New Heights Project: our last day together.
Dear Beloved Friends and Phamily!
I praise God for you! From the depth of my heart, thank you so much for praying for this summer. To tell of all the ways He showed up, it is simply countless!
Refugee Tutoring Camp
Our summer interns, used to cultural and linguistic complexities of growing up in a community where 30+ languages are spoken, dived right in! On two days (one day another Harbor site took them to the Children Museum downtown) we had an educator design a lesson to help build language skills, that was group-oriented and tactile. After that, our team planned the rest of the day, filled with crafts and recreation.
I was really amazed by the energy, sensitivity, and patience the team had with the students. They bonded very quickly through simply playing with them and joining them in the activities. Some of the teachers that normally work with these students were amazed at how well our young people led this very complex group through one transition to the next.
VBS Summer Camp
Welcome to the Radical Rainforest!
Chris Brewster, my boss:
It just keeps growing! 75+ the first year, 115+ the next, and now this year 175+ campers!
Numerical growth alone does not indicate success, so let me provide other “success” indicators of this years camp.
1) Normally a 98% Hispanic population attends the camp. Our Refugee Tutoring Camp the week before brought 25+ refugee children to the camp. We have had limited success in breaking into this population, and now we are praying on how to continue to love some families/ children with whom we have really bonded.
2) This camp had some staff coordination/ support, but this camp was almost entirely planned and implemented by college students and teenagers. They ran recreation, they were counselors, they performed skits, they led songs…
3) A handful of teens responded to a challenge to form long-term mentoring relationships with children from camp.
4) The children in my van sang the camp songs on the way home every day. As incredible worship spilled over from the general sessions, most of even the “try very hard to be cool” kids found themselves doing hand motions with songs.
5) We were able to do this on the cheap! A short-term missions team from Alabama purchased all of our craft supplies, as well as led activities. They also purchased all of our food and snacks, as well as served them. Urban Life (I will talk more about them later) provided a free building, and many materials. A church from North County purchased all of our shirts, other materials, and helped to train us in how to run an effective VBS.
6) We had about 40 parents and 120 children show up for a post-camp Celebration Dinner. Our Spanish speaking congregation prepared and served an excellent meal.
7) We had 14+ high school/college students from the neighborhood, and staff members, from Urban Life (a like-minded ministry)jump in with us as counselors and coordinators for the week. This is a truly amazing partnership in the making.
8 ) We had two non-Christian teen counselors become Christians and get baptized this past Sunday. These were last minute, take a risk and invite to intern, athletes from Hoover. One I coach on the cross country team, another is on the wrestling team, where another staff member coaches. OK…could keep going.
Amazing Camp = Amazing God who really loves this community
Testimony!
Steven and his small group. Top L to R: Steven, Kevin. Bottom L to R: Mallysa, Marianna
Remember my previous blog post about collaborations? Steven is a college student from UCSD’s InterVarsity. During the New Heights Project, he lead our some interns in small group. To clarify, when Steven mentions SDUP, he is talking about San Diego Urban Project- an InterVarsity Summer URBAN Missions trip. 4 SDUP students joined us, at our New Heights Project, in its entirety.
Steven Yuan:
By far, the most impacting event that happened over my time at SDUP would be experiencing Kevin’s conversion. Throughout the month, I lead Kevin in a small group, processing things we were learning about Jesus. It was crazy because I could track through the whole month how God was moving in his heart. Everything that he said pointed towards a reconciliation between him and God. I didn’t notice how ripe the harvest was, however, until Kathy had a texting conversation that led to her casually asking if he was ready to accept Christ in his heart. When I heard that I was taken aback because I thought it was so bold, but then I realized that he actually was at a point where the question was appropriate. So, I sat with him in McDonald’s with Kathy as he prayed for a life with Christ, and decided to get baptized. Then on Sunday, before the baptism, I heard him say that a large part of his conversion was hearing how I lived my life according to Christ. That almost made me cry. And so I learned two very important things from Kevin’s story. One, our unseen influences far out weight the influence we can observe, especially when we live following Christ. Second, don’t be afraid to reap the harvest. Kevin was ready for the harvest, yet my fear of being too forward kept me from seeing that. My witnessing life has no doubt been transformed by seeing Kevin come to Christ, and I can only praise God for that.
In general, I would say that SDUP was eye opening, but that sort of cliched phrase would in no way do the project justice. Learning about the injustices that happen in San Diego is eye opening. But living in the midst of all that happens, talking to the people that are directly involved in these injustices, that is life changing. I see how following Jesus is so inextricably connected with justice… there’s no such thing as being Christian and ignoring justice. However, with Christians, justice is not just bringing relief, bringing equality, and ending suffering, its about reconciling relationships with people, and more importantly reconciling relationships with God. Being at SDUP has really helped me see this reality more clearly, and start to take practical steps to live it out.
New Heights Project 2010 Video
My cousin, Thien Pham was part of SDUP and NHP. Below is a video he created for us.
L to R: Say Reh, Mugisha, and Thien with his fancy camera that did the video below.
The beginning of the clip is a flash of all the fun the NHP team had together. Notice all the smiling and laughter. Frowning is bad for business;) Toward the end of the video, the rewind is the interview process each teenage went through to become our intern. We wanted to give them true work experience so we had the “real life” process of application, reference letter, interviews, etc.
Sometimes the embedded video works, other times it doesn’t. I’ve been trying to have it displayed consistently for hours. I apologize if the video doesn’t appear. Here is the link: New Heights Project 2010 YouTube clip
