Post Zoo Lights

On a rainy Tuesday night, we set out for Portland Zoolights with 8 Burmese girls and 4 American girls - ready for an adventure! God blessed us by holding back the rain until the night was nearly over. However, it was quite cold and damp and not all the Burmese girls were wearing the proper attire for the Northwest weather. So as we walked along, we huddled together to stay warm.

After the many headcounts and ensuring we actually had a ticket for each girl, we boarded the zoo train. We were able to see many of the light exhibits from the train, and the backside of an elephant (one of two live animals we saw). Next we took photos with an life-sized otter and Frosty. One of the Burmese girls had a camera and took a photo of nearly every lighted thing she saw! It was fun to watch her excitement.

On our way out of the zoo we saw the second live animal - a mountain goat. The girls enjoyed watching him eat and taking photos of him. The final highlight of the night was exiting the zoo through the turnstile; it's the little things in life that bring the most pleasure!

Please join us for the Christmas Eve Services to hear more about our experiences and see the photos. We look forward to seeing you there!

It's taken long enough but after much prayer and planning we have figured out what the Youth girls will be doing. Hooray! Our life group, one of the three middle school and high school girl groups, were given $100 to spend in our community. We were very excited to be able to give that money away someone in our community!

It was hard to get things nailed down since we only meet once a week and to get 5 teenage girls to show up every week at the same time can be a challenge, to say the least :) We started out with each of the girls coming up with ideas of what they would like to spend the money on. They were all great ideas but as we prayed about them no one really stuck out. We decided spend the next week thinking and praying about the different ideas that were presented and to make a decision the following week. Within that week, I found out about an amazing opportunity that really spoke to my heart. I told the girls about it and they all agreed.

The opportunity you ask? There have been several families from Burma that have migrated to the United States in the last few months. They moved here with few belongings and speak very little english. All of the families have children of various ages and they are enrolled in the public school system. There is also a group of middle and high school aged kids amongst the families. In total there are 7 middle and high school girls, which is who we choose to spend our $100 on. I talked with a member of our church, she is interning with the organization that is helping these families get settled, and asked what their greatest needs are. She explained that they have received some coats, shoes, pants ect. but what's needed even more is to learn english and make friends. So as a life group we decided to take them to zoo lights and make an evening out of it. We will be taking photos and videos our trip so we can share it with the church.

These girls are the same age as the Compass Youth girls and no matter what country you're from, a teenage girl is a teen age girl :) We have had the chance to hangout with the girls on two different occasions, our Worship Gathering and Turkey Bowl. Both times the girls from Burma were excited and willing to be involved in the activities despite the language barrier. We're all really excited about having the money to take them to something they wouldn't otherwise get to experience. And more importantly be able to share Christ's love with them and make some great memories!!

Once we have some of the photos from our outing uploaded we'll post them here so you can get a taste of what we've been doing :)