2nd Mile - Green Oaks Academy from Emilee Shim on Vimeo.

Check out our most recent 2nd mile slideshow. We rennovated an elementary school in East Palo Alto last weekend, and it was a blast! We were excited to bless the students and staff at this school, and it was such a joy to serve. We had a lot of students come out too, which was a lot of fun!

We finally arrived home from Honduras late last night. The trip was incredible to say the least for everyone involved! We felt God move in powerful ways in and through us, the work was very rewarding, the group got along incredibly and bonded a lot, no one got sick (at least no signs of sickness yet...some fevers take a week to kick in so hopefully no one got anything:), everyone grew in new ways, and everyone was used in the lives of the local people who we were privileged to hang out with for a week. Trent and I just love mission trips for so many reasons, and this proved to be worth all of the hard work that went into planning it!

Here is a short snippet from an email that Trent sent the parents while we were there. It gives a brief picture of our work and rhythm there:

funny group pic

speeding their boat through the mangroves

launching each other off the dock:)

singing with the kids

house demo

cute kids!

more craziness off the dock

playing with kids is hard work:)

awesome beach in one of the towns where we worked

On the way to work!

Some of our students working

Our amazing artist Kat painting one of many murals at the school in town

Repainting a school

Playing with the precious kids!

Check out the incredible promotional video for the Freedom Summit that one of our students made!! You can read more about the Freedom Summit in the post right below this. Go to our website at www.freedom-summit.org to learn more and register now!


Freedom Summit from Freedom Summit on Vimeo.

We are more than excited about the upcoming Freedom Summit, a conference on slavery and human trafficking! We have an incredible team of our students and Abundant Life members working hard to put this together. It has been so fun to see our students take ownership and come alive in planning this conference. We have incredible speakers coming, including pastor Francis Chan from Cornerstone church near LA, David Batstone with Not for Sale, and Bethany Hoang from International Justice Mission. Not for Sale and IJM are two of the biggest and best organizations in the country fighting human trafficking! In putting this conference together, we have learned so much and met so many incredible people who are working full time to fight this massive injustice in this world.

One example of someone we have met who is working hard to fight this injustice and will join us at the conference is Nathan George (and his small team of employees) who started a for profit business called Trade as One a few years ago. Nathan worked in the UK in business for 20 years before he felt led to start this business in the United States. He started by spending a lot of time travelling around the world to places where there is a lot of poverty, AIDS, and/or human trafficking. He found large and small businesses who were employing people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of forced prostitution or labor. He said the one main thing that all of these people wanted was help in marketing and selling their products. So he set up Trade as One to buy products from these businesses and sell them in the States. Last year, they sold $700,000 worth of products and it was only their second year in operation! They are not only running an eithical business in which ALL of the products they sell are 100% slave free, but the very existence of their business is responsible for sustaining and creating jobs for many thousands of people living with AIDS, in dire poverty, or coming out of human trafficking. Now that to me is an example of creative Kingdom business that delights God's heart!!

Roatan Missions Trip Update

We are extremely excited about our upcoming trip to the island of Roatan, located 27 miles off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We will be making the trip with 31 students from Stanford, spending our time rebuilding homes, cleaning up communities, and caring for the sick and marginalized that inhabit the island's east end.

We can't wait to see how God moves in and through our group during this time! If you would join us in praying for the trip, please pray for:

• hearts that are prepared for whatever we encounter on the island
• God's working in the hearts of the people we are to meet on the island
• this trip to bless those we meet on the island, while also growing each of us more in love with Him
• seamless preparation, both on our end and on the island
• safe and smooth travel
  
• health and safety during our time on the island
• the financial provision necessary for everyone to go
• the financial provision necessary to complete the projects we will be doing while there
• unity, growth and love within the context of our group

Also, we are currently raising money to help fund the projects that we will be doing on the island, as well as to supplement the money raised by students for the cost of their trips. If you are interested in giving for this particular trip, either click the "Donate" button located on the right hand side of this page, or send checks made out to the National Christian Foundation, with "Fund #:648866" in the memo line to:

2314 Williams St
Palo Alto, CA
94306

We appreciate your partnership with us in this venture!

Thanks, and God Bless!

We feel that the word for this quarter is "surrender", accompanied by the loving yet challenging question from the Lord, "what is your treasure? what do you really love the most?" Trent and I recently watched a 3 minute youtube video of John Piper's response to the "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel that is being touted by so many preachers, televangelists, and other pastors around the world. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGzqIcbvARw. He is very blunt about how horrible this "gospel" is because it is not the gospel and is really just idolatry. While I also share Piper in his hatred for the overt "health, wealth, and prosperity" gospel because it is not the gospel, I felt surprisingly convicted by this video. I realized that my heart is prone to wander and treasure other things above Jesus, which is also idolatry! It made me start reflecting on how self centered and small my view of God usually is. God has been doing major heart movements in me surrounding this core, deep issue of where my treasure is. Trent and I, along with many of our students, have been on our knees begging the Lord to "circumcise our hearts so that we may truly love Him with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul" (Deutoronomy 30:6). Things are shifting and softening in my heart and I am falling more in love with Jesus. I am beginning to feel more of the "rivers of living water" and love for others gushing from my heart.

I am also experiencing a lot of wrestling with Him as well. He is letting me see just how deep some of my other loves run, and He is slowly prying my hand away from those things. I feel like in some ways, God has been patiently waiting and asking, "how much of me do you want?" I thought I had already "lost my life for His sake and found it," and in some ways I have, but there is still more to go. And I truly believe that in God's economy, resurrection comes from death. Seeds must die to bear fruit. I must lose my life for His sake to save it and find it. It costs everything. But then I realize that everything I have is as loss, rubbish, garbage, compared to knowing Him. Philippians 3:7-11 says exactly what I am communicating here. As Paul writes from prison, he says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So my Stanford degree, my gymnastics accomplishments, my incredible family and friends, ministry, are all a loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I want there to be no comparison when it comes to what I love the most. This is challenging! I guess when we come face to face with Him one day, we will realize how pale everything is in comparison to his glory, goodness, and greatness!