Lauren...ice cream is always a must!

Did not get the ice cream that he ordered...

But Alex did!

Thoughts on Community

Hello, Emily here. 

As we transition into the new year that marks the halfway point of our internship year at Horn Creek, I would like to take a bit of time and share with you all that I am currently learning specifically in regards to our community: both the highs and the lows.

Community is a gift, a blessing designed by our Sovereign creator to help us grow in relationship with him.  However it can also be very challenging because it pushes us to look past ourselves and love others with a selfless love. Community can only flourish with this sort of selfless love when the Lord is truly being placed first in priority in each individual’s life because that is where the ability to love stems from- the Lord’s great first love.  When this first love is even partially understood and received by an individual, it is then that the person can respond to that first love with love for the Lord, which can be demonstrated through loving our surrounding community. 

We were made for relationships, with the Lord as well as for one another- our community, the body of Christ: to challenge one another, encourage one another, spur one another on towards Christ and in all things point each other back to him…back to truth to remind one another of the things that we can sometimes so easily forget.  I love Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”  We need each other, but we must be united through the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Yet as important as community is, it should never be used as a crutch or as a place that we run to before we run to the Lord.  The Lord should always be our center, our place of refuge and rest, from whom we are refreshed, enlivened and granted an abundant life filled with joy and gratitude from being in His presence. For he alone is completely trustworthy and able to meet our needs fully.  He knows what we need even better than we do.  Jeremiah 17:5-8 speaks to this and has been a great encouragement for me, “ This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.  He will be like a bush in he wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes.  He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.  He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” 

It is out of a place of solitude in which we are able to be filled with life in order to be strengthened to face all that life may throw our way, especially within living in a community of sinful, messy and needy people.  We need to feed the spirit during our time of solitude so that we are able to enter into community, walking in the Spirit so as to live in a way that will glorify the Lord.

It is when the priority lines between solitude and community get blurred that things can get messy. There must be a balance between the two.  I am by no means perfect and have definitely been feeling the tension between sin/flesh and spirit as well as feeling the pain of the sanctification process as I’ve been wrestling with these issues of solitude and community. But praise the Lord for His patience with us as He grows us up in Christ. 

For me, this has been quite the lesson that the Lord has been teaching me.  I have realized that when difficult and painful things arise in this life, my tendency is to look to my community, whether I realize that I am doing so or not.  When responding this way, unspoken expectations can be placed on the community, which can be extremely damaging to the community as a whole, for they are unaware that such expectations are being placed on them.  How in the world can they meet those expectations without knowing about them?  And even if they did know about them, maybe it still wouldn’t be right for me to expect some of those things from them, because of the need to depend on the Lord first through surrendering my burdens to him and waiting upon him to answer and bring healing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think community is a powerful tool that the Lord uses to show his love and comfort to his people in a physical way because sometimes it can be difficult to feel that from an invisible yet ever present Lord.  It is important to keep perspective that our surrounding community is but a limited physical manifestation of the Lord’s love stemming from a deeper place of the Lord’s perfect and unconditional love.  The Lord uses community so that we can teach each other, comfort each other and love each other in tangible ways… to be His hands, His feet, and his hugs.

This has been a hard lesson for us all to learn as a community, as we are still figuring out what exactly this balance looks like lived out for us as interns up at Horn creek.   Although tough, this process has been a refining process indeed and I am excited to see how the Lord continues to use each of us in one another’s lives as we seek to know Christ more and point each other towards Him. 

I will leave you with a great quote from Bonhoeffer that sheds great insight on this subject of community, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.  He will only do harm to himself and to the community… But the reverse is also true.  Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.  Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray.  We recognize, then, that only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship.”

Trip to Dallas

Hello all,

Kelsey here I wanted to take a minute to share with our amazing trip to Dallas Texas with all twelve interns, Jeff, Sara West, and Matt Hoskins. It was a trip that was filled with healing and reconnecting as a group, as well as, meeting with different ministries and doing some recruiting at two schools. While staying in Dallas the director of Horn Creek Doug Jones opened up his beautiful home for us to stay. The trip lasted 6 days from the 1^st of December to the 6^th.

Throughout the week out mornings consisted of devotions studying First John. I really like this book and loved to be able to participate in daily devotions reading this book and discussing with a group.

Every day throughout the week was slightly different. We were given the opportunity to meet with Doug Jones youth pastor, Justin, our first day in Dallas. Justin shared with our group about his desire to help parents rise up Christian youth. He intentionally plans his events during the week so that the family is able to bond on the weekends. He also is very good about studying directly from the word of the Lord. They take chapters to study instead of doing topical studies. He also gives many opportunities for his youth group to minister in different capacities in the church. That evening after a delicious meal cooked by Kathy Jones all the interns were able to attend his youth group and participate in his small groups. This was fun because they asked us to share our testimony and answer questions about our internship.

The second church that we met with was really neat as well. It was huge and had just begun a movement to expand its building. It was a church rooted in a no debt philosophy and stopped their project of a new auditorium when they realized that building cost had gone up and there was not enough money in the budget. I loved hearing this from the church because it was so encouraging that they truly placed everything in the Lord’s hands. We then met with their youth pastor, Braun, who shared with us his philosophy on ministry. He intentionally placed kids in small groups that met in homes with the same leaders for seven years.

The last day we had a dinner with family campers and past summer staffers. It was really fun for me to be able to see the summer staffers that I worked with that summer. The night also concluded with a heated game of werewolf shared by both the interns and summer staffers.

Probably my favorite part of the whole week was Sunday morning. We went back to Braun’s church and the service consisted of a powerful message from Nick Vujicic, a man that was born without arms and legs. His testimony was very powerful. It was hard for me to sit there and not to think that why did God allow this man to be born this way. He answered this answer by saying he had a purpose and that was to be the arms and feet in a way that no one else could be. I was very moved with hearing this and with him sharing the verse Jeremiah 29:11-12 “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. ” At the end of his talk he had an alter call which was so powerful and moved me to tears. Although this was just only a couple hours of the trip it was my favorite part.

The whole week was full of blessings and allowed me to once again just be thankful for being able to be an intern at Horn Creek.

Odds and Ends

Hey all, it is Jeff, just wanted to include some pictures from our first recruiting trip with Alex, Kelsey, Justin and Sara and myself. In October we went to Missouri, Indiana and Michigan and recruited at Hope College, Cornerstone University, Calvin College, and Taylor University. When I say recruiting, it means that we are looking for summer staff and interns for next year. It was an awesome trip. Here are a few pics above!

Things I've learned

Last Monday marked our third month of being at Horn Creek and I thought you all deserved an update on what's been happening.

Here's a couple things I've learned in those three months:

This year needs to be about serving and community. The first part of October was hard for me (Amy) and I think it was because I was so focused on wanting to do program and on proving that I would be good at it that I made myself miserable and I'd get frustrated with the jobs I was given if they weren't what I wanted. Jeff, who happens to be very good at reading most of us, and I had a talk about it and I worked to change my perspective and on changing my attitude to being a servant leader. It's freed me up and I've enjoyed my time here so much more now that I focus on serving and not on getting my way.

Urban youth are different than suburban youth but they both need love and attention. The last three weeks four interns at a time have gone up to Denver to help at Open Door Ministries and Sun Valley Youth Center. Both run after school programs for kids from underprivileged families. We all had different experiences but it was good for all of us and eye opening in many ways. I was heartbroken over some of these kids you could see that there had been abuse or neglect and it came out in the way they acted. The work the staff are doing with these kids is awesome and it was so great to be a part of that.

Justin is faster on a board then I am on skis, we've managed to get in some skiing the past few weeks and Justin and I raced. Towards the end of the day I got to where I could still see him as I went down the mountain, which was a huge accomplishment compared to the first race.

When killing a chicken it's easier to pull their head off then to cut it off. James, Justin, Christian, Lauren and I are helping Jeff lead a bible study at high school, several of the kids have experience killing turkeys and chickens and they told us all about it.

We live in a beautiful place. I think I learned that on our first day here but I am continually reminded of that. Today Mel and I walked by three deer on our way to the office. One night we saw a herd of antelope (do they travel in herds?). And another day on the way to church we saw around 30 elk, it was awesome.

Don't be afraid to speak up when you have an idea. The staff at Horn Creek have been awesome about listening to our ideas and letting us run with them. Back in August I approached Doug (our executive director) with an idea about a camp for women coming out of the sex for sale trade and last week Doug, his wife Kathy, Jeff, and I met with the program director at a ministry that works with those women about what we can do to make that happen.

I've learned more but I think your eyes are probably tired, or you're bored so I'll stop. But one final note the most important thing that I've been reminded of is God's unfailing faithfulness, He does not forsake His children!

One Year

What an incrediable opportunity we have been given this year! God has literally placed a ministry opportuinty in our laps and has allowed us all to be greatly involved. One Year is similiar to Awanas. It is a ministry for children in the community from K-6. Our purpose is to love on these kids in the community and to point them to Jesus in all that we do. The ministry is called One Year because we are doing a study on one year in the Life of Christ. Our heart's desire for these kids is that they will truly feel the love of Chirst. He is so madly in love with every one of them! We want them to walk away feeling loved, vauled, encouraged, and desiring to know God more.

This year we are being poured and poured into. Every staff member and our mentors in the community want us to walk away from this year as better lovers of Jesus. It is very humbling to be so poured into. To feel so loved and vauled. It is amazing that we get the opportunity to pour into others. We get to take time to love on these kids and to be Jesus to them. I feel so blessed and honored to be apart of OneYear.

A night at One Year looks like this: Worship, skits, games, lesson and small groups. Each week we give out a memory verse that is straight from the lesson given. We try do fun things to help motivate the kids to memorize their verse. Some of these have included a leader drinking a mystry drink and shaving heads and beards. This makes for lots of laughs and really gets the kids working on memorizing scripture. Our purpose in doing this is not that they will memorize the verse for one night but that they are planting the Word of God into their hearts.

The title of one year is ironic to me since we will only be involved for one year. I think that is the hard part for me. We have only been doing this ministry for 4 weeks and I have started to really fall in love with these kids. To know that this is just a season and that God is going to move me in a year is tough. To know I will have to walk away from this kids and from the relationships I have made. I can not dwell on that though. If I do I will miss what an incrediable opportunity this is. If I dont pour my entire heart into these kids then I am going to be the one that missed out.

Please pray that we will be able to honor God with this ministry that He has allowed us tobe apart of. Much Love, Katie





Melody with our small groups


Worship



Christian being Grandma Morgan



Alex about to drink the mystry drink



Jeff after getting half of his beard shaved off

Thoughts

So this post might be a little different. Well, false. Will be. When we started this blog, Jeff mentioned that it was a place for a lot of things; a place for pictures and stories, a place for revelations and updates. And a place to share our hearts.

These few verses have been on my heart a lot lately:

How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him. -Psalm 4: 2b-3

It's funny, all through the psalms David talks about his enemies, asking God to protect him, to come to his aid. I've often found myself wishing that my own enemies were as concrete as his. Mostly, my enemies are within myself. My enemies, and my false gods, are not armies or warriors, and they're not items made of wood or stone. My enemy is my pride, my false gods are my selfishness and need for control. (Really, the list could go on.) And it's funny how easy they are to dismiss, right? To rationalize. I'm not bowing down to anything; I'm not going to any temples. But my time, my thoughts, my life say something different. I'm chasing the counterfeit; loving delusions and seeking false gods.

This year, for me, is slowly becoming less and less about finding direction. (My original reason for taking a year of service.) More and more, it's becoming about finding the legitimate...about meeting God on this mountain and chasing Him alone. And I'm in luck! (Though luck has nothing to do with it.) Because amid all the distractions, and all my failings, the Lord is waiting.

The Lord will hear when I call to him.

-Melody