It's 2008

Time has really flown by recently for us. A few weeks ago, the Ambridge Sports and Arts Camp had a storyboarding session where we decided on 4 initiatives that we are pursuing in 2008.

1) Facilitate Mentoring relationships

2) Launch a leadership initiative

3) Establish a Youth Center

4) Field a lacrosse team


Each of these initiatives are being headed up by a different person, which is really exciting. We have also started recruiting for leaders for Ambridge sports and arts camp 2008.

Moving on up...

The past few months have been challenging and good. Ambridge Sports and Arts Camp has moved to Rock the World, where it began 3 years ago. Soon we'll have some updates on their web-site .

We are very excited about the possibilities of moving to RTW as we will be in an incubation period for a season or two, in an attempt to prepare us to become our own non-profit in the future. We are looking forward to the mentoring we will receive from RTW. Over the past few weeks we have been speaking to several groups of people about supporting us and volunteering with us during the summer. Those meetings and conversations have been extremely helpful to us in continuing our ministry here. I am also continuing to pursue creating a lacrosse team here in Ambridge.

Continue to pray for us especially for vision for this community and how God can best use us here.

With the summer over where do we go from here?

Wow, what a summer. We had a great opportunity this summer to see God move in this community. First off our team was wonderful, we had team of six people who did both the sports and arts camp everyday for 5 weeks, that may not sound like a lot but let me tell you working all day with elementary and middle school students pushes people to their limits. But the team did a great job at coming together and was able to place the youth and God before themselves.

The arts camp (which was in its 1st summer of existence) was really neat, we were able to create a mural with the youth, which now resides in downtown Ambridge. The mural was created by the youth and except for a few touch ups was entirely painted by them too. We are hoping through things like the mural the youth in Ambridge will begin to see that they can make a difference in their community and that they will begin to feel more of a part of it.



We also each week had a chance to proclaim the gospel not just through our words but through our actions. But we also know that it is nothing that we do that brings salvation, it is God the father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that brings the opportunity and we just hope that we "planted a seed" or "watered a seed" with the youth and their families that we had the opportunity to interact with through the summer. We hope that our actions will help point them toward Christ.

As much as I am glad that the summer is over, I miss the daily interactions with the youth and how those interactions shape my faith in a way that I cannot recreate outside of the camps. It was also great to spend each minute with my family, Shea, Caleb and I were there at both camps and Caleb definitely has a fan club now.

As we move into the fall, we are praying and discern God's call for us in this community. We at this time feel that God is calling us to create a lacrosse ministry to the youth in this area. Now this may not sound like a great idea to you but for some reason God has placed it on my heart for several years now to do this. I think one of the reasons is because God wants all of his children to have opportunities beyond where their social classes reside. Many people in Ambridge live at or below the poverty level and the farthest thing from them is lacrosse. I think we have a beautiful opportunity to expose the youth to something they have never had the chance to be a part of and help them see that God loves them and desires a relationship with them as much as the financially rich. We want to begin to tear down the barriers between classes, through that I believe we can see justice and God's love for all of his people.

Please pray for our vision, for the team (Emily, Jake, Kayleigh and Sadie) as they discern their futures, for the youth that Christ may become real to them and that all of us may seek out God's desire and provision for our lives.

First week is in the books

Wow what a first week, there was lots of laughter, tears, confusion and lots of great sleep and that was just among the leaders. We had so many youth this week that we quickly realized we are under staffed. So if you aren't doing anything this summer and you like youth, please stop by and see us.

There was tons of construction around the school this week making it difficult for the staff and the youth to get to the field and we still had more youth attend the camp then we ever had. Now we are coming to the realization that we are unable to provide a safe environment for the youth, with the number of staff we have. Which means two things; we are being more strict on our age requirements for the youth and we are combing the area for volunteers.

All in all it was a great week, just challenging (what would you expect working with 6 - 13 year olds?).

The most interesting part of the week has been the walk from the High School to the free lunch (about a 5 Ambridge block walk) and the walk to Church of the Savior for Arts Camp. It is quite a hike, but Arts Camp has been great, next Friday the youth will be putting on a play that they are in the process of creating.

For those of you interested in the advancement of Ambridge Lacrosse, I am filling out a grant form for equipment to field a guys and a girls team next fall. I have found several youth already who are interested in being a part of the team, I'll let you guys know what happens...peace to you all

Update

Well, I never thought that this would happen...teacher's strike

Due to the strike the Ambridge Sports Camp will be canceling the first week of camp and the 18th will be our first day. Here is our new schedule

June 18 - June 22 Basketball / Soccer
June 25 - June 29 Flag Football

July 9 - July 13 Lacrosse
July 16 - July 20 Softball
July 23 - July 27 Ultimate Frisbee

We will be at Ambridge Area High School (still waiting for confirmation) from 9 am - 12 noon

The arts camp will be the same weeks from 1 pm - 3pm at Church of the Savior, 420 Maplewood Ave. in Ambridge.

Summer is almost here

Camp is less than a month away

Well things are really picking up now, one of our new team members has moved to the area and things are slowly falling into place for the camp. I gave 500 flyers to the local middle school and this weekend Shea and I will be handing out more flyers at nationality days here in Ambridge. As things continue to come together I am reminded of things that have not...for example we are still waiting on the field for this summer, which is probably the thing we need the most to run a sports camp. Every year this is the way things go though, we have to wait until the last minute to the ok from the athletic director, please be praying about that.

I am trying to complete the task that I can and leave the rest up to God...

I have been trying to figure out where we are headed for the fall and I would love to create something like this dinomights or similar to this metrolacrosse

We have a team of 6 right now for our leadership team and several high schoolers and beyond have expressed interest in helping us out too....

If you know of anyone who would be interested please let us know....

Caleb Larkin

Almost a month ago on March 26th, 2007, Shea and I became parents to Caleb Larkin Geisbert. I was definitely correct in my theory that nothing could prepare us for him. He has changed our lives in amazing ways.

Obviously, the Ambridge Sports Camp has taken a back seat to our family, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything happening. Recently, we have recruited two individuals to move to the Ambridge area, one from Maryland and the other from Texas. We are really excited to have them on board with us this summer.

Last week I received a call from a person who lives on the eastern side of Pittsburgh (more than a half an hour away from Ambridge) who is interested in bringing a youth to the camp. The youth is interested in coming because we offer lacrosse but he may be coming for the whole camp.

This really excites me because I have been coaching lacrosse at Sewickley Academy and I really want to attract people to the lacrosse portion of our camp, so that we can start a team here in Ambridge!

Please be praying for us as we learn to become parents and also pray that the God will provide for the staff of the camp and each of us may have his peace which "transcends all understanding."