Summer Jam 2010
Posted By Brek Cockrell on Aug 1, 2010 |
Ok it is finally time to breath… the last two weeks have been a blurrrr. Fist just getting ready on campus to house and host 150 people for 7 nights and then getting ready for the morning projects and the SJ program at night…
I am so thankful for the incredible team that we have at Renovation. God has blessed me with some of the hardest working fun loving people to work along beside me. Not only could I NOT do the things we do without each one of them I wouldn’t want to!
Just want to jot down some highlights of this week before they slip away into the black hole of my mind…
Sunday was an incredible day as we gave everybody a taste of Summer
TWyse flew in from Philly to be with us from Sunday till Thursday night. He did and incredible job in so many ways. loved his heart, attitude and the skill that he communicated with. The lyrics to his music is so right on and grounded in Truth.
So proud of how you responded to him Renovation… our love offering was incredible that we were able to give him. We were both blown away by your generous giving not only financially but a couple of people gave him a boot to use for the week… Renovation you rocked it!
Of course we were jammed packed in both of our gatherings and so the excitement was off the charts so Sunday just kicked started the week!
Monday morning we hit the ground running as we did every morning…everybody up @ 7.00 am to get to the showers at the YMCA on Delaware (thank you YMCA)..then breakfast @ 8.00 and awesome time of prayer/praise/Word at 9.00… then we got on buses/vans @ 10.00am and went to our off-site work projects… which were many and diverse
- Helping the Dearborn block club weed and cleanup Heritage Garden
- Helped at Victory Assembly in Riverside
- Worked with Rediscover Riverside and picked up trash along Amherst/Ontario/Tonawanda Streets
- Demolishing at Jericho Road
- Painting at new Peace of the CIty site
- Projects at Buffalo Christian Center
- Graffiti Removal
- Mayor’s Clean Sweep on the East Side
- All new landscaping on Renovation Campus
We would then hop back on our vans and head back to RC for lunch… then chill for a little bit
Everybody would then go to their group meetings to get ready for the SJ program and we got everything ready for everybody to show up!
We served 375 (plus another 150 volunteers) on Monday night… 420 on Tuesday night… had more on Wednesday but we had to dismiss early because of the storm that hit right smack in the middle of SJ.
Wednesday night was incredible because we had to adjust our plans… the students came back to the aud after everybody got home safely and we had a time of prayer and worship that was beautiful… students/adults crying out passionately to God for our community…
Thursday was unbelievable!!
It was a perfect day and it seemed the whole community showed up!
Not sure how many we actually had but it was over 600… had 125 just in the adult workshop on budgeting!
The virtue for the week was Forgiveness and we ended Thursday night with an opportunity to receive the forgiveness that Christ offers to all of us… dozens of men, women, boys and girls asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins and to be their Lord and Savior!
The place was electric… Twyse sang Heaven and I thought we were about to “get in!”
We finished SJ off by celebrating together by eating a 120 ft long banana split in about 5 minutes!
SO thankful for Pastor Phil at ScottsHill for allowing Jon (my brother) to bring his crew up to Buffalo once again to invest in us!
I am biased but don’t know of a better Student Pastor in the entire country than Jonathan Cockrell… his leaders are incredible and the students are passionately following Jesus.
I am also really proud of our own crew at Renovation… Joshua and his leaders did a great job as did our own students… every night seeing our students helping lead worship passionately was incredible… love each one you!
Our neighbors on St Florian are just awesome… they loved on the students every night baking them
incredible pastries/cakes/cookies…
God was so good to us this week with His favor, grace, love! Thank You!
