Facing the Giants Week

Every week on project, we center our movement around a theme. This week's theme is "Facing the Giants". Not only will this encourage the defeat of personal sins and struggles, it will call for the strengthening of our beliefs and mainly for us to take large steps of faith. Some of these "giants" include people sharing the Gospel more often, breaking off relationships back home that are unhealthy, and telling family members and friends about Jesus for the first time ever (which may be the hardest giant of all for many people). I'd ask for your prayers this week for us and would actually encourage you to join us in taking challenging steps of faith as well and maybe sharing the Gospel with a coworker, family member, neighbor, or stranger. Do something for God that you have never done before and I guarantee that even if you see it as a failure, you will see God in a new way. Also, if you just share the Gospel it's never a failure but that's a different debate!
Today I was able to attend the first church service with my ministry team at Clairemont Emmanuel (www.cebc.org). (FYI our project is broken down into 5 or 6 ministry teams that all go to different churches so just a portion of us were at this church and we attend the same place all summer long.) I was really impressed by Clairemont Emmanuel for a number of reasons. Pastor Kenny and his wife Kathy hosted 30 of us at their beautiful home in the hills of San Diego for lunch after the service. Not only was it good to eat a home-cooked meal, we also were able to hear about the years they spent in France as missionaries and how their church has seen God move during their years here. They currently support 46 missionaries as a church and all of them were originally members of CEBC. Over 25% of the church's budget goes to missions and while it is easy to see their focus on world missions, they are big on local evangelism and we are going to be partnering with them throughout the summer. The best thing about the church was their heart for Christ-centered preaching and discipleship. They are going through Ecclesiastes currently and I am honored to be able to attend their church weekly this summer and I know I will grow weekly with them. Pastor Kenny also has four kids and one owns a record label and clothing company here in San Diego. He wrote a song for the David Crowder Band so I am hoping to meet him and that he can come up with a way for me to become a musician and not have to go back to school (Mom pretend that's a joke okay?)!
I would ask for your prayers this week as I will continue my job search and we will be doing different outreaches daily on the beach and in different areas of San Diego. One will include the use of social media and another will consist of us holding signs all the way up and down Mission Beach saying "I Will Listen" and people will just come and tell us their problems and hopefully will encounter Christ through that. We will also be on the campuses of SDSU, UCSD, and 2 community colleges every day this week, and into the rest of the summer for that matter, so be praying that students will hear about our Bible studies and that we are able to initiate many conversations. We set a goal today of having 10,000 conversations throughout the summer so we have some work to do!
Project has been great but the job thing has been the most difficult part. It has been really hard to have to fight so hard to get a simple job but it has taught me that no matter what my resume says or what my grades are, my skills do not mean anything in life and that my dependence cannot be on myself but only on the Lord. It has also reminded me that pure joy comes from God and I need to continually make sure my joy and strength are from Him alone. I have been able to learn more about God's sovereignty as well so even though not getting a job has been tough, God's goodness has been evident through it and I am a firm believer that you learn and grow in the valleys more than you do on the top of the mountain. If I can be praying for any of you please shoot me an email at b_meyerink@hotmail.com. You will not be a burden to me at all. Thanks for reading and I hope you are taking steps of faith with me this week.