If I May...

Oh the month of May reminds me of rebirth! The world just gets a face lift as the flowers are blooming and everything turns green again! Summer is almost here and THAT is a glorious thought!

God has been busy in the town of Bradford! I don't know why or how I'm still surprised when He answers prayer; I think it's because I can't get over how HUGE He is and yet He answers even our smallest requests. Glory to God that the "size" of our request doesn't matter because it's ALL tiny compared to His greatness. Amen!?

Here are just a few things I am stoked to share with you!

- The amount of donations and volunteers continues to increase for our " 411 Missions Week" in August! This event will kick off a new ministry arm for CrossTrainers called "411". The vision for this arm of the ministry is just getting people connected in the community to meet needs. We are beyond excited for this! I mentioned in my April update that we will be working on Bradford Manor, a housing complex next to the youth centre, whose residents all have either a physical or mental disability. Many of the residents come into the Connection Centre and we have been blessed to get to know them and share Jesus with them! A youth group from Boston wanted to come up and do a missions project in Bradford and that is where we felt the Lord was leading! So we will be painting the inside and outside, planting gardens, putting in new flooring, putting in a new industrial dishwasher, and supplying some new furniture. All of this is getting donated from generous businesses and individuals! God is using people all over to help with this project! We are SO excited. Even the food for volunteers is being donated!

- A new resident moved into Mercy House yesterday. She is a 16-year-old girl that has a past most of us wouldn't even dare to think of. Pray that this would be a place she would be renewed and find Jesus in a personal way! Pray for wisdom for staff in knowing what ways to love and support her.

- The Hub (Youth Centre) continues to be my second home. One of the youth has showed increasing interest in learning more about God, so one of our staff members started a Bible study with him! It's cool to see more kids join around the table for that. Pray it would grow with more kids hungry for God! A new summer intern will be starting soon after I leave for camp. She is such a sweet young woman that loves kids and loves Jesus! Tonight we are doing a picnic with the kids from Supper Club. Supper Club is so unique to me. There is something about sitting around the table eating a meal with these kids that makes us all feel like a big family! And I have grown to love a lot of them like family. It's going to be hard to leave them for the summer!

- I will be leaving to start camp ministry with the girls (Jodi, Patti, Kelsey) for the summer on June 7th! Our theme for most of the camps is going to be "Go West" - encouraging campers to take hold of the promised land God has for them! I hope to send an update to you all in June of how our travels are going. Pray for Jodi as she will be speaking, our van to make it cross-country and back, and for those kids whose lives will be changed for Jesus this summer! Pray for our team's health and energy and also for wisdom as we counsel and encourage campers.

I can't wait to see what the next couple months have in store! I am ecstatic to be a part of what Jesus is doing here in Bradford, and a part of what He's going to do as we "take the show on the road", so to speak. :)

May you have a blessed month of May and enjoy the start of summer! Thank you for your support in so many ways! Jesus is listening to those prayers. :) Love you all!

God bless,
Alicia

April Adventures

Hello! I have been lacking in updates and I can only offer my apologies for it. I cannot BELIEVE how FAST this month of April has gone! I can still remember it being April Fools and trying to think of some good pranks to pull (every year I try to think of good ones and never end up trying any of them though). But this month has proved to be full of God stories and revelations! And plenty of adventures and good times!

I will just give you a few highlights of this month:

- 30 Hour Famine at the Hub went well! We starved ourselves with about 45 youth and raised $1,000 to go toward children that suffer hunger and lack clean water every day. It was a sweet time to connect on a different level with the youth at the centre and just have a ton of fun with them while working toward a cause. There is just a feeling of purpose and helping others.

- PlayZone started another session. We have a whole new group of youngin's that are so precious. Parents can't rave enough about how wonderful the program is and how much it's helping their child develop and grow social skills. We had a mom tell us that her little girl couldn't stop talking about the Biblical lesson she learned at PlayZone (her parents aren't Christian). It's so awesome that a preschooler can be a testimony to her parents. God uses us for His purpose at every age!

- Volunteer Appreciation Night was this past weekend for CrossTrainers. It was a sweet time of fellowship and testimony with many of the volunteers that help in the different ministry arms.

- Summer planning is underway! I met the other 3 girls that will be travelling with Jodi, Patti, Kelsey, and I for the second half of summer camp ministry. We are praying for provision for a 12 passenger van and financial needs to be met. If you could keep that in prayer, or if you know of anyone that has a van, we couldn't thank you enough!! Another exciting addition to our summer missions will be at the end of August. After our last camp, Kelsey's old youth group from Boston, MA, will be coming to Bradford to help us fix up Bradford Manor - a low-income housing complex located next to the youth centre. We have many people come to the Connection Centre from the Manor and they are all very excited to have the place worked on! We are hoping to not only brighten their spirits, but shine the light of Christ in that place!!! It's amazing the changes we're already seeing in the owner's heart of the Manor and we are just keeping that whole place in prayer.

- Connections Cafe has been a sweet time for me this month. It is awesome to have relationships and conversations deepen with the people that come in.

- Mercy House is gaining another resident this month. Please pray for a smooth transition into the House and that she would feel welcomed with Christ's love!

- The CrossTrainers team took a "staff retreat" this past Monday and went to the Red Sox vs. Blue Jays game! It was my first Red Sox game and a fulfilled dream of mine. It is awesome serving with these people in ministry, but it was also an awesome time just to be able to relax and do something fun together as friends too. Oh and the Red Sox won, which was an added bonus :)

- On a day that I was feeling everything going wrong, I was reminded how faithful our God is! It's amazing the support I receive from dear loved ones back home. Answered prayer! Thank you for how God is using you in my life!

- On a personal note, I had very dear friends of mine from Camp come visit me this past weekend! It is always a refreshing time spent with them and it's exciting to show them the places God is at work here!


Please keep in prayer the people that are affected every day by every ministry arm. It is exciting for me to volunteer in so many of the different ministries under CrossTrainers. I feel deeply blessed and humbled that God would even use me to speak to others about Him or just to love others! I am learning and growing so much in my relationship with God here, and in turn, I just feel like I want to share how Good and Awesome and Loving my God is!!! The more I learn the less I feel that I know about Him. He is always refreshing and new and He never ceases to amaze and surprise me. Our God is so great!

I hope that this month was as blessed for you as it was for me! Thank you for all of your prayers and continued support! It means more than you know.

Love, Leesh

You can have all this world, just give me Jesus

"I need Thee, Oh I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee..."

I woke up with that hymn playing in my mind. It has become so absolutely essential to my heart to have time with Jesus in my day. I crave it. There is this constant I-need-more-of-Him feeling in my heart. And no matter how much I read or write about Him, it never seems enough. And the more I read about Him and find out more deeply what He wants for my life, the more I know that I will never ever reach that point that is "enough". I can never give "too much" service to Him or "too much" of my time to Him. Even if I gave my whole lifetime to Him, it wouldn't be enough.

And yet! It's such a wonderful, marvelous feeling! To know that I can never personally attain what I think is "enough" service to my God because it makes me want to continually serve and love and find out what it's like to live the way He always intended for me to live... loving others and being in love with Him! To carry on His work in this world, bringing others to see their need for Him so that He is glorified. He is worthy of all praise in the universe! Glory hallelujah, our God is so GREAT!

March Update!

Hello loved ones!
I can’t believe I’ve been in the “Great White North” for over a month now! March madness has begun! Spring is in the air, hallelujah! I wake up and think “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it no matter what happens!” But let’s be honest, it’s a whole lot easier to have that attitude when it’s sunny and warm instead of grey and raining! Are you with me? Praise the Lord for his marvelous sunshine in this season of spring! There is so much to tell that has happened over a month’s time. I will fill you in with highlights!

The Hub (youth centre) has been bustling with kids! A few weeks ago, the town started holding meetings with local teens to involve them in more activities to get them “off the streets”. Well, the Hub was suggested for a meeting place. The meeting time ended up being Wednesday right before our Supper Club program. The teens in attendance now stay for Supper Club and come to the Hub for our other programmed nights too! We are consistently having around 25-35 kids during the nights we are open. That’s double the amount of kids we were seeing before! It’s awesome to see how God works in unexpected ways!

In all of this, please pray for the Hub staff team. Pray that we would be able to connect personally with each youth that comes through our doors. Pray that God would turn these youth to Him, that we would see a revival spread like wildfire all over this town to Toronto to Ontario to Canada to the States and to the world! So often we put God in a box and think, “Those are nice thoughts, but get realistic, revival like that is not going to happen, people aren’t going to change.” But let me tell you, if there is one thing God has been showing me lately, it is this: “I am HUGE and you are so, so small! Yet, I care for each one of you and pursue you so deeply, so intensely. And you might not be able to ever comprehend my love for you or how much the cross meant, but that’s okay because I made you and I know how your mind works. My ways are not your ways nor My thoughts your thoughts. I know sometimes you doubt. I know sometimes you want to give up because you feel like nothing is happening. But I am bigger than that doubt, I’m bigger than you, and I’m bigger than anything in this world! I’m the One who changes people. I’m the One who created the world and the One who changed it by hanging on a cross. I’m the same now as I was then. I have this world in the palm of my hand. So just go love people and tell them my Gospel. I’ll take care of the rest.”

How comforting is that? How powerful is it that we have this God dwelling IN us? What in the world? I am continually in awe of Him and His purposes for our lives.
PlayZone is going awesome with the little preschoolers. Another 10-week session is up and the town has informed us that the next session is already full with a growing wait list! There are many single struggling parents and it’s such a sweet program that let’s them gain a couple hours of sanity in their day! (And a couple hours where we get to act like kids!)

Mercy House has seen some big changes over the past month. For one of the ladies, it was God’s time for her to have a heart attack and survive, for another it was her time to move on from the House, and for another it was time for family reconciliation. God is continually building on each one of these ladies’ incredible journeys. My prayer is that God would fill these women with His heart and mind. That they would have a spirit of peace, joy, and courage to face whatever comes. I also pray that their past and present trials would just be building up an even greater testimony for God’s glory!

This weekend I was also blessed with the great opportunity to hear a well-known Christian speaker and author, Beth Moore, speak. The conference theme was “God is Up to Something New”. Boy was her message a blessing to my heart! Isn’t it exciting to think that God is in the business of making things new? He doesn’t just want us to patch up our old ways; He wants us to have a life that is completely new with Him. After all, that’s why He sent Jesus, in a way entirely new – the King of the universe destined to be born next to donkeys, to love those who hated Him, to die the most brutal death as the most innocent man alive, only to come to life again to cleanse a people completely hopeless to totally revolutionize the world! And not only does He make our hearts new, but He gives us new mercies each day; when our trials in life increase, so do His mercies, proving that we’ll make it through with Him because He always gives more than enough. But I love that He doesn’t stop at making us new only on this Earth, but that He also promises someday all things will be new! What a glorious day that will be!

There is so much more I would write to you all, but it all comes down to this: God is at work! Not only in the hearts of the beautiful people of Bradford, but in my heart, and I pray in yours as well! How great and faithful and loving is our God?
Thank you for your prayers and support! My life would not be the same without them. You are in my thoughts and in my heart.

Love,
Alicia

Exciting Times

Hello!

Sorry for the inconsistancy of these updates, but I will try and keep them coming more regular from now on. It's been a few weeks since I last posted, so I'll try and catch you up!

The Hub

Praise God for the work He's been doing at the youth center! We've seen our "regulars" as well as a bunch of new faces lately! The Hub staff has started holding meetings with local teens and town members to get their input on how to get local kids more involved in programs. It's also a great time to hear what the teens want from a youth center and how the community can contribute in making that happen. Please keep these meetings in prayer so we can be sensitive to what the kids truly need and help in meeting those needs. As a result of these meetings, we've already seen kids that attend come to the Hub for Supper Club and Drop-In nights! It's been so exciting and such a blessing to get to know them.

It's been especially awesome for me lately to have great conversations with kids that at first seemed really distant or shy towards me. Over the weeks, I've seen such a change in their attitudes during Hub time! God is so good! It's exciting to see what He will continue to do. The thing continually on my heart is hearing these kids talk about God and wanting to know Him.... Until now, relationships are being built up and kids are getting more comfortable with the idea of even hanging out at a Christian place. (Many have been hesitant to come because of our Christian affiliation - thinking we'll be super strict and "holier than thou" - so it's exciting that they're actually checking it out for themselves!)

Mercy House

These past few weeks have been quite the roller coaster ride at the House. One of the women had a heart attack and had to be rushed to E.R. I'm thrilled to say that she's back at the House and recovering quite nicely. She's such a sweet lady, and it's been really neat to see her changing from before and after the heart attack. We were just talking the other day and laughed at the remark, "God works in mysterious ways!" It's so true... the ways He grabs our attention. Another lady in the house had a death in the family. But she has peace in knowing that her Uncle has gone to see Jesus. We've just been keeping the family in prayer because it's still tough for his wife and kids to lose someone so precious. The 3rd lady in the house has really been faced with tough decisions lately. It's our prayer that she would gain wisdom and direction from God through her situation. We can only be there to encourage her and love her.

PlayZone

PlayZone runs in 10 week sessions, and our tenth week is almost here. Laura (director of PlayZone) said the new sign up for the next session is already full! I can't wait to see the new kids that will be coming... but I am sad to say goodbye to the bright little faces we see now!

Connection Cafe

The Cafe is growing! We see new faces come in every week and most of them are continuing to come. The word is spreading fast in the community about this sweet time at the Center! My prayer is that God would work mighty things in every person that comes through the door. It's amazing what some share about their struggles and lives. And to hear some of them so hungry for God's Word and wanting to open up the Bible and just read is such an awesome thing!

In Other News....

God has just been showing me what a wild ride it is walking with Him. I've recently been reading this book called "Leading with Love" by Alexander Strauch. It's really great thus far. God's really been teaching me all about love lately. How He loves, how we should love as Christians, what it looks like to love others as He loves.... it's just such an amazing thing to study and realize for yourself, because it's honestly life changing. It changes the way I deal with people that I encounter and the situations that I find myself in. Perhaps I will expound upon this more in another post...

I've also been so floored to have visitors come see me over the past couple weeks! Some close friends of mine from Camp Li-Lo-Li have come up to visit and see where I am serving here. Those visits make my heart smile! I don't know how I am deserving of such beautiful friends! God is good!

Speaking of wonderful friends.... one more exciting thing to mention before I leave... I will be visiting Rochester the weekend of March 5th! Hopefully I'll be fortunate enough to see many of your smiling faces! I'm excited to visit home :]

Until next time...

Love,

Leesh

It's been a week already?

Yesterday marked my first week here! Time is flying, but at the same time, I feel like I've always been here.

I have volunteered now at The Hub, PLAYzone, and Mercy House. The people in these places are unique and special to me, each in a different way.

My first "drop-in" night at the Hub was Friday. I think I was viewed as "the new girl" by many of the kids, so I felt a distance from them. A big part of their Hub time is video games, and I'm not the best at those! I prayed God would give me a way to connect with those kids. Saturday was my second Hub night, and I really feel God answered my prayer. I had some good conversations, played games with the kids, and they just seemed so much more comfortable and accepting of me. I can't wait til this weekend! We're starting a new tutoring program this Thursday a The Hub. A woman from one of the local schools volunteered her afternoon to head up this program. What a blessing!

PLAYzone is such a precious place! The kids that attend are ages 3-5. Need I say more? They're just little lights in this world full of life and innocence. We have story time, craft time, and plenty of play time. They just say the most precious and, at times, the most random things. I can't help but have my heart smile at them.

Yesterday was my first shift at Mercy House. Some incredible women are staying there with incredible pasts. To even see the things they were going through the day that I was there... my heart went out to them. It was such a change between the first and second halves of my shift. The latter part of my shift was so precious to me. One of the women really opened up to me about all of her struggles and worries. I think the sweetest part of my day was being able to pray for her, with her. I felt like God just broke down barriers in so many ways. The kids staying at the house are so energetic and cute (and some are sick! pray for them!). The other 2 women in the house are both dealing with family and friend problems as well. I will leave the description at that to keep privacy. But if you think of it, please keep the women of Mercy House in prayer. I can see that God is working in them. They've come so far since the day they moved in. All profess to be Christian and their relationships with God are being strengthened at that House.

CrossTrainers is seeking to add another branch to their ministry called 411. It's based on 1Peter 4:11 "If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen." So basically we want to find out what needs are in the community (Physical, Spiritual, Mental, etc.) and find a way to meet those needs. We had a meeting this week to brainstorm ideas on what our first step should be. What we came up with was a week of service to the community during March break. Finding out what the past tenants of Mercy House need and blessing them. Also going out into the community and finding out what small projects people need done - whether it's house work, a ride somewhere, clothing... whatever it may be we're going to try and meet those needs. The exciting part for me is, we are going to get the youth center kids involved! And current members of Mercy House! Eventually, we want the people in the community to be able to help others in the community. We're really looking forward to what that week is going to look like and eventually the ministry of 411 in this town. Keep that week in prayer if you could, March 15-19.

On a more personal note, I love living with June (Jodi's mom). She is such a wise and caring woman. We have had some wonderful talks about everything and anything, but they always seem to come back to Jesus. I have learned so much from her already!

Thank you for your prayers and support as always! Talk to you all again soon.

Love, Leesh

Oh Canada!

I'm here! I actually arrived on Monday afternoon, February 1st. My first couple days were a whirlwind of excitement and craziness. I met a bunch of awesome people I'll be working with at The Hub, Mercy House, and PLAYzone! I also received grand tours of said places.

Tonight was my first night working at The Hub. We had Supper Club. It's a program on Wednesdays that involves youth in the kitchen to make their own meal. It's headed up by a wonderful lady named Natalie who has the most wonderful French accent I've ever heard! I had such a wonderful time getting to know the kids that came! After dinner we watched a movie together as well. Dinner and a movie night, does that sound fun or what? What a blast! I'm looking forward to seeing how God works in these kids.

Tomorrow is my first day working at PLAYzone - the daycare program for kids in the community. I'm really looking forward to that!

On another note, there is another exciting thing happening here that I have to share! The very day I arrived Jodi was bubbling with excitement because she just came out of a meeting with the owner of Bradford Manor, a housing complex of sorts next to the Connection Center (where the Hub and PLAYzone are located). Jodi and Patti and others have been praying that the Lord would open up a way for them to be able to more effectively minister to the people there. During the meeting, the owner of the Manor was talking about leasing out the place to CrossTrainers and letting them run it! Please keep this all in prayer! We are very excited to see how God will work. Not only in the lives of the residents there, but also in the lives of future residents, and the owner as well.

Keep those prayers coming! Your support and encouragement is felt every day. I truly mean that. God is at work here. I can't wait to see what He'll do!