Time for restoration

As the cleaning out of Homes die down the restoration begins.
Most of you know I am a person who trusts God. For me if I know God keeps His promises. He sent His Son to die for us. If we know the story of Jesus, but remain deaf to His calling to each one of us the restoration will only begin in our the things of this time, in this world. But in reality.
It is time. Time for those who do not, to seek Him, Seekers to become believers and believers to be sanctified.
Isaiah 49:13-23 ESV /
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. ...
He is waiting, you are engraved on the palms of His hands.
Seek Him so that you may have Life.
He has a plan, knows and loves all of us. Did God cause this storm to bring us to Him or was it a result of a fallen people and world? We cannot try to figure out Gods motives, but we do know that He is perpetually calling all of us. Christ did not die for the select but for us all. I Have talked to so many people devastated by this storm. They see the blessings and the outpouring of love that has resulted from the storm. However I see struggles in attaching that to God working. God uses His people to do His work. He will be honored and glorified through this tragedy. Pray, for restoration of people and hearts to Jesus as well as homes. pray for those to seek Him and sing for joy. Pray that we see God working through His people and not people.
Praise Him.

Storm In The Storm

We pray, we lament, we share in the grief of a broken community. The Arks home was wiped away, closed indefinitely, but the mission field still remains. Broader, larger and in our face. Now a new mission begins within our mission. So many lost homes to be restored. There is work to be done and the support is amazing. Pinelands Church, Lighthouse Alliance with Operation Blessings, Calvary Baptist, St Theresas where the shelter is now running. There is also another restoration taking place. A restoration to Jesus. We pray they continue to show the work of Gods hand in all of this. The pain and suffering in the loss detaches  those from things we thought were important to think about that which is important. Things can be replaced although the loss is daunting and difficult. However, hope, caring and loving your neighbor as Jesus commands us is infinitely important. Things temporary come and go but its the things eternal we must seek. We will, we pray we will. God Bless all of those who lost so much. We pray that infinitely more is gained through this storm and that Jesus Calms the storm in our lives.

Power of Prayer

On Tuesday we will not be having the Ark. Instead we will be having a prayer walk. We will meet at the community center and walk around the community praying. I hope you can join us and I hope God reveals some that we can do or improve trough this walk.

Matthew 7:7  ”Ask, and it will be given to you seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

The Next Phase

We are excited for what The Ark is doing. We just raised $1180.00 that is going to be matched by Giving Of Life Ministries grant up to $1000.00. So a total of $2180.00 was raised. Our next phase is The Ark Home Project. We are working to find a home for The Ark and financing it will be difficult.
This is Gods ministry and He has already shown us this is where we are to go moving forward in this community outreach. As many of you know we have not been able to meet of late because the community center was closed for renovations. The time away has allowed us to pray and seek guidance as to where this ministry is going. I have spoken to a lot of the youth while we have been in a sort of hiatus. They are looking forward to us getting back. There are also other grants for which we have applied and we have a Golf Outing in the works for next April. Please continue to pray for the youth of our community as well as this ministry to bring the gospels and truth to the youth. We are also working on many other opportunities to offer vocational work for the youth. We are also striving to bring together youths from all the community youth groups to engage them in meaningful discussions about how Jesus is relevant in their lives today. Many things are being revealed and starting to come to fruition. Stay tuned for what we will be doing at The Ark when we get back up and running in a week.
2 Corinthians 9:8

 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. God is providing, he is calling for patience but perseverance. We are truly blessed to be called into His workings in this ministry.

God Bless

Seeing God work

God put The Ark ministry in relationship with Harvey Cedars Bible Conference to accomplish His workings. What a blessing it was to have the youth leaders along with the activity director at The Ark Project this week and continuing through the summer. We together are fulfilling God's mission of restoring our youth. As it is read in Josh McDowells book, The Last Christian generation. The crisis is real the responsibility is ours.
Paul puts it this way, " (Christ) has given us this ministry of restoring relationships" 2 Corinthians 5:18. During the years of Jesus' life on earth, "God was using Christ to restore His relationship with humanity" 2 Corinthians 5:19. Now Christ's Holy spirit is in us , and he" has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others. Therefore, we are Christ's representatives, and through us God is calling you", 2 Corinthians 5:19-20. God wants to involve each of us and our young people in his ministry of drawing people to Him by the attitudes we have, the things we say, and the way we act. This isn't merely some mission statement we are suppose to believe intellectually; it's a dynamic activity we are suppose to engage in for our entire lives. How can we begin to come against culture by mere words? We begin by rebuilding the pillars of our youth. Our youth have to experience Christ working through us. The youth see us, just ordinary people, as they see culture today, they will not respond. If they see Christ working through us and they are drawn by what? they may not know. We know it is Christ working through us, His children, they will respond. Praise God for His working and The Harvey Cedars ministry responding to their mission.

Overall...

God, of being above all beings. He's a Lord a above of all Lords. He created you, he created me. He created the universe, he created everything in the universe. He created Earth and he created everything on the Earth. He created the Heavens and he created everything in the Heavens. God is the Holy Spirit, he dwells inside of us but most of us choose to turn away from him. We choose to go on on own paths. And when that he lets us go on to our own ways and allows the Devil to consume us. Most people say, why would he let us do this?? Well, he has no choice ,because he is good he is right you can't have God in your heart and the Devil in your heart because God can't be around bad because he IS good. Over the past couple months at The Ark we have been teaching kids why to let God inside you. I've felt it firsthand. When you let God inside you, your heart turns into something and feels something that is the greatest feeling you could have. You want to love everybody you could. You just feel great inside. But when you let the devil in, which i witnessed this first hand as well, everything at some point crashes. You build up, you build a little more, you build up a little more, until your at your peak with the Devil. Then it all comes crashing down. With the devil comes hate and wickedness. You always want something more, you've never love and eventually you go to Hell, Hell. Its bad, here is no happiness or joy it's hell. You don't want to be there. You need to keep your morals intact, you to love one another you need to listen. You got a shove and fight and PUSH AWAY the devil, out, OR IT WILL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN! You have to. At The Ark, we try to do everything in our power, and rely on God to stop everything in young kids lives from crashing down. We teach Gods word, the Bible. If you listen to the Bible, all of your life will be smooth it will NOT go easy. But at the end God will be waiting at the gates of Heaven saying, "well done my faithful, and trusted servant," and that's what all counts. This is not a fairytale. This is real. Listen please, listen to this message, everything will turn out, truly perfect.

Who Is You Neighbor ???

Your neighbor, the person next door? Down the street? In Your school? Yes, all of that and more. In Gods Eyes everyone is your neighbor. EVERYONE! So when the bible says "love your neighbor" he means love everyone no matter what. It may seem impossabl but I bet that if we made it our goal in life, to love everyone then we could, and it should be one of our goals in life. So try this week to love and respest everyone you come in contact with. Be nice to them, even if they don't be nice to you. Also do not bully. I know we say this alot but it goes with loving. If you love everyone you come in contact you cant bully. Like I have said befor bulling someone will shread someone up. It can ultumatley ruin someones life. God designed us to take only so much hate a neglection. Until they snap. Recently in High School in Ohio some kids were pushed to the limit with bulling. They snapped. They shot 5 kids, 2 dead and 2 critacly injured. That is what bulling does, remember that.

Thank You For Reading and Godbless :)

Calm and Smooth :)

Today was a great day as usual. Everyone was somewhat relaxed and everything ran smooth we played stik ball, had a race, and played silent ball. During the lesson we learned about how one person can change the world. Some examples were Martin Luther King Jr. Who domolished segregation between human beings. Steve Jobs who revolutinized technology, phones, music players, and the world. Almost everyone I know has at least one Apple Product produced by Steve Jobs. And of course, JEREMY LIN im just kidding, JESUS CHRIST. He made everyone in the world able to cross over from the world to heaven. He gave and is giving everone the oprotunity to shut the door to hell and open up those to heavan. Now is that a revolutinary change in the world or what !!!!???? We asked all our staff and they all said the most influentail person in thier lives is JESUS. Nobody could change the world like he did.

Gossip ???

Gossip, it can tear someone up from the inside out. If you make a bad choice in what you wear or do it could flutter around to a ton of people and they could hear what really happened, a tweaked story, or something that did not even happen. Then you are the person who everyone laughs at. This could and does extremely hurt people, even to the verge of suicide. This is a very serious thing. Therefor we have a challenge to not gossip or say anything negative.What does the bible say about this?? Proverbs 11:13¹³ Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered, and Proverbs 20:19 ¹⁹ Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler. Also we had about 50 kids there. The games we played were Hoops (simple, shoot the b-ball into the can) and everyone raced to the middle and struggled to get the object in the center. Overall the night was good. Thank you for reading, God bless :)

A new start

The Ark was a new start this week. The staff came together and a meeting was held on Monday we prayed and really asked each and everyone who wants to be involved as servants in this ministry to make sure they are prepared and this is where The Lord wants them. We started off The Ark sharing our desire that the kids listen to the message. Matthew 7:24-27 ²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” We asked the kids to share their struggles and explained what sin is. Then asked them to start thinking about really hearing the words and teachings from the bible to overcome struggles and start to build a foundation. We implemented alot of structure and it went very well. We were happy too see such the response from the youth to the guidance that we continue to seek from God.

Human Foosball, dodge ball, games,silent ball and prayer ended the evening with a real sense of  joy, peace, love and light.

Continuing His Ministry with blessings and obedience we thank you all.
God Bless

 

We Can MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!

Today was a GREAT DAY !! We had a special of chicken and fries. We played games with basketballs. Drills, exercises, and workouts all with basketballs. People who were not interested did crafts, played board games or sat and talked. The message today was about how we need to take what we learn in the Ark and take it outside the fence. That we can make a difference in the community if we stand together one standing alone can do a lot less then many standing together. So we are going to try to take what we learn in the Ark and carry it with us. Lets all try and make a difference !!!

Thank You for reading and God Blesd you !! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

What is your new years resolution?? Well, The  resolution for the youth at The Ark is for everybody to take what they learn and bring that outside of The Ark. We learn about God, respect, kindness, The Bible, responsibility, doing onto other as you would like done onto you and how to get along with all people. Imagine what we could accomplish if we where to live that example outside of The Ark. What influence we could have on others. Instead of being influenced negatively by others. Where do we find strength for that, in God. Excited for a new year and what we will be lead to do in this community.
We played Human Foosball, and silent ball, as well as Scrabble and crafts. It was a relatively quite night and enjoyed by all.
God Bless
Nicholas Ryan