Looking Forward to LiT 2013!

We're Baaaaack!

Summer 2013 Program

The Mercer Lutheran Mission Cluster is sponsoring a project this summer that would engage young adults in supporting the summer programming of the Trenton Lutheran congregations, as well as engage the difficult and diverse cultures of our cluster and county. This program seeks to do several other things: deepen discipleship and spirituality in young adults, as well as involve them to understand the urban-suburban partnership that our Mission Cluster participates. Lastly, this also helps to seek out and understand the urban gifts and challenges that are unique to the city of Trenton through service and cross-cultural learning.

This program seeks to look at two distinct issues, the need to keep young adults talking about and deepening their understanding of faith and the opportunity to understand our community more. This program will use an action-reflection model, so not only will we do stuff but we’ll also talk about it. If you or someone you know is interested in deepening their faith, working with other young people, and learning more about Trenton and our area, then sign up! Please contact your pastor for more information.


The program will run from June 30th-August 11th, beginning on that Sunday with a commissioning at the beginning, and a farewell and Godspeed service at the end.

Application details: must be 18-25, and have graduated from high school prior to June 30, 2013.

Hours Working: 25-30 hours a week, though the specific hours will vary week-to-week. Some weeks will require more evening. Scheduling conflicts such as other jobs and classes will need to be taken care of by the participant.

Positions Available: There will be 6-8 spots available in 2013.

Work Description: Will be across an array of contexts: Vacation Bible School, building and grounds maintenance,
working for service organizations, other youth and evangelical programming.

Compensation: For the whole summer $1500. This breaks down to $250 a week, or about $10 an hour.

Interview: There will be an interview conducted between April 1 and May 1. This will either be conducted over the phone, or by Skype


Check our previous posts to learn more about what we're up to in Trenton! And as always, please pray for leaders, potential participants, and our partnering organizations as we prepare for a summer of learning, growth, and service in the name of Christ. 

Until Next Year...

This experiment in faith and urban service is over... for now. Stay tuned as the future of LiT unfolds. In the meantime, thank you so much for your prayers during this project. More information about what is happening with LiT will be posted on this page. 


For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. ... They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 

Isaiah 65: 7, 21-22

Reflection on Wednesday August 15

Wednesday August 15^th the 10 of us, and Pastor Richter, went to St. Mark Lutheran Church. Today was Olivia’s last day with us so we had a day to fill out an evaluation packet. Before we did that, as always, we did an opening worship. Our worship had a communion portion to it this morning. This was only the second time we have done communion together. It is nice sharing the bread and wine with the other people in the group. After worship we started with the packets. We sat separately and filled them out with quiet chat every once and a while. It was quite the quiet day until we all finished and got a nice break from writing for lunch. I think after being so quiet we were all ready to talk to each other since we have grown so close as a group. After our lunch we took our packets to the library and went over each section as a group. The answers we gave provided some good feedback, or so I thought. The end of our discussion was the feedback we gave on each other. We all shared stories about the work we did and had some great laughs. When we all talking I don’t think anyone wanted to leave because it felt like the last day even though most of us have two more days. 

When we finished talking about our stories we made our way back into the sanctuary for closing worship. Since it was Olivia’s last day with us we did a sending for her and wished her safe travels and the best at school. All of us will miss her the last two days and I hope she will miss us too! After our day of reflecting I hope our feedback will help the program grow. It has been such a great experience for me to be able to do such great things with such great people for the summer. I could not have asked for more through this job. 

- Kevin

Reflection on Tuesday August 14

Tuesday was my last day of work because I am headed back down south to school early. We were at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer for our final week of work, working alongside Pastor Raymond again. But as opposed to the last time we had been there, to work with their Vacation Bible School program, we did work cleaning, fixing, and organizing things in and around the building. I started the morning with Genevee and Leela cleaning out the Sunday School room and reorganizing it to make it more usable. In the afternoon Kevin and I helped put together the bulletins for Sunday morning.

Both Monday and Tuesday we all made dishes to share for lunch and all had the opportunity to sit together and eat as a whole group which was so nice. I think we all wished that we had started doing that earlier because it really gave us an opportunity to talk and laugh and bond even closer. When we are working in all sorts of various jobs around the churches in separated groups and pairs it is really nice to have time to be all together again. I have loved being a part of this group because we all got along really well and learned a lot from one another, growing in our faith and having some awesome experiences. Plus we laugh almost constantly while working and singing and bonding. I expected to come into this experience and do work and meet some nice people who would be my coworkers; instead, we became friends.

As I was writing this blog post from the car, I got a phone call from the group as they were doing their devotions because they wanted me to be with them while they prayed. How many people would think that ten young adults would grow so close in faith during seven weeks of working together? At an age when most people lose touch with their faith and fellow Christians, we have had this opportunity to form relationships with one another that will hopefully keep us in touch and connected to the church. Working in and around Trenton, we have been a witness to the fact that young adults can share the love of God with others and work in His name. Yes, we have been able to do a good bit of dirty work and physical labor to help the churches, but I think greater than that is what we were able to gain and display to the world in terms of strengthening our faith and our desire to be involved with the life of the church.

- Olivia 

Reflection on Monday August 13

               Today we were at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer with Pastor Raymond. After our opening devotion, we split up into three groups. The guys went outside, two of us started polishing offering plates, and the rest went upstairs to clean the sanctuary. I’m not sure there’s much to say about today, because that’s pretty much all we did, aside from lunch, but I’ll get to that. Apparently, there was a lot of gum found stuck underneath the pews in the sanctuary. I thought that was pretty gross. I believe Pastor Raymond is going to address that at worship on Sunday.

               Lunch-what can I say? It was awesome. We decided to do a potluck, so we all (technically only most of us...but I digress) brought different dishes to share with each other. We had several chicken dishes, rice, pasta, chili, cornbread, and a dessert called Heavenly Salad. It was made with crushed pineapple, strawberry Jell-O, Cool Whip, and cottage cheese. Not everyone liked it, but I thought it was really good. Needless to say, everyone was pleasantly full afterwards. Tomorrow, we’re doing another potluck, so the people who forgot can bring something. I’m pretty excited about that. Perhaps we shouldn’t have done it on a Monday.

             

  Lunch was definitely the best part of the day. It’s always nice to sit down and have fellowship with each other. I think it just added to that feeling bringing all the different dishes together to have a meal.

- Rachel

Reflecting on Monday July 9

Hi! My name is Amanda. I'm 25 years old, and a sort-of member of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church (in reality, I'm Catholic). Part of my family is originally from Trenton. My Gram grew up on a farm in North Trenton, if you can believe it. However, my mom and dad chose to raise my brother and I in Levittown, right across the river.

Despite my Roman Catholic background, I wanted to join Lutherans In Trenton because of my close ties to my Gram, who is a member of the Lutheran Church. Additionally, I wanted to join due to my fierce love of Trenton. The prevalent problem of homelessness was another deciding factor in my decision to join Lutherans in Trenton. 

Monday started off with preparing for the start of vacation bible school. Katrina, Olivia, Genevee, and Nulah were the members of LIT who were at Saint Bart's with me. Of course, lots of parishioners were also at Saint Bart's to help.

I was put with the rainbows, who are five children who have just finished from 2^nd and 3^rdgrades. Each group has a fun hand motion and sound that we're supposed to do when we move from room to room. Ours is moving our hands in an arc while saying, “whoop, whoop, whoop.”

The other big thing that happened that I got put in charge of teaching everyone the hand motions for the VBS songs. Saint Bart's theme is Sky this year, so a lot of the songs have flying motions. It's a ton of fun. Thursday's song has dance moves that involve jumping up and down.

I'll be back on the 23rd-- in the mean time, stay tuned for some of my peer's posts!

Reflecting on Friday, August 3

Today we were at Abiding Presence again to continue some of the work we didn’t get to on Monday. Pastor Dan Whitener was with us again whom did a wonderful job keeping us busy. He had set up a sweet list for us to work on and check off. We cut down the last big tree that was growing between some other trees where it did not belong. The jobs we did today we mostly to upkeep the outside of the building like weeding, re-painting signs, and mulching most of the gardens. The memorial garden was our big weeding project. There were a ton of things growing through out the plants and now that we have gotten there it looks beautiful as ever! As we did that we had some people painting the letters on the sign out front so that everyone driving by could hear the good news. The group ended the day by all coming together and mulching the gardens around the building. Everyone was taking turns pushing the wheel borrow back and forth to pick up the mulch because it was all the way on the opposite side of the building. Hard work, but great exercise if you ask me!

Something new we have started is that when we work we enjoy listening to music. In my opinion, the music is making us work more efficiently and bringing us together. The best parts of my day are when we are working in a small group and some of us are singing a laughing while pulling weeds from the garden and before we know it, the garden is weed-less. It does not seem to matter what the music is although, we do enjoy having a Disney soundtrack on in the background. The little things such as music seem the just bring us closer and closer as a group everyday.

As a group, I feel that everyone is working hard together and I personally have not heard a single person complain about a job or another person once. It’s a great experience being around so many strong people in more than a physical way. The only true problem we had today was that there were too many people to have everyone mulching at once and this was resolved very quickly by just setting up stations and a rotation so that everyone could have a turn. Something that we have started, that I am taking a liking to, is that we end the day by talking about what worked that day and what could be better. I feel it is the perfect way to discuss how we can be more productive for the rest of our time on the job. I could not be happier with the way the job and group is turning out.

-Kevin Nowak