- Deanna Sizemore      - Mike Ryals
- Megan Romesburg    - Mike Meeks
- Shayna Foster             – Corey Keeton
- Leann Day
- Kim Kahl

Cost: $25 (plus lunch money…think $10)
Leave: 9 a.m. (from GYM)
Arrive: 5 p.m. (to GYM)

It’s finally here…NOCHE de OCHO!!!
8TH GRADE STUDENTS, this is your Jr. High FINALE, so make sure you join us on Sunday, Aug. 8th in the GYM as we at PSM send you into High School in style!
Cost: TOTALLY FREE
Time: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. (NOTE: Lunch IS provided)

One last thing…this is a SERIOUS event (ok, not really). But we know how much you’ve grown over the past 3 years, so we wanna celebrate how “grow’d up” you are by requesting FORMAL ATTIRE.
What’s “formal attire” you say? Simple.
Guys – Shirt/Tie
Girls – Dress/Skirt

This is one of the most fun, over the top events we’ll ever do…so trust me, YOU wanna be there.
See ya Sunday!

The Bible is like a precious weaving made by God through oppressed people. Yet, its cry for help is mostly ignored. The call is loud and obvious, but people are so distracted with other agendas that those who need to hear it most miss it.

Jim Wallis, from the Sojourners Community in Washington, is one Western Christian leader who hasn’t missed the Bible’s concern for the poor. In the 1970s he and a colleague actually went through the whole Bible with a pair of scissors and cut out every one of the 2,000 verses that related to poverty and injustice. His was a very hole-y Bible indeed! People in pews were aghast as this cut-and-paste Bible was held up. But, as he pointed out, this is what most Christians do with this most holy book.

Some might say that ending poverty is really the domain of activists, economists, and politicians. What does Christianity have to offer to help end poverty? It is time that Christians reconsider what the Bible has to say about poverty. Specifically, what are its concerns about the nature of poverty, and what does God require of us?

While there are differences between life in Bible times and today- global banking, travel, and commerce, to name just a few- what I found was that God reveals the very nature of poverty and sews a thread of response throughout the Bible. As I took time most mornings to trace and reflect prayerfully on this threads, I better understood what our response to poverty can be if we take poverty as seriously and as personally as God does.

The Bible too often has been reduced to children’s entertainment, rather than the greatest revealed response to poverty and injustice ever written. For when it comes to understanding and responding to poverty, the best book to read is still the Bible. Taken collectively, its concerns show us how to respond to the suffering and tragedy that causes and leaves humans in poverty, both in Bible times and today. Yet this library of insights and pleas is rarely appreciated, and even more rarely acted upon.

If you take the thread of this message out of the Bible, the Bible will quickly unravel. God’s special concern for the poor is developed as a stronger and stronger theme as the revelation of God’s will becomes clearer. Will we read God’s Word with eyes wide open? Will we allow Scripture to inspire and inform what we do with our lives?

If the people of our volatile world are to have a common future together, then poverty has to go. No one deserves poverty… and yet, in a fallen world everyone is vulnerable to it. Jesus says, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

There is something spiritual about poverty that can’t be sorted out only by cash, economics, medicines, or government structures. Surely, despair is an integral part of poverty, and the only lasting antidote to despair is the hope that the living Christ can bring. Scott Bessenecker, who works with InterVarsity in helping American Christians engage with poverty, put it this way:

“Governments cannot grant true hope. We must acknowledge the spiritual dimension of poverty. There are also, I believe, demonic forces at work that the UN knows little about except in the most generic sense (greed, corruption, oppressions are some of the faces but there are deep demonic roots). It will take discerning, spirit-filled people moving into these communities to confront demonic issues that surround poverty. Satan’s plan in the garden was essentially a plan to perpetually impoverish God’s image-bearers. One of God’s original commands was to ‘subdue the earth.’ I think this relates to God’s mission for humans to vanquish his enemy. Believers are called, equipped, and set apart to confront the powers of evil that keep people trapped in intractable (difficult) poverty.”

Could it be that Christians could play a crucial role in ending the despair of poverty through the authority of the One who overcomes death? Poverty is not just a lack of cash, medicine, or technology. It is also about the confidence, skills, and belief that people can use what they have for the community’s good. Surely poverty is as much about identity, meaning, and belonging as material goods. Surely God’s hope needs to be involved to change the world and rid it of poverty.

TUESDAY NIGHT [7-10 pm]
X-Box Tourney, Monsters, Grub and Giveaways.
Join Shawn and your Jr. High Leaders for a night of GUYS ONLY fun.
Cost: $10

This week has been so emotionally heartbreaking, our eyes were opened wide to poverty and will never be shut again. We were scared, shocked, sad, confused, excited, and happy all at once. Our lives were all completely changed during this past week. Starting off we realized what it was like to live the way they do, mostly small apartments, one bathroom, barely any air-conditioning, and little food. The extreme poverty was apparent everywhere we went. It wasn’t really a culture shock, because we understand that there are poor people in the world. But actually being there with those kids and people, living in their area, experiencing what they experience was pretty shocking.  As we would hang out with the little kids and listen to their conversations, we were absolutely appalled at what we heard. They would talk about how their dads would smash heads in the wall or how they’d been to jail. And, some of the little girls would talk about how they would get beatings and hit when they went home. Plus most of these kids would wear clothes that were way too small or way too big for them, because that’s all they had to wear, when we stand in our room, looking at closets and drawers full of clothes as we complain that we have nothing to wear. These kids we were around would just cling to us, because we gave them the only love and comfort they will get that day. And it just broke our hearts every time we saw them to think how much these kids are suffering. I mean they’re so little, it’s so hard to get it in your head that they could go through so much pain in such little time.

Other than working with little kids, we got to interact with Cincinnati’s homeless. We went into one of the worst neighborhoods in Cincinnati and gave out water bottles and socks. We had conversations and got to know just the slightest bit about them. One guy asked if we had any shirts, it just made my heart ache and I wanted to give him the shirt off my back. It was so hard to say no to these people, because that’s all they ever hear. They are nice people, just caught up in bad place, and I wish we could help them all.

But through all this, all 27 of us were so happy and content when we were there. We all wanted to stay so much longer and do so much more. When we got home we all pretty much cried for these people. I hope we go again next year.

(by Olivia Romesburg)

I’m sure you’ve probably already read about how we partnered up with the kids attending the program at Camp Washington, but I want to tell you about my “buddy”. His name was Noah, and this kid had some anger issues due to things that he’s experienced in his seven years of life. Because his behavioral issues he ended up being sent home, and fought to stay the whole time he was being dragged out. After he had left, one of the leaders told me a little about his situation. He and three or four of the other children in the program were staying with this elderly lady they called Little. Unfortunately, this kind old woman’s husband was recently diagnosed with some form of cancer. On top of this, Noah’s father constantly lied to him, always making him false promises, and his mother was going to blame the poor little boy for being sent home instead of realizing that he had just had a bad day. Many of the people we met this week were in similar situations, and that’s why I’ve been crying, that’s why my heart has been breaking. Because unlike a movie, these were real people that I had interacted with. In fact I’d touched them, I’d held their hands, and I’d even hugged them. And after seeing what these people had been through, I realize that I’m blessed beyond belief. I mean, I have a father and mother that care for me, I have a place to live, I have food to eat, I have water to drink, and most importantly I have an amazing God that loves me. I’ve always known that he loves me, but I’ve never felt it as much as I do right now, and I want to spread that love like a disease. I want everyone to know that God loves them just as much as he loves me, and I think that’s what this trip was really about, spreading the love that God has for all of us.

(from Jeremy Baker)

Even though we’re home, the blogs and video posts won’t stop! So stay tuned for goofy extras, trip recaps, and special extras in the next week!

Near the end of our service, as we were loading back into the bus, a deaf man walked up to our group and attempted to communicate with us. We gave him some paper for him to write, and he wrote that he appreciated our work and explained his life struggles. Although it was difficult to understand exactly what he meant, we gathered the general idea. I was saddened by his obvious lack of education as he wrote one-word answers and questions, hoping to tell us about his life and faith, and to gather information about ours. Through some weak sign language and warm smiles, we let him know we appreciated him. I have no doubt that in both my mind and in others’, our encounter with the deaf Vietnamese man with forever stick with us.

(Nathan Glatus)