Solana Beach Presbyterian Church put a video together of the Mexico mission trip that we participated in on Memorial Day weekend. This video focuses on all 375 people that went on this trip and all 22 homes that were built.

When you watch the video, keep an eye out for the folks we sent from Northminster!

On May 24-26, a team of twelve from Northminster traveled with Solana Beach Presbyterian Church to Tijuana, Mexico, to build homes for the needy through Amor Ministries. It was an incredible trip!

We built a home for the Contreras family. Alberto, the father, 42, is a taxi driver and earns only $80 per week. Marta, the mother, also 42, stays home and takes care of the their five children: Maria, Crecencia, Cenaida, Alberto, and Isaias.

It was truly a blessing for us to be able to work alongside this family to build them a small house. Nothing fancy—just something that will keep them dry and warm.

The entire team, made up of people mostly from Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, as well as Northminster and Village Community Presbyterian Church, built a total of twenty-two homes on that Memorial Day weekend!

If you’d like to see some pictures, you can view them by clicking here.

Below are two videos from this trip.

Vacation Bible School registration for the summer of 2008 is now open. You may download registration and release forms for your children below.

Registration Form
Release Form

Forms should be filled out and turned into the church office at your earliest opportunity — our program fills up fast!!!

Last Saturday the 19th we sold cotton candy at Alcott elementary’s fair and handed out Young Life fliers. Sunday at church my Regional Director, Eric Scofied, visited Northminster! Afterwards Jaclyn, a Wyldlife leader, and I went to Dana Becker’s soccer game. Way to go Dana, she scored two goals! We then picked up Matt and four other YL girls, met about 10 other people from Young Life at the Rock church 7pm service, followed by In and Out burgers.

We had a really good campaigner night with Young Life this week. Hannah, a leader, shared her testimony. Wednesday we had lunch club at UC High, where I continue to be amazed by all the kids we are getting to know. I hope to bring some of them to camp this summer. Wednesday was also great at Wyldlife! Jaclyn Johnson lead the talk! Way to go, Jaclyn! Thursday was Madison High lunch club. Friday night some of our Young Life kids raised money by helping at Parents Night Out. Saturday was our car wash, where kids also raised money to go to camp.

COMING EVENTS:

MEXICO! We have TEN! people from our Young Life group interested in the Mexico mission trip May 24-26! If you cannot go on this trip, please consider sponsoring one of the Young Life kids. What an amazing opportunity to help them grow in their faith through service. A huge thank you for offering to sponsor someone- you know who you are

CAMP! We have 31 kids signed up who are interested in going to Woodleaf, 11 of those would be first-timers. 30 of those 31 would need financial assistance. 100% of those would have the time of their lives and grow closer to Jesus! 100% of you reading this would be blessed by sending a kid to camp, and receiving an update on what happened that week! Help us change lives! We have 8 Wyldlife kids interested in going to Oakbridge! We hope to plan a day trip up there to go swimming and get them excited about camp.

NEW LEADER TRAINING! This is required for old and new leaders alike. Have you ever been curious as to how we train our leaders? Ever wanted to become a leader? Here are the requirements:

1. You love Jesus and
2. you love kids.

Of course we do a background check as well. Our training will be a series of four Thursday sessions from 7pm-9pm. The dates are May 8, 15, 29, and June 5. At these sessions we will share a meal, have guest speakers (so far we have the amazing Markus Watson on May 8th, and the amazing Eric Scofield for May 29!) and have seasoned leaders help train new leaders. It will be an amazing time of fellowship and learning. Come! Be a leader! Help change kids’ lives! We want you there, we need you! The more leaders we have, the more kids we can reach in our Clairemont community.

Our Clairemont Area Leader Camping trip will be June 27-29. Fun, fellowship, planning, CAMPING!! great food, T-SHIRT!!

San Diego Regional AUCTION and Dinner! May 4, 4pm-8pm at the Bernardo Winery. Do not miss this incredible evening. The dinner will be unbelievably delicious. Young Life programs are always over-the-top. You will be wined and dined. You will be entertained. You will be excited about the ministry going on in the San Diego Region. Cost is $60 a person, $70 at the door. Let me know if you are interested in:

1. Buying tickets to the Auction (we currently have about 18 people from Northminster/YL going)
2. You would like to buy one of our drawing tickets for $50, or 5 for $200 (prizes are incredible, and $40 of each ticket goes DIRECTLY to our ministry!!!!)
3. You want to donate a great Auction item
4. You would like to provide a meal for one of our Leader Training nights! May 8, 15, 29, or June 5?

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. Getting kids to camp
2. That Jonny will be able to come on YL Student Staff (he needs to raise his budget)
3. That Jessie Swann will be able to fulfill her commitment to doing Work Crew this summer
4. Successful Auction
5. Mexico mission trip: funding, kids going, leaders going, great experience and safety
6. New leaders, excellent training time
7. PRAISE GOD- we found a teacher at CPMA middle to host a lunch club! Yay for Ina Soliz!

Thank you, God Bless!
Chelsea Knox
chelseanicoleknox@yahoo.com
(619) 322-7586

Kids, come join us for music, crafts, games, Bible drama, snacks, science experiments, video, new friends and more, while learning about Jesus’ power to help us to be helpful, be thankful, be brave, live forever and tell others about God.

July 28th to August 1st 9 am to noon

Pre-registration- starts on Sunday April 27th between our worship services.

FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED…..AND IT FILLS UP FAST!!!!

• $40 for first child in family, $30 for each additional child
• Potty trained 3 year olds to 5th graders are welcome
• 6th graders and above can volunteer

Registration forms and volunteer applications are available in the church office

If you would like to see what happened last year, go to our Photo Gallery,

Northminster, as part of its mission activities, supports Steve Chastain who is on staff with Young Life and serves with Military Community Youth Ministries (MCYM) in Europe. Steve is primarily working with the children of US and NATO personnel assigned to the Allied Joint Forces Command Brunssum (JFC HQ Brunssum). JFC HQ Brussum is located in Brunssum Netherlands.

Every year during spring break, a service opportunity is made available which is a growth opportunity for those that are regular participants in the MCYM or Club Beyond program. It is also as an outreach opportunity to unchurched or disinterested kids at the International School in Brunssum Netherlands and a significant outreach to the communities in which the service projects take place.

From March 23rd through March 30th, the service project took place in Presov, Slovakia. The following is a video consisting of scenes from Slovakia 208.

Steve also now has a blog called Logomanikos which is listed in the links section of this web site. Please check it out to see what Steve is up to.

For those of you who would like to go the extra distance in demonstrating Christ’s love for those less fortunate than you, here is yet another opportunity! Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in the UTC area is needing to keep Interfaith Shelter guests at their church for an extra week that they didn’t plan for. They are in great need of volunteers to prepare dinners, spend the night, and possibly do other tasks too. The week they need the help for is March 29 through April 6. If you can possibly help, please, please contact Jim and Jill Lawrence, coordinators at Good Samaritan. The email is jlaw1998@earthlink.net.

This past weekend we had our Utah Reunion Overnight from Saturday to Sunday. We had a nice time of fellowship and watched two movies. On Sunday we had a wonderful guest musician, Haley Montgomery, who volunteers with our Young Life group for different events. Monday night we had campaigners. Volunteer leader Mark Presley gave a talk on Matthew 13- the farmer scattering seed. We discussed in small groups what it means to be on the good soil. I had a great, lively discussion with the girls group about why bad things happen, our identity in Christ, and how we live.

Wednesday we had lunch club at University City high school. About 25 kids came this week, ate pizza, and heard about John 10. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and came to give us life to the full. Wednesday evening we had Wyldlife campaigners. We still have a small Wyldlife group, with plans to start a lunch club at CPMA Middle School where we will meet new kids. I feel like this smaller group we have right now is a blessing- being able to really pour into the kids’ lives. The students who come now will be like student leaders as our group grows, since they are being poured into right now. Stephen Wescott, who is a volunteer leader and a junior at Madison High school, led the talk about forgiveness. He used scripture from Matthew 18 — the story of the unforgiving debtor.

Thursday at lunch club there were 25 kids and 5 leaders, plus Mr. Runyan. Mr. Runyan is an amazing man of God. Mark Presley gave a talk on prayer from Matthew 6. At the end, I saw one student go over to Mr. Runyan and ask for him to pray personally for him. Mr. Runyan laid hands on this young man, and prayed for him. God is alive at Madison! We made a list of prayer requests in the big group, took a few minutes of silent prayer. We will keep bringing the list back each week, adding to it, reflecting on how God is answering our prayers- just not always the answer we would like to receive. He is faithful.

Today we will head up to Oakbridge for the Women’s Retreat! There are a few women from Northminster Presbyterian Church going, 4 Clairemont Young Life leaders, and 13 Clairemont Young Life kids. The leaders and kids are going to do work crew for the weekend. This is completely volunteered time! They will be working very hard washing dishes in the dining hall, serving tables, cleaning up, then setting up all over again for the next meal. They might get a couple hours of free time on Saturday, in which they will do a study on Philippians 2. This weekend they will learn what it means to put others first and serve joyfully! The students who have done work crew before said it was a great experience. I am so proud of them.

I am also very thankful in God has answered my prayers and our budget needs for CA478. Thank you all who have been so supportive of this ministry- I hope that you feel it is your ministry, too.

God Bless you!

Chelsea

Northminster now has a full suite of on-line web based church calendars. There are now three on-line calendars to be found in the Navigation links on the left side of any web page on this site.

The Church Calendar is the place to go for anything you want to know about what is going on in the life of the church. This calendar is in addition to the Young Life and WyldLife Calendars which have been on-line for some time now.

These calendars are the place to go for anything you would like to know about what’s happening, or when it’s happening, in the life of the church, now and in the future.

Northminster would like to thank all of the people who volunteered to help our with our Interfaith Shelter Network rotation at Clairemont Lutheran Church last month. The meals you provided were wonderful, the overnight hosts were superb and we had more than enough help, food and supplies for all of our guests.

From all of us at Northminster and the residents of the shelter, we wish you a Hearty THANK YOU!!