Our New Website!

Faithful One Hope Blog readers, we have officially just transferred the One Hope Blog over to our main One Hope website.  We will no longer be posting to this blog, because all of our old posts have been transferred and all of our new posts will be added from now on to the One Hope Website.  Please go check it out!

www.onehopeministry.org

If you are seeing a website with a gray background, you are still looking at the old website that you may have viewed before.  Try deleting your cookies for the website and refreshing your page.

First Day of School

We did orientation last Thursday and a team building activity last Friday, but today is the first day of classes at the One Hope Academy.

Please be praying for us.

Reflections on Interning

Something that I have come to realize over the summer while participating in the internship at Springs of Grace is that the amount of spiritual aid, knowledge, and encouragement that I have received from the other interns, brother Joe, and the members of the church has far exceeded any amount of work that I have done for the church.

There is no doubt in my mind that God called me to this church to strengthen my faith and build a real relationship with me, and He did so just in time for me to hit the secular world head-on, as I will be a freshman at the University of Oklahoma in less than a week. I have faith that God will not give up the work that He started in me and allow me to be tempted and distracted by the things of this world that can waste my time and eventually destroy my soul. My family has just recently moved to Springfield but we still plan on coming back to Tulsa to watch some Metro, Noah, and TU football games and visit Springs of Grace. I am already looking forward to coming back to Springs of Grace next summer to continue the internship and spend time with everyone that I have gotten to know over the past few months.

Written by: Whitaker Henson

Goodbye, Interns!

There were quite a few of our interns we weren’t able to round up for this last picture, but we are so thankful for a wonderful summer of ministry with all the interns the Lord brought us.

The Importance of Questions

In Room Radical this last week we have been talking about asking questions.

During class time at getAHEAD the teachers work with the kids to improve their reading skills.

In my room I am trying to teach the kids with different ways to help them with reading comprehension. We talked about the importance of asking questions to yourself before, during and after your reading. These were simple questions such as ‘why do you think the title is ____________________?’ or ‘who is the main character?’ to more complex questions such as ‘how do you think the character feels?’ or ‘what would you have done if you were in the character’s shoes?’. This allows the kids to begin interacting more with the story, and to get them thinking. We had some great discussions and questions about the story of Daniel and about the life of Corrie Ten Boom.

The kids took this question asking past just the stories they were reading. One boy asked me one afternoon, what happens to an athiest when he dies? I told him the truth, they go to hell. He asked if Jesus comes and rescues people from hell? This developed into a few more questions and continued on the ride home after getAHEAD. We got to talk about eternity, he thought for a second about how long that was and was kind of amazed. We talked about how you go to heaven and what heaven is like.

Another day at lunch Miriam told one of the boys to ask me the question that he had asked her that morning. He looked at me and asked, How do you know the Bible is true? Like you know, there are a lot of different religions and they have their books too, so how do you know that the Bible is true?

It has been neat to see God working through different questions the kids have had this last week. I’m praying for more conversations of the Lord that start with questions like these.

Written by: Emily Heinz

The Best Week of the Year

This was my first Project 61, and after participating in it I could definitely see why everyone says that it is the best week of the year.

I enjoyed everything about it, from helping run drills for the sports camp, to playing a real life version of the Oregon Trail video game, to playing hacky sack with the other guys in my cabin when we probably should have been sleeping. I soon realized that sleep was a valuable commodity and very hard to come by throughout the week, and it became increasingly difficult to be super energetic for the kids; but God helped to put a smile on my face no matter what the circumstances were and energy in my sleep-deprived body so I could work hard and play hard at the sports camp and at the youth camp.

Two memories stick out in my mind as I am writing, one of them being the time that my team spent at football on the second day of the sports camp. One of the reasons I particularly enjoyed this time was because I played football at Metro Christian Academy for the last three years under Coach McCoy, and although I graduated this year and am no longer on the team, I enjoyed seeing about twenty of my former teammates that still play for Metro that came to the sports camp to help out with the football drills. I could tell that they really enjoyed interacting with the children and I hope that some of them decide to intern at Springs of Grace after they graduate. The other part of the time we spent at football we did a drill where kids would hit three tackling dummies as hard as they could in a random order. I had a blast yelling with the other helpers as loud as we could and encouraging them to hit as hard as they could and cheering them on throughout the drill.

My other favorite memory was when a fire truck showed up for the last day and sprayed all the kids with water from the top of a ladder that was about thirty feet in the air. As soon as I saw the giant stream of water my maturity level dropped to that of a nine year old and I spent the next fifteen minutes running around and getting into mud fights with the kids and using the ground as a slip-and-slide. Unfortunately they turned the water off while I was still covered in mud that quickly dried and left me looking like, well, a boy who had too much fun playing in the mud. One of the children, Jayse, was also covered in mud and told everyone who saw us that we had a “mud explosion”.

I absolutely loved every second of Project 61 and I can’t wait to build on the relationships that I developed with the children and I am already looking forward to Project 61 2012!

Written by: Whitaker Henson

Project 61 Highlight Video

Project 61 in Texas

Sanctification comes when you are in the middle of fighting for thirst/hunger. This summer the
Lord has been putting this desire more and more to be in His Word. There can’t go one day without
starting my day off with the Lord. I will get this longing inside of me to be in His Word and pray. 
This past weekend Jared, John, Malachi, Maggie, Hannah Frantz, and I all fit into Jillian’s mini-van and went to
Texas to work with Hertiage Baptize Church. We basically put on a mini- Project 61 with them. On Friday
night when we got there, Jared spoke about the Sermon on the Mount. I have heard lots of sermons
about this very subject , but the Lord used this one differently. Jared’s focus was on salvation with a
focus on righteousness. Romans 5:18 states, “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was
condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life
for all men.” On the cross Jesus was wretched looking to God because of our sin, so we can have His
righteousness accounted to us. How gracious is the Lord to look at us as though He is looking at His Son.

One thing that I have been missing here is the feeling of family. It is difficult to go into a new
place and have that family feeling. This past weekend with these fellow brothers and sisters the Lord
blessed me with the feeling of family. Riding in the same van for 5 hours, worshiping together, and the
most important part was serving together. I think in serving with other brothers and sisters the Lord shows
unity with the body.

This does not directly have to do with this past weekend, but I believe this is something
that we have to remind ourselves of this, or we will have a mindset that we are the ones changing these
kids. The only one that can change these kids is God opening their eyes to the truth of Him. We are
charged with the responsibility to be in prayer for them and interceding for them. John Piper says
something very profound about conversion, “The astonishing thing is that people can become religious
without being converted. That is, they join churches and start reading the Bible and doing religious
things with no change in their foundation of their happiness. They are grounded in their own joy.” So
as we go into the rest of the summer with getAHEAD, Project 61, Summer Fest, block ministry, and
other things know that the Lord is the one who gives salvation but we are just the tool for others to see
Christ.
Written by: Kim Molter

When God Does Ministry

Today at getAHEAD I was brought a seven year old girl who was refusing to participate in class time.

When I asked why she was upset, she refused to answer.

So I asked her more questions, sat with her, and tried everything I could think of to figure out what was wrong.

Finally, she spoke, “Our teacher said we had to write about our family.”

I asked why that upset her and she started to tell me. She said she lived with her grandma and her aunt. She said they were mean and they holler at her. She said she didn’t know where her dad was and she misses him. She cried.

We talked about the sadness of those things and then we talked about a God who wants her to be apart of His family. We talked about what His family is like and how God never leaves His family on their own.

After a few minutes, she reached for kleenexes to dry her tears and was ready to return to class.

That’s what I love about getAHEAD. Everyday we see ordinary things transformed into gospel opportunities. We mean for them to write in their journals. God means for them to hear about Him.

It’s a good reminder that it is Him, and not us, who is doing this ministry. We are just jars of clay. He is the Treasure.

Written by: Miriam Boone

Project 61 is Coming!!

Project 61 is in ONE week!
For the last 3 years, I’ve attended Project 61 as a camper and absolutely loved it! Now, I get to see what goes on behind the scenes… There’s a lot of fun involved in planning games, teams, and competitions. There’s also the more important, but more challenging, work of writing stories, coordinating snacks and meals, getting last minute donations, and organizing lists…lots of lists. We’ve definitely been keeping busy! But I have to say, the unexpected highlight of my day was dumpster diving. Yes, it sounds a little odd…but as the overseer of donations, I have to admit that it’s a lot more interesting and efficient than asking people to donate. Why bother busy managers when you can just get the cardboard, paper, etc. that you know they don’t want? It was an unconventional way to do things, but I think it was a definite success!
Now on a more serious note… Please be in prayer for all of the interns as we coordinate logistics for Project 61. Pray that everything is organized well so that camp can run smoothly and we can focus on loving God and loving others. Pray that God will work in the hearts of everyone involved in Project 61. And pray that His name will be glorified in all we do.

Written by: Rachel Winn