Mission Indy marked 10 summers of working with church groups from around the Mid-West in 2006! What started as a one week event at Chapel Rock CC in 1997 has become a 10-week-long summer! Working with college students for 10 weeks has become an important function of MI, followed by the 4 work weeks attended by church groups that are hosted at local churches. "Thank You" to North Liberty, Garfield, Chapel Rock and Englewood Christian Churches for hosting Mission Indy this summer.

"Special Thanks" to Niccole Wilkes, Bill Briley and Charlotte Swartzentruber for their hard work with the college staff and church groups that were a part of Mission Indy 2006. Our last issue highlighted the 8 college students who were staff for those 4 weeks. This issue has a picture of each group who attended in 2006.

These groups were part of significant projects such as:

1. VBS with Iglesia Cristiana Westside
2. Replacing a garage roof for a family of Garfield
3. VBS with West Park CC and Hawthorne Community Center
4. Painting three garages for families that could not get the work done themselves.
5. Day Camp at DAMAR Homes - working with developmentally disabled young people.
6. Interior demolition, complete with Tyvek suits and organic respirators on a run-down house that Englewood will restore.
7. Rehab of a commercial store front with Victory Inner City Ministries.

They called me Running Pony, though I'm not exactly sure why.

I guess we did go running a few mornings here and there, starting our days off at a bright and early 5:00 am, and never stopping until 'lights out' at 10:15. This summer, our "tribe" of summer interns and full-time staff consisted of other special character names like Crazy Bull, Strong Fox, and Chief "Just in Case"--any guesses on who that might be? That's right, Ron Greiner himself. Now, just to be clear, our team accomplished many other more productive things than just granting everyone a unique tribal name, but I must say, the memories made that hot day, as we were painting on the scaffolding around Garfield Christian Church's gym, are some of my favorites.

I started the summer without a detailed job description or a set of concrete expectations for me. I was Mission Indy's "guinea pig," if you will. I knew they invited me back for a second summer because they had some sort of a new role to be filled; because I had some previous experience in working with Mission Indy; and because they believed in my ability, or should I say God's power to work through me, even when I doubted. Remembering how much I was grown and stretched from my first summer as an intern with Mission Indy, and excited to encounter more of that this summer too, I gladly accepted the invitation. Undoubtedly, it was going to be a learning experience for us all, but I anticipated lots of good things.

As the new team arrived and we spent our first weekend together, I quickly realized just how new personalities and backgrounds were going to make this summer different from last year.

With new faces, there also came new personalities, new backgrounds, new ideas, new approaches, new challenges, new joys, new conflicts, new inside jokes, etc. While I felt some sense of unease about all this change and uncertainty in both a new position and a new blending of interns that would somehow form our team for the summer, there was also much excitement for the times to come. Soon after, our days were jump-started with early morning runs and creative power-up dramas, and then packed with everything from VBS puppet skits and leading groups at house demolition and reconstruction sites to building lots of memories with inside jokes and a few paint wars here and there. Our evenings always included some awesome food prepared by the host churches, lively and Spirit-led worship, passionate speakers, and some real intense discussions about "losing" our lives or "saving" them, or whatever theme of the day it happened to be.

Sure, we had some tough times along the way-times when we were physically hurting or emotionally drained. There were many times when I left a group discussion thinking I had never been so confused about what God's Word meant or so lost in how we, as the Church, should be living out His wisdom in our communities. At the same time, there were countless good times, when I was so refreshed by the encouragement of another, or when I found myself bent over in laughter at the ridiculous thing someone just said, or when we took a moment to realize how God graced us with the opportunity to be a part of what He is doing to reclaim a particular neighborhood.

As I now walk away from a summer packed with hard work and fun, new friendships, and new learning experiences, I ask myself what was probably the biggest lesson I will take with me. Relationships. The importance of having real, transparent, deepening, love-filled relationships with one another is a recurring theme that sticks out to me from this summer. It was a truth, finally, very plainly played out for me, and I was able to see first hand the necessity of good, healthy, and openly honest relationships as part of the functional unit of the Body of Christ. As my friend Niccole says when I ask any tough question about how we can bring redemptive change to a situation or problem, "First, you have to be in relationship with one another."

And it is so true; God used a number of situations with the Mission Indy team, the week-long participants, home owners, VBS students, and even my family and friends, to reveal this truth to me this summer: that to be truly challenged and grown, to have truth effectively spoken into our lives, to be encouraged in a meaningful way, to have accountability in strongly pursuing the mission of God and not our own, and just to be the properly functioning Body of Christ, we must be in real, open, and honest relationships with one another.

So I ask myself, is it easy to build and nurture such relationships? Will it be quick? Will everyone be so willing to jump the bandwagon, share his "dirt," and love her neighbor sacrificially? No, of course not, but God is faithful and God is powerful, and thankfully He works in ways we cannot even imagine. Once again, I look back on the summer, so thankful that I accepted the offer to come back to Mission Indy for round two. I leave knowing, without any doubts, that God used this internship once again to challenge me in unexpected ways, to mold me more into the servant He wants me to be, and to bring an unbelievable amount of blessings to my life. Thank you, Lord, and thank you, Mission Indy, for another amazing summer!

Mission Indy will serve as the lead agency and Englewood as the lead church as Emmanuel School of Religion and Lincoln Christian Seminary partner with Mission Indy to more effectively train students for ministry in an ever-increasing urban world. Graduate Undergraduate and students from local church leadership and laity (Non-Credit) will take the same courses (although with differing expectations).

The Mission: To prepare students as resources to churches bearing witness of God's wisdom in Christ in an urbanized world.

The first course: Strategies, Methods & Models for Urban Ministry, will be held the 2^nd Saturday of the month this fall. Sep 9, Oct 14, Nov 11, and Dec 9.

See the web site or call the office (317-423-3505) for details.