On our way home

We are currently sitting in the airport awaiting our flight home! As of right now we are scheduled to arrive at 5:40! Our flight number is 255 and we are flying Jet Blue.

-Aaron

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Day 4 and 5

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but we had a full day. We got up in the morning and went to church. Sean talked about heroes in the Bible and looked at the story of Mary washing Jesus' feet in all four of the Gospels.

After that we took a quick trip to Plymouth Rock! Although we didn't act out when the pilgrims first landed it was a pretty historical time. It was beautiful there, so anytime you are in MA you should stop by.



After that we went an hung out with their youth group. They had just gotten back from camp, and it was really cool to hear about the things God is doing in their lives. We also had a small dance party and just enjoyed hanging out.

Today we had a marathon day of site seeing! We went around Boston and saw some pretty historic places!










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Day 3

Today we made popcorn and cotton candy in preparation for the big Madagascar Movie Night in Randolph! We helped load the trailer and make sure we had all the supplied for face painting, snowcones, and other fun things.

At 6 people started showing up at the park and the event went into full swing! We had a blast making cotton candy, painting faces, making grape and strawberry snowcones and hanging out on the Jolly Jumps (we call them inflatables haha)! It was cool to serve alongside the people of Grace church! Here's the pictures from today!










































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Day 2

Day 2 here in Boston has come and gone! We spent the whole day going door to door passing out cards with Grace Churches information on it! We walked miles upon miles it was pretty awesome! Here are some pictures from last night and today!






















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Boston Day 1

Day one in Boston is coming to a close! Today we met up with Ken and Sean the Pastors of Grace Church here in Stoughton, MA. Sean spent some time talking with our team about the surrounding area. While typical gospel centered churches in the states normally have an average attendance is 100 at any given service, however here in Boston the average is 40!


We spent today handing out water bottles in downtown Stoughton. We handed out over 500 bottles of water today, and had alot of good conversations with a bunch of the people!


After that we were able to go see the Red Sox play at Fenway! It was awesome! Boston traffic= not so awesome.

Here's some pictures from today.



















Pray for us as we continue to serve the people in this community. Tomorrow we are planning on handing out more water bottles and hopefully handing out flyers for the movie night we are helping Grace put on! Pray for endurance and that we have some great conversations as we interact with people this week!

-Aaron

Arrived early

We arrived 50 minutes early! Yea American!

Baggage claim D27


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At the airport

We made it through security. Waiting for the flight.


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Pics from Sunday

The team on the Swan Boats in Boston. The same boats have been doing this since 1877!




George Washington statue




Eating a great Italian dinner in the North End

It was a great last day. Now we are getting ready to leave the hotel and head back to Dallas!
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Movie in the Park

We had a great day today! The day started with our team making 500 boxes of popcorn for the movie in the park that we were getting ready for tonight. You should have smelled our car after storing the popcorn in there for the afternoon.

We gathered at a local park this afternoon to get ready for the movie in the park. We had to unload a trailer with inflatables, sound equipment, and all sorts of supplies. We got the park set up and were ready for families to arrive...and arrive they did. There were somewhere around 400 to 500 people that came. Probably 95% of them totally lost with no connection to any Gospel preaching church. Our students were amazing...they worked from 4pm till 10:30...painting faces, making balloons, making snow cones, cotton candy, and manning bounce houses. It was an awesome night. Several of the families mentioned that they were going to try to come to Grace Church tomorrow.

I could not be more proud of these students. They are unbelievable. We are looking forward to going to Grace Church tomorrow morning. Then in the afternoon we will be going back into the city of Boston to relax and enjoy the afternoon.

Thanks for all your prayers. God is using these students in great ways!

Matt

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Pics from Saturday

We started today making 500 boxes of popcorn!




A trip to target for supplies...we were impressed with the escalator for your shopping cart!




Fun times making balloon animals!




Our girls painted hundreds of kids faces!




Making snow cones...





Mitch manning an inflatable





Robbie holding up an inflatable


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Friday Overview

Today was another great day here in the Boston area. We spent a full day passing out fliers about the upcoming Movie in the Park in the Canton, MA area. Our team is breaking ground this week...it is the first advertising done in the Canton area. Our students have done a fantastic job representing Grace Church in this new area.

This evening we had the chance to get dinner with Sean Sears and his wife and kids. Sean is the pastor of Grace Church. It was so awesome to get to hear his heart for this community. Canton is a town of 22,000 people and there are NO churches sharing the Gospel there. Can you believe that? Sean is passionate about reaching this area for Christ.

One of the cool things i learned was that it is directly because of their partnership with Lake Pointe that they are able to do this Movie in the park in Canton. If not for funding that Lake Pointe is providing they could not do it. I'm so proud to be part of a church that is helping new churches reach their communities.

Tomorrow is our big day. Pray for us as we get to be a part of the movie in the park. I can't wait for our students to be able to interact with the people of this community.

Matt


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Thursday Overview

Today began early this morning as we gathered together at Grace Church to get our plans for the day. They gave us 4 maps and tons of fliers to pass out. Here is a picture of one...







As we got out on the roads of Canton, Ma we got a call from Taylor, the student pastor at Grace. He said that the parks department had just called and decided they would not host a movie in the park. They asked us to immediately start praying for a change of heart as they went to meet with the parks director. About an hour later we got a call that we were back on, but that they would be changing locations. We were excited to get back to passing out fliers. We divided into two groups and got after it. Our students did a great job. Many had good conversations with people as they invited them to the movie in the park. We are looking forward to another great day tomorrow finishing up passing them out.

We worked till 6pm this evening before wrapping up and heading to dinner. After dinner we found a local ice cream stand called Daddy's Dairy...they literally had 140 flavors of soft serve ice cream in addition to 30 flavors of regular ice cream. It was amazing!

Pray for us tomorrow as we go back out into the community.

matt
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Pictures from Thursday

Just a small part of 4 maps we are trying to finish...




Let's just say some of the driveways were long and steep. If you look hard you will see Michelle at the top of the driveway.





Mitch with his "Girly" ice cream cone at Daddy's Dairy...it was awesome ice cream! We made their Facebook page...


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Wednesdays fun...

We had a great first day in Boston. This morning we met Taylor at Grace Church and learned a lot more about the church that we are serving with. Taylor and his wife are the volunteer youth leaders at the church. I can't imagine having to work another full time job, while still being the youth pastor of a church. He is a great guy and God is using him in great ways. It is incredible to hear about the things that God is doing in this church. It isn't easy to start a church up here, but God is doing great things.

Taylor then took us around Boston. WE started at Harvard, which was pretty cool. We got to walk around Harvard Yard...

We ate lunch at the most awesome Burger Joint...it was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives...Bartley's Gourmet Burgers. The names on the menu were pretty funny, there is a picture of the menu on my other post. After that we went to Fenway Park and got a tour...AWESOME! Then onto downtown Boston and we began to walk the freedom walk...in the freedom RAIN...

Since it started raining we ran in one of the million Dunkin Donuts for a snack. We saw Paul Revere's grave, the state house where the Declaration of Independence was read, Park Street Church...and many other famous old sites.

We ate some pizza for dinner and came back to the hotel to get some sleep and get ready for a great day of ministry tomorrow. We are going to be passing out 10,000 invitations to a "Movie In The Park." Pray for endurance for our students.

Can't wait for the morning...i will update more tomorrow night...


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Pictures from today...

The menu from lunch... For the record I got the Bill Clinton, it was awesome!



The team at Harvard... Do we look any smarter?





From the Fenway press box





From the ferry ride looking back to Boston.
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