Confessions of a Pittsburgh Missionary: A New Experience

Confessions of a Pittsburgh Missionary
A New Experience
Week 7: June 29-July 5, 2014

This past week working with CEF was a week of new experiences. Because of the shortened holiday week, I wasn't able to book any clubs in Pittsburgh. So we had already been planning on going over to Westmoreland County again to work with them. Cathy, their director, books this week in a nursing home. So obviously, this was not our usual audience. In fact this was on the complete opposite spectrum of our usual audience. 

So Chloe, AJ (who was back and able to work with us this week), and I all went over to work at this nursing home with the residents there. The residents gathered, and the summer missionaries put on the club as they normally would. This was extremely out of my comfort zone as I am not very gifted in the area of ministering to and working with elderly people. But just because you're not particularly gifted at something, is no excuse not to minister.

The residents, while not necessarily able to respond as well or do some of the motions with us, still loved the program. On the last day we were there, we had several calling out, "They should put you kids on TV!" Lots of the summer missionaries were able to relate to the residents very well. By day three, we had a hard time pulling them away so we could leave. AJ really related with a woman named Ethel, that was special to him since his grandma had been named Ethel. And Chloe, the extrovert that she is, talked and prayed with several different residents.

To my knowledge, we had no reported salvations as a result of going to the nursing home. But we shared the gospel every day and many residents and nurses were there to hear it. I firmly believe that many seeds were planted as a result of our obedience to share the gospel with people of all ages.

Next week feels like a more official start to the summer ministry. We'll be on our own as we're not planning on partnering for anymore clubs with Westmoreland County. Pray as Chloe, AJ, and I start working on our own now. Pray that we would have the opportunity to lead many children to Christ. Pray that we would have good turn outs at all of pur clubs. And pray that we'd jave energy to make through the weeks as we have a busy schedule ahead of us with 2 or more clubs a week. Keep praying!