Acts 29 Fellowship of the Christian and Missionary Alliance

Acts 29 was blessed this month by the hardworking, enthusiastic students from the Crown College Spring Break Mission Team. Their open hearts to come and serve the city and aid us in reaching the lost have blessed us and added to the work and witness of Christ in the city.

Throughout their trip they participated in outdoor outreach events, served our neighbors and supported the ministry through construction work, engaged in cross cultural ministry in ESL, helped disciple our youth, worked with Bible quizers, added to our prayers and much more.

Their willingness to walk away from their studies and put themselves second in order to come and serve in long days, hard work and intense ministry has been encouraging and inspiring.

The team’s readiness to enjoy ministry, love people, and seek God for the heart of the city has renewed our vision, reminded us of God’s heart for us and for the world and His emphasis on people.

Their fresh eyes and open hearts gave us the opportunity to pour out our vision and heart into them and see another generation blessed by the calling of God. May they be continually blessed and reminded of their time with Acts 29 and may we be freshened and blessed by their fresh wind in our lives.

The past week has been a time of enormous blessing and encouragement as we have enjoyed the service and passion of a mission team from Spring Arbor University. They have brought a fresh hunger and energy to our lives and blessed us with their fresh eyes and hearts for the city and the ministry. They give us the opportunity to share our lives and the work of Jesus with others.

Throughout the week they have participated in outdoor outreach events, served in Axis doing construction work, helped our neighbors with odd jobs, engaged in cross cultural ministry in ESL, youth ministry, worship and much more.

We’ve kept them hard at work, but we have been blessed by their excellent attitude, their heart to worship and know the Father and their eagerness to learn.

Though we keep our hands and feet busy fulfilling the mission of Christ’s body here on the earth, we always make time for fellowship and rest in His presence. Breaking bread with the Spring Arbor team has been a joy.

The passion and worshipful hearts they’ve brought to the city have reminded us of the open doors and windows we have in heavenly places and added to our fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit as they work through us to reach the city for Christ. May we continue to advance the gospel and continue to receive encouragement and blessing from faithful mission teams who support our work. We hope they are as blessed as we are to have them and that they return to their campus challenged and changed by the power of God.

We would like to thank the mission team from Reynoldsburg Alliance in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, who came to serve with us for a week. They partnered with us with a great attitude and an open spirit. They enabled us to host a picnic for the women’s ESL class, tear down a collapsing garage for an elderly woman and for the safety of the city, host our family and friends dinner on Sunday morning, prepare for camp and so much more. We are grateful for their spiritual impact on the city, their prayers, their presence, their encouragement and their partnership in the gospel. You can get a glimpse of their trip in the pictures below!

Earlier this month we were tremendously blessed by the presence of a high school mission team from Lancaster Alliance in Lancaster Pennsylvania. The team worked very hard, helping us build a deck, a wheelchair ramp, run backyard Bible clubs and a middle school day camp and participate in FYRE. We were blessed by their hard work and encouraging spirit and we’d like to give you a peek at their week in pictures.

We would like to thank the one day work team from Campbellsville University for taking a day out of their busy mission week to serve at Acts 29. Their work helped us complete a number of tasks, and their fun attitude and willing service were a blessing to the cabinet shop, nursery and third floor construction projects. We hope they consider coming back to join us for ministry again. We greatly appreciate their heart to come and invest their time and energy in our ministry and our labors for the gospel.

We would like to express our deepest thanks to the spring break mission team from Crown College. These students used their spring break to give their skills to serve at Acts 29 Fellowship. They served in a full range of ministry opportunities, humbly giving their time and resources to bless us significantly in our places of need. With their help we were able to meet needs in one week that would have taken us months to accomplish. We were also able to meet the needs of the city with fresh hands and fresh hearts.

One of the major tasks the team accomplished was great progress on the creation of our third floor dormitories, which we will use to house mission teams and visitors in the future. With great energy and perseverance the team scraped and painted the walls, laid flooring and carpet, hung drywall and mudded and, in an exciting and only slightly dangerous escapade, the team helped us remove a large steel beam measuring about 30 feet long and about 500 pounds. The beam was lowered out the window of the dorms using a pulling system, a forklift and a lot of muscle and ingenuity from the team.

In addition to their physical efforts, the Crown College team brought much appreciated interpersonal and inter-cultural skills which benefited our men’s and women’s ESL classes. They participated in a house visit and were instrumental in teaching math to our cabinet shop candidates as well as patiently and carefully tutoring our lower level students.

The cabinet shop project was also blessed by their skills as they cleaned, organized, removed old machinery and scraped and painted the walls, preparing us for ministry.

And they did it with joy!

Very messy, but much needed painting of the bathroom ceiling.

The team also blessed the Bible Quizzers with one on one attention which should help them blow the competition away at the upcoming quiz meet. By giving personal attention to each quizzer, the students learned the chapters better and were exposed to the crucifixion of Christ and the gospel message in a way that was tailored to the individual and was put into their memory as we pray that it enters their hearts.

Beyond all the service they were a great encouragement to us as they led worship and FYRE for the youth and for Sunday morning, and aided Ecclesia School of Missions with their enthusiasm and friendliness. They served in far more ways which we couldn’t begin to document, but above all that they brought a passion for God and a spirit of encouragement and refreshing to the team. Their support and encouragement as well as their service has sowed into the harvest of Hamtramck and into the heart of Acts 29 Fellowship. May God richly bless them and reward them for their spiritual service and worship.

Thanks to donations and lots of hard work from the Spring Arbor mission team we have completed our third floor roof repair. This long process has allowed us to start work on our third floor dormitories and house teams in this living area without any fear of water damage. In the previous winter months both the cabinet shop and the third floor had significant leaks which greatly endangered equipment and stalled our construction plans as well as deteriorating the structural integrity of our building. By tearing a hole in the third floor roof and applying a patch, we were able to solve the problem and secure the area from water damage. We thank God who supplies all of our needs. May He receive the glory. Check out the story of the roof repair in pictures below:

Last week Acts 29 was inexpressibly blessed by the anointed service of the spring break mission team from Spring Arbor university. With youthful enthusiasm and zeal, these college students worked along Acts 29 to impact the community for Christ and strengthen and encourage our Christian witness to the city. Their service, worship, words of encouragement and love for Jesus and His servants powerfully impacted our hearts and gave us a fresh strength to continue the battle to see the city won for Christ.

The team partnered with us in completing an impressive number of tasks, which we could never have completed without them, and beyond that they impacted the spiritual atmosphere with their prayers, worship and fresh faith.

A flurry of activity spread across an entire week produced enormous results at Acts 29. The team moved two offices, painted a mural in the Children’s room, worked to create third floor dormitories, built bookcases, cleaned and organized various buildings including our garage and the cabinet shop, helped with electronic recycling and finished much needed repair on our roof and west wall. In between all this construction and hands-on service they took time to prayerfully and passionately serve in Bible quizzing, our English as Second Language classes, which gave them opportunities to share their faith and convictions with Muslims, our FYRE youth ministry, our Holbrook elementary outreach, and our Sunday morning worship service.

The team gave valued personal time to teach small groups of Bengali Muslims fractions and measuring, while sharing their desire to serve God and their reasons for coming. They also taught English and grammar using the Sermon on the Mount. Their hearts to serve was impacting on our students who were surprised and puzzled that young college students would find serving them of value.

The team helped lead our Wednesday night youth service by providing worship, a testimony and fun games for our students. The atmosphere was energetic and fun filled, but poignant and powerful as they welcomed the presence of God into the night and testified to His grace and love.

Through their service we were able to patch both our third floor roof and west wall which have been deteriorating and leaking for some time.

In addition they sowed spiritual seeds by participating in our day of prayer and fasting and adding to our worship service by blessing us with passionate worship and an anointed word of encouragement from the Lord.

The passionate and fun filled intensity of the Spring Arbor team will be greatly missed, in a short week the Acts 29 team and the students formed a strong bond which will not be broken. The team remains in our hearts. They provided an encouragement and refreshing that we desperately needed and we know that their self-sacrifice and genuine service will be rewarded in glory when we see Jesus face to face.  We said goodbye to them with tears and heavy hearts because in some ways it feels as if a blessing is leaving, but we know that God will lead and guide and that in His will we will never be alone. Our unending thanks to the Spring Arbor team they have blessed us powerfully. May they receive the reward of their service.

Worship While You Work from Jonathan Ammon on Vimeo.

We’re looking forward to a full day of work here at Acts 29, as Spring Arbor spends its last full work day and Crown College begins its first day of service. Between installing new gutters, finishing our third floor dorms, cleaning, building book cases, enjoying a gym day with the FYRE youth and all the other opportunities that arise, we should have a wonderful day of fellowship in the Lord’s service. We have been truly blessed to have the teams here and we’ll have a full report coming soon! In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at the teams at work.

Today is “Day 2” for the Spring Arbor Mission Team of ten women and five men.  Already these brothers and sisters in Christ have brought great encouragement to Acts 29 Fellowship, with their willing hands and hearts.  On Saturday March 12^th they cleared two spaces, a garage and an office, activities that will help the overall financial picture of Acts 29 in utility bills and community connections.   The team is also working to organize the Cabinet Shop which will open soon as a vocational training center.

The real value of mission teams can never be adequately measured.  Urban ministry is challenging and often the rewards are difficult to see.  But when mission teams come, they increase our visibility in the City through outreaches, visiting local businesses/restaurants, and prayer walking through Hamtramck.  Mission teams add ‘muscle’ and help Acts 29 to accomplish many pressing physical labor tasks, but teams also add spiritual ‘muscle.’  How?   By walking with us daily for a season, the mission team members now see, up close and personal, our hearts and our mission and vision.   The ability to “pray with knowledge” grows and a spiritual bond is forged between Acts 29 and the mission team.  This is an eternal value that is granted to a team that comes with the purpose to build the Kingdom of God alongside the local Acts 29 staff.  The Spring Arbor team has come with this purpose, and our hearts burn with recognition in the Spirit of God.

Today, Jason from Spring Arbor brought a message from Isaiah 40 about the awesome strength God gives his people.  Thanks, Jason for preaching the Word and for Jamileh, Stephanie, and Alex, and Joanna, bringing gifts of music and worship.    How great is our God!  Sing with me… How great is our God!