The Evangel

OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF FIRST FREE CHURCH

Summer Blast & Summer Pop!

By Marie Zajdel

“Wow! Amazing!” If I could only use two words, to sum up the week of Summer Blast and Summer Pop, these would be the ones I would pick. For the 6th Eme, our church body came together to provide these two ministries so children in our church and community could come and learn about and celebrate God every evening from July 24th-28th. We required, and God faithfully provided, many volunteers to serve the over 100 children who came each evening.

Our nights began by fellowshipping over delicious dinners for volunteers and their families, which were lovingly prepared by a team led by Jan Conard. Following dinner, we had a mee and then went to our sta to greet the children as they arrived.

Mission 2 McKeesport

By Pastor Alex Ielase

This year’s local mission to our area was a definite success. We had 30 students and 10 leaders parEcipate-our most ever! While numbers are nice, that was not the only reason we would call it successful. Students got to serve in many different areas. They helped homeowners with projects, rebuilding walls and maintaining yards. They got to have dozens of spiritual conversaEons and prayer Emes with folks on the streets. We ministered in 3 different nursing homes, bringing the light and joy of the Lord into places where folks are someEmes forgoYen.

Students came every day with good and posiEve aZtudes. We worshipped and prayed together to start our morning. Then most of the same youth who worked in the hot summer sun all day served into the evening, ministering to children at Summer Blast. A typical day was from 10:30 am unEl about 9:00 pm!

Many youth leaders gave up their day or days to come and help out. We are very appreciaEve that they conEnue to volunteer their Eme for our student ministry. There is no way we would be able to do this without each one of them! We also had folks volunteer to cook for us and bless us with cold drinks and delicious snacks. Thank you so much to all involved!

AUGUST 2023 | VOLUME 49 | ISSUE NO.8

(cont.)

Mission 2 McKeesport

By Pastor Alex Ielase

M2M 2023

Four and ﬁve-year-olds aYended Summer Pop, which was led by Linda Rothey and her team. Summer Poppers learned that we can put our faith in God through diﬀerent Bible stories each night.

Six to eleven year olds aYended Summer Blast where they learned about our amazing God of Wow. Each night focused on a diﬀerent aYribute of God. Over the week, we celebrated how God is: eternal, allknowing, holy, loving, and all-powerful. Each child was placed on one of four teams for the week. Teams could earn points by winning games, which were led by Dave Fitzgibbons and Mandy Wagner, and being the team that best followed the rules of Summer Blast, including the 3rd silly rule, which changed every night. Kids could also earn points for their team by reciEng the nightly Bible verse, and moYo, wearing their Summer Blast wristband, and being awarded the Super Blaster of the night.

So many of the kids and teen encouragers did such fantasEc jobs of joyfully worshipping God and displaying Christ-like aZtudes that one of the hardest tasks of the week was deciding who should be awarded the Super Blaster award and which teen encourager should be awarded encourager of the night at our nightly meeEngs.

This past spring our family was at an event with many other ChrisEan families. At the end of the night, my husband leaned over and whispered to me, “There’s a lot of love in this room.” That’s how I felt all week during Summer Blast and Summer Pop. The love for God and the love for one another was so evident everywhere I looked. God is so, so good to have blessed our church with people giced in so many diﬀerent ways, but with one Spirit eager to serve Him. Thank you church family, and thank you, Jesus! Please be praying that new kids will conEnue aYending Sunday mornings and AWANA this fall. Summer