Henderson Settlement Day 1

Located in Frakes, KY Henderson Settlement is this incredible ministry organization that ministers to the people of Appalachia by providing for their basic needs: food, clothing, shelter and in all of these, Jesus. You don't have to spend too much time in the Gospels to notice that when Jesus interacts with people He not only meets their spiritual needs but their practical needs as well giving sight to the blind, enabling the lame to walk, healing the sick and even raising the dead. It is this fact that, in spite of being in the middle of nowhere, puts this ministry in the middle of everything.

Tai and I arrived late on Sunday night looking forward to spending the week here with 17 college students (16 from IU + 1 from Purdue) ready, willing and able to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this area. It is an ecclectic group of individuals with a few strong personalities and an overall desire to glorify God through service.

This is a somewhat nostalgic trip for me for a couple reasons: 1) I have previously led (I was trying to count earlier) 3 or 4 mission trips here when I was doing student ministries a number of years ago and 2) 6 of the 17 college students were in my youth group when I led trips to this very place. I was looking forward to and am enjoying the chance to reconnect with "my kids" while here at Henderson. I know this has proved to be a special place for most, if not all 7 of us for one reason or another.

Yesterday was our first work day and it proved to rain pretty much the whole day. After spending some time waiting around for our jobs, which is pretty typical for workcamps on Monday mornings, we split into 3 groups. 1 group headed to the greenhouse, 1 group to reorganize a few rooms in the community building and 1 group to clean out ditches and pick up fallen limbs around the campus. Needless to say for some of us it was wet/muddy work but work nonetheless and we were all happy to be put to service. Getting through day 1 I realized this is a group of students who desire to serve others, "love" each other like siblings, and want to know and sense God in their lives. Could be some good things to come.

Devotional Challenge Day 1:
Sometimes we get caught-up in doing ministry instead of being ministry. As long as we make it a point to stay connected to and focused upon Jesus, ministry will happen but when we fail to do that our "ministry" will be sadly shallow.