YANA News
Home. // Dec 19, 2005
We're home! After too many hours wedged into a metal cage with wheels, after exhausting every iPod and CD known to man, after much too many pit stops, we've arrived safe and sound in our temporarily permanent home of Tempe. We'll have some pictures up soon- Thursday is graduation!
Gulfport, MS // Dec 14, 2005
We're coming to the end of our mission. We've done quite a bit, from grade-school programs to LIFE TEEN retreats to wielding chain-saws to drinking some of the finest sweet-tea ever. This final week will be spent in Gulfport, a coastal city in Mississippi. The devastation here is immense... too much for words really. But life here continues, and people find the courage and faith to press forward and rebuild. The high-school students here at St. John's have received us well- tomorrow is our last retreat with the Juniors and Seniors. Friday we head to Houston for a night of festivities/worship, Saturday we'll traverse the state of Texas, and Sunday evening we'll return to home sweet home. Pray for us.
'05 in the 'Yune // Dec 02, 2005
We've arrived. Picayune, Mississippi will never be the same. It took us somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 hours to drive here, and thankfully no one throttled anyone during those gruelling hours in Texas. We've been met with joyful hospitality and plenty of delicious home-cooking. The days ahead though will be long... filled with hard work and even busier schedules. Keep us in prayer.
-Tam
Blessed are the poor // Nov 03, 2005
We've been busy. Here's a rundown since our last encounter with that Crowder fellow: we went on a young adult retreat in Flagstaff, we've heard a whole lot of talks, we put on a day retreat for the freshmen of St. Mary's High School, but the highlight was our 4 days in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Less than a few miles across the US border lies a town filled with some of the most loving, hospitable, joyful, and alive people this side of North America. We worked and played at two orphanages and a soup-kitchen for school kids, we proclaimed God's love in a high-school and a rehab center, and we gave away as much clothes and food as our vans could hold. We came to serve them, but in truth we were the ones bettered by the encounter. We left their poverty of cardboard houses and shoeless children to return to our poverty of all the IKEAs and Costcos of the world. All at once it is beautiful and tragic, grateful and shameful. Vive Mexico.
Crowder comes to hang out with us // Oct 03, 2005
We've been busy. This past week was affectionately titled "David Crowder*Band Week"... most of us waited with a kind uneasy anticipation for the release of the new album, A Collision; and then Friday was their tour stop here at Gammage Auditorium. Most of us were on the second level that looked like a trampoline during "Undiginified." Today we started a bible study series on Romans- tomorrow is 4 hours of the Bible Timeline/A Quick Jaunt Through Salvation History, with our good friend the Bible Geek aka Mark Hart. Then this coming weekend will be a joyous retreat in Williams with a horde of other young adults. That's it. Keep praying.