April 23
Think you’re good at eating contests? Try this one: like we did at Club last night, try to eat 6 saltine crackers in under 60 seconds without drinking any kind of liquid. I’m pretty sure it is almost impossible…none of the Students of the Week could do it! In fact, I’ve never seen anyone do it!
Since it is so hard, I thought I’d give you a week to practice and then we’ll try it again at Club next week. Can you do it? What’s the best strategy? 1 cracker at a time? 2? Shoving all 6 in your mouth at once? Reply to this post and let us know how it’s going!
April 21
We just printed the summer calendars and are getting ready to send them out, so if you’re on our mailing list, you should get your copy in the next week. If you want to be ahead of the game, though, you can download the May - August calendar right now! Here are a few highlights from the next four months:
- Club JV “OTR” at the Pastor’s Conference - May 13th
- Girls’ Warehouse Night- May 23rd
- Guys’ Warehouse Night - May 24th
- Club JV “OTR” Cookout at Solon Park -June 24th
- reDirect - July 12 - 13
- Club JV “OTR” at Pioneer Waterland - July 15
- Mohican Madness - August 16 - 17
April 21
Some of you might know this, but each year, Parkside hosts a Vacation Bible School for kids age 4 through 5th grade. For those of you haven’t been before, VBS is a week-long event where kids can come to church, have some fun, and learn about Jesus (some for the first time) through the Bible. While you are too old to go anymore (I know, tear), it is a pretty big event, and a lot of volunteers are needed to pull it off…and that’s where you come in. This year, they need 100 students to help out as “youth assistant coaches”, which basically means helping an adult leader as they try to teach the kids. So, if you like kids and aren’t doing anything on June 16 -20, think about grabbing some friends and serving…if you want to find out more or even register to volunteer, check out the VBS page here!
April 7
At the suggestion of Erock and Chrissy, this week’s country is one where Parkside has a couple of missionaries serving, Bolivia. Currently, Parkside has 3 missionaries there: Kep & Debbie James (you might know their daughter Heather, who helped out at Club for a while) and Kathy Maenner (who came to talk to us at Club last fall). For those of us who are geographically-challenged, Bolivia is in South America, right in between Chile and Brazil. (You can check it out on Google Maps.) Since I’ve never been there, I asked a few of my friends who visited last summer to tell me about the country, along with how we could best be praying. Here’s what they said:
About Bolivia: Did you know?
- La Paz, the city where the James’ and Kathy live, is 14,000 feet high (almost 2x as high as Denver, CO)! The professional soccer teams are no longer allowed to play games there because their opponents get sick from the altitude!
- Bolivia is home to the “world’s most dangerous highway”. It is a one-lane road on the side of a mountain, and when you’re driving on it, you look down at the clouds. Can you imagine that?
How can we pray?
- In Bolivia, there is a place called “Calvary Hill” which is a large hill about 2000 feet high. Some Bolivians in the area believe that if you carry rocks up the hill and place them at certain locations, God will be pleased and make it easier for you to get into heaven. People can actually be seen walking up the hill on their knees while carrying rocks. The thought of someone going to this place, which is supposed to represent Christ bearing the burden of sin for us, but still literally carrying their own burdens is incredible. Pray that God would show people that they don’t need to DO anything to receive God’s forgiveness (like carry rocks up a hill), except to trust in what Jesus has already DONE on the cross.
- Pray for Kathy Maenner as she hangs out with 13-16 year old girls in Bolivia. Pray that she’d be able to develop deep relationships with them and talk to them about Jesus!
- Pray for the James’ as they train Bolivians to be pastors and leaders in the Bolivian church!
(Note on the title: I discovered it was rather difficult to learn all about a new country in a week, so from now on, it’ll be the country of the every-other week…creative name, huh?)
April 7
This Saturday, we’ll be loading up the silver bullet (the church van), Carlito (Sarah’s minivan) and some other cars (I think we should try to name all the leader’s cars…anyone have any ideas?) and trekking up to Cleveland to serve God by serving our community. We’ll be going to the Cleveland City Mission, which is an organization that seeks to help the hurting, hungry, and homeless in downtown Cleveland. It’s a great opportunity to put our faith into action, to live out what we read in the Bible, particularly in 1 Corinthians 6:10 - “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” We’ll have a chance to “do good” to the Cleveland City Mission on Saturday, helping them with some tasks around their campus so that they can better reach men and women in Cleveland with the Good News that God loves them and sent His son Jesus to die in their place.
And if that’s not enough of a reason for you to go, don’t forget we’ll be stopping at the double-decker McDonald’s on the way home for some snacks! I can’t wait to get 2 apple pies for $1…does it get better than that?
We’ll meet at the Warehouse at 8:30am and return at 1:30pm. Hope to see you there!
