Over the summer, I grew a lot as a person and a Christian. The spiritual disciplines helped me to grow a closer relationship with God and to see Him in my everyday life. During our eLeadership sessions, I took a lot away in order to become more of an authentic leader. Also, I am going to remember when Pastor Frank talked to us about how to become a missional church instead of a club church. I also grew stronger bonds with the other interns, especially the ones who were in my group, because we spent more time together. Working with the kids was amazing this summer. Watching their excitement about kids club was a lot of fun!! I know that we made a huge difference in their life and I hope that we can continue those relationships throughout the school year. Thank you for all of your prayers over the summer!

Kylie Maxson

This summer internship is definitely one of the best experiences of my life! I have grown so close to the rest of my fellow interns, I’m am super sad that our journey all together has ended. But I have also grown closer to God, through all of the eDicsiplines and eLedeadership trainings. I also learned how much I love middle schoolers through VBS. That was my favorite year of VBS EVER! I love all the kids that were in my group, and I am so excited to be a middle school leader this year. I also loved seeing all the Briarwood kids so much. I’ve been with these kids for like 4 years, and every year I seem to love them more. I am SO PUMPED to do Open Lodge/OASIS (whatever we decide to call it) throughout the school year.

I’ve been blessed so much through this experience this summer, and I hope I can now go out and be a blessing for the rest of my life. Thanks everyone who kept up with us and kept reading our blogs and what not. Thanks also for all the prayers! We all really appreciate it!!!

Lots of Love,
Alli Waterway

This summer internship has been quite an interesting adventure from start to finish. For myself it was a journey filled with mountain tops and valleys but through it all I could see God working in ways that only He can. The summer started with a trip to Nashville where I got really pumped up and excited for what was going to happen the rest of the summer. Once we returned and started getting into a regular routine, I could see our team slowly come together. It was hard, at first, to trust the other members and let down my guard but through the summer God tore down any walls in between the team and we are now really close and work together well. Through Oasis, the middle school program, that we ran on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s there were some unique challenges that we encountered. There was one week that nothing seemed to go right, the kids disrespected us in every way, they rejected our games, and didn’t seem to corroporate during lesson time. But through that we became a stronger team, learned how we could effectively engage with the kids, and became closer friends with the kids by learning more about them and why they acted certain ways, and how we could prevent getting “burned” in the future. After that week Oasis went amazing! It seemed like we were just an old clock that needed to get greased up and running but once that happened everything ticked just right.

On Friday’s we had a chance to explore an area in the church of interest to us. I was able to learn from Matt Lehr in the community development area. We were able to do some things in the surounding neghborhoods as well as serve at a mission, go to drug court, and take a tour of most of the holland missions. These oppurtunities really opened my eyes to everything that is happening and everything that I am able to help with.

Besides the mission trip, Oasis, and community development we also were able to have exercising disciplines and exercising leadership sessions. A lot of these had major effects on myself. Hearing great men of God like Dan Webster, Don Cousins, Tim Clay, and Frank Wevers was a real treat. They taught me how I could become more effective in leading and the things that I needed to do myself to make me a person that is worthy of being followed. The ediscipline times made me practice things like fasting, submission, silence and solitude, gratitude, lectio divina, and journaling. All of these forced me to analyze my own life and make sure that I was walking in the good way in accordance with one of our theme verses, Jeremiah 6:16; “This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” That has really been what this summer was about. I was given many oppurtunities to find the good way and walk in it and it has made a big difference in my daily walk.

Benjamin Attema

What a summer it has been! I couldn’t have asked God for a more challenging, inspiring, spiritually growing summer. God has affirmed my love for middle school students and given me a deep compassion on them. I look forward to continuing this leadership and spiritual growth journey as the Open Lodge Director, continuing to face the joys and challenges of carrying out ministry for the Lord. I will say, I’m going to miss the team we had this summer. Working with the nine other interns was a joy, getting to know each one as a friend, but also as a disciple of the Lord, desiring to be leaders.

Looking back, the e/leadership and e/disciplines will stand out the most. Being a person who enjoys a busy schedule, learning the discipline of solitude and silence was key to learning how to listen to God. I need to learn to take daily time of silence and solitude in order to hear God speak. I have been so blessed by the work God has done this summer. He has brought a team of high school and college students together to be friends for a long time. God used this summer as a training session for Fall ministry as many interns are returning to help in student ministries such as Open Lodge and Youth Group. All glory, and honor, and praise be to our Heavenly Father!

Thank you for following us on our journey this summer. We hope that you have been blessed just as we have. God is good!

Andrea Rietveld

This summer has been absolutely incredible and life changing because of this internship!  How do I even begin to summarize my amazing summer into a single blog entry?  Well, I have grown tremendously not only as a leader, but as a follower of Christ.  God has done His holy and mighty work through me, an unworthy sinner whom He loves.  As I let God use me in ways I never thought before, He truly worked His plan in me this summer.  God has used me to make a huge difference in the lives of the OASIS middle school kids.  At the beginning of the summer, I thought, “Oh no!  These kids are so hard to deal with!  How am I supposed to relate to them and teach them about God?” But by the end of the summer, the kids changed from the inside out!  Their behavior is completely different, they are fun to  talk to, and they actually want to come to OASIS to hang out with us!  I truly love and care for these kids, which I never would have imagined.  I’m going to miss them so much, but it won’t end here!  I hope to continue to be Jesus’ hands and feet as I make a difference in the kids’ lives.  I have learned throughout this summer that God ultimately knows what’s best for me, and I need to follow His lead, although I may not think so at the time.  God has used me and continues to use me to glorify His Kingdom.  I have greatly enjoyed this summer internship, and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me!

Devin Van Doornik

What a summer…

I will try to keep this short since there will be 10 of these to ready but that is hard to do after a summer like what us interns just had.  I/we had a great summer growing together as a team and in our individual walks.

Our e/leadership on Tuesdays were great and I learned a lot throughout the summer.  When you have people like Dan Webster, Don Cousins, Pastor Frank, etc. giving you the lessons its hard not to take something away from it.  They taught me the importance of being a true leader and trying to lead as Jesus did(and still does).  I also learned a lot from the job itself.  Learning how to schedule your time etc. to get everything done.  Then when we were with the kids it was great to learn different ways to get kids to listen, participate, etc.  This summer made me a much better leader in a lot of different ways.

For my faith it was amazing.  The e/disciplines on Thursday were a huge help.  Daniel and Ross at times took us through and taught us spiritual disciplines.  This helped me come back to the foundation of my faith and help to make it stronger.  Its hard to describe in words how faith changes and how you feel but this summer has made me much more aware of what I believe God is wanting me to do.  Whether that is in day to day situations or life changing ones.

Well I want to thank all of you that have been praying for us and reading our blog this summer.  It has definitely been  a summer to remember.

Lance Jongekrijg

I loved being an intern! I think it impacted me the most in the leadership department. I never thought I could make a good leader because I used to be more of a backseat man, content to let someone else make the decisions and then all I would need to do is the fun part of leadership. In the internship I was actually give the power to make decisions and become a leader. I never thought I could pull off being a leader in VBS but I did and that showed me that I can be an effective leader. This internship is definitely going to have an impact on me later in life.

~Andrew Dykstra

This summer internship has been amazing, and I’m really going to miss it. Going into it I didn’t know what to expect, but I sure am glad I did it. I learned a lot about leadership, and grew closer to God as well with eDisciplines. I’m going to miss seeing our kids every Tuesday and Thursday at kids club, hanging out with fellow interns, and brainstorming ideas. I want to thank everyone who read this blog and supported us while we did our thing. And thanks to Daniel and Ross as well, who led us through our 10 weeks together. From our first day at Grace Adventures to our last day at Craig’s Cruisers, I will never forget this experience. Thanks again everyone.

Kyle Dykema