Sign up now to be a part of an exciting week of Vacation Bible School as we journey into the wild heart of the forest and discover the untamed nature of God August 10-14, 2009! The adventure runs from 6:30 -9:05 PM each evening, and children 4 years old through 6th grade are invited to attend. The cost is $10 per child or $25 per family. The adventure will be held at our church, AND there will be a special Bible study led by Keith and Laurie Bakken for parents during that time.

If you are interested in donating items for snacks, supplies or would like to make a monetary contribution to help offset the cost of VBS please contact Ginny Ware at 773-763-4230 or e-mail edgebrookginny@sbcglobal.net. Thank you! Here is what we need:

Glow Rock Hideaway:  Laboratory
Quart size zip lock FREEZER BAGS – 60+
Baking Soda – 6 boxes
WHITE Vinegar – 1 gallon
Cornstarch – 7 boxes
9x13 Disposable aluminum cake pans (with plastic lid) - 6
Tonic Water (Quinine) - 12  2-liter bottles
Small jar petroleum jelly
Mentos mint candies (5 rolls of candy)
Pop up package of “wet ones” or “baby wipes” – 1 large

Tree Top Art Studio:  Crafts
300 Brown lunch bags
50  9x12in Felt squares (brown, green or tan)
10 Sponges           
200 Heavy Duty Paper Plates
Twine - lots
150 Zip Lock Sandwich Bags
Small stones - lots
Dried Beans           
Adhesive magnet strips
50 Clothes Pins      
Contact paper 400 ft. total
250 metal washers, various sizes
250 beads
50 small plastic bugs
5 blocks of clear glycerin (for making soap)

Harvest Grove:  Snacks
Mini bagels – 80
Cranberries – 3 bags
Cream cheese – 8 large
Raisins - 6 boxes
Chocolate chips - 6 bags
Chex cereal – 1 large box
Butterscotch chips – 1 bag
M & M’s chocolate candies – 6 bags
Colby cheese blocks – 10
Vanilla frosting – 4 cans
Pretzel sticks (thin) - 1 large bag
Pretzel rods - 1 large bag

If you would like to make a monetary contribution to help offset expenses for VBS, please make your check payable to Edgebrook Covenant Church and designate in the memo section VBS. Thank you! !

The CHIC participants wish to thank the congregation for all the prayers and the overwhelming generosity in response to their “Spare Change” and “Envelope Fundraiser”. A total of $1,291.58 was raised to help with the transportation costs to the University of Tennessee.

Our students returned from CHIC, and had great things to say about it:

Blake Baer – The 5 on 5 basketball tournament was fun. We did good against a skilled team.

Mady Baer – The best part for me was just enjoying fellowship with kids from both our youth group and others from across the country. It was amazing to spend so much fun time with thousands of kids who shared beliefs. Whether we were worshipping with the incredible singers and speakers, we were having a blast! A ton of bonding went on – with God and people.

Julia Bakken – For me my favorite part was the worship. Every time the music began, I felt like I was at a place where God and I were sitting next to each other. Literally, every part of CHIC was amazing. From meeting new friends to connecting with old ones, from playing volleyball to jumping in the pool, from listening to speakers to prayer – it was all an outstanding experience for me!

Mikey Doucette – My favorite part of CHIC was going to Main Stage each night. Main Stage was a place we would all go to and worship and listen to speakers. Seeing all those kids and adults together was a moving experience. Thank you to my church family for their financial support and prayers. To sum it up, my spiritual life grew closer to God and is much stronger.

Paige Luttrell – CHIC 2009 was a once in a lifetime experience. From listening to all kinds of speakers, to worshiping with bands I love like Third Day and Flyleaf. If I was asked what the best part was, I really couldn’t say. It was the experience as a whole that changed my life. I felt God’s spirit everywhere we went and I saw God at work, which is one of the coolest things in the world! To see my generation doing something to change the world is just amazing – it takes 400 letters per congressional district to bring up the issue human trafficking . We wrote over 2,000 letters to senators all over the continent. Just things like that, that feeling that you are changing the world is amazing. I would trade anything in the world for the past week and I know I will never forget this. I can’t thank Sarah and Brad for their amazing support and my church family for helping me grow in Christ! God bless!

Charlie Mesimore – 5 on 5 ball, pool the speaker Steven Furtick.

Bonnie Nelson – My highlight of CHIC was the main stage series. I have never felt God’s love flow through me like He did at the services very night. The music was amazing and the sermons were my favorite. Each minister who came and spoke was more than motivational, and made the music after the sermons even more fantastic. Also, it truly surprised me how much they had put into lighting the stage and hiring so many different bands to perform daily. I was emotionally touched by every speaker who was hired, not for basic sermons, but topics that they truly felt the power to explain and the individuality of each speaker who felt their own all to God through their lives. Each of them were honest and realistic. Also, I liked how we could all be together to worship and have fun, and buy souvenirs afterwards.

Jason Nelson – My favorite part of CHIC was the feeling of community. Every day, bet the morning seminars/mealtimes or the tend of the day at Main Stage, there was always a feeling of connection with the person beside you. To know all the people there were learning about Christ and sharing their faith with one another truly made CHIC invigorating, and helped me focus on the words of the speakers and the songs. Because of that, my CHIC experience was an amazing one, and it was a once in a lifetime journey.

Emily Nelson – My favorite memory from CHIC 2009 was the worship bands. It was great to know that even famous bands like Flyleaf and Third Day can still be rooted in Christ and don’t let the fame take them away from God.

Tony Ranieri – My favorite part of CHIC was the night when tons of people went down to the floor and asked God to be with them.

Keith Stoker – I had three major highlights from CHIC 2009. The first was when Stephen Furtick spoke the third night. I had never heard him in person, only on an audio recording, but for me the message he brought was very blunt and straightforward and his enthusiasm was contagious. Another highlight was watching a screening for a new movie coming out in January called “To Save a Life.” It was a powerful movie about high school and the struggles of high schoolers in the modern world. The last highlight was the final song of the whole conference, where a few of us went down to the front and had a crazy time worshipping God, with it all ending in a burst of confetti and a bunch of girls screaming in my ear.

Sarah Henry – I have never been more tired than I was this past week. I have never been more emotionally exhausted. I have never been more angry at the necessity of breakfast. And yet I wouldn’t change the experience for anything. What I saw/experienced at CHIC 2009 was irreplaceable. I saw students, your kids, challenge their notion of Christianity, vow not to eat chocolate to avoid supporting slave labor write letters (over 2,000) to our senators to raise awareness, give over $100,000 out of their pockets to the mission field. But the most beautiful think I witnessed was their/our realization that Jesus’ love is enough. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for letting me come. I’ll never forget this experience.

Brad Henry – The time we spent at CHIC was a unique and special time of spiritual growth, not just for our youth, but for everyone who was present. By learning to love justice (real justice, as in ending poverty, preventing wars, standing up for the oppressed), showing mercy (by forgiving others, forgetting past mistakes and loving unconditionally), and walking humbly with our God (actually seeking his presence, spending time in His word, and coming to him as a loving Father), we can truly realize God’s perfect and purposeful will for each of our lives. Amen for the reminder!

My assignment at CHIC was to be a member of the Prayer Team. All fifteen Prayer Team members wore green tee shirts every day, which made us easy to recognize and approach with prayer requests. Our days were long and full of prayer, hugs and tears—that was our job, and it was our privilege to be there in prayer for all!

Each morning at 7 a.m. the Prayer Team assembled before breakfast in the Prayer Room, the alumni lounge on the top floor of University Center, transformed by our leader Steve Burger into an inviting space with small groupings of chairs and couches for prayer and privacy, and a curtained-off corner with a kneeler for very private prayer. My end of the Prayer Room was the office, where I sat before a telephone, laptop computer, and office supplies on one half of an “L” formed by two eight-foot tables. The other table in the “L” contained an attractive array of treats, from bags of pretzels and mini-cookies to mini-candy bars and bottles of water to give as treats to visitors to the Prayer Room. Unfortunately the treats were very near at hand to my work area, but I disciplined myself to eat only one mini candy bar each day.

Visitors to the Prayer Room were students, counselors and staff volunteers stopping by to ask for prayer. Prayer Team members who happened to be in the office were available to pray with the visitors. Often I was alone in the office, because all other Prayer Team people were at the morning Base Camp seminars, the counseling and health centers, and the afternoon recreation venues, available to pray for and with students. The Prayer Team assembled in the Prayer Room again after lunch, to share prayer requests and decide on their afternoon assignments. I was in the Prayer Room all morning and most of the afternoon. While I was there to pray, the “office” portion of my assignment was to prepare the sheet of prayer request updates that was sent daily by e-mail to more than 500 members of the off-site prayer team. I felt honored that Steve Burger trusted my words to go out over his name in this mailing. I also felt the strong power of prayer, both on site and off site. In the update I tried to give a complete picture of what was happening at CHIC to the students, counselors, and staff members—many of the off-site prayer team are in Covenant retirement communities, and I wanted them to know as much as possible by including descriptions of what the various volunteer staff people did, updates on requests from the day before, and praise items. It was a privilege to serve as the office anchor to the Prayer Team.

The most challenging part of my day at CHIC was the evening event at the arena, where all 5,500 students, counselors and staff gathered for worship beginning at 8:30 p.m. and ending between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. As I’m not a night person, I found these were long evenings. The Prayer Team came to the arena at 7 p.m. to pray over the seats--every seat in the arena was covered in prayer. At 7:30 we gathered in the dressing room of the CHIC band to pray with them and the evening’s speaker, and then we stationed ourselves in various areas of the arena. I sat every night on a ledge behind the last row of seats in the upper deck, designed for wheelchair seating but containing a folding chair, so I sat with access to the foyer behind the arena seats. From time to time during the evening, I would step into the foyer to look around for anyone needing prayer—often someone would see my green Prayer Team shirt and ask me to pray with them.

Tuesday evening a young man sat on the floor in the foyer with his head in his hands. When I saw him signaling for me to come over, I managed to get onto the floor and we started talking, but the noise from the band on stage made talking difficult, so Dave (his name) and I went through the glass doors onto the deck surrounding the upper part of the arena. A youth leader, Dave was troubled over Frankie, one of his charges, who was grieving his uncle’s death (Frankie’s need had already been listed on our prayer sheet, so I knew a little about him). There were more issues, though, and it seemed Dave was frustrated that he couldn’t get Frankie to come to events on time or participate fully in CHIC. I felt inadequate to counsel an experienced youth leader, so while I was silently praying for wisdom, I started telling Dave that my son Timothy was a first-time youth leader at CHIC. At that moment, the glass doors opened and Timothy walked out! I introduced them, we spoke a few words, and Timothy left us. When Dave and I started praying, I asked God to give Dave the ability to release Frankie to his care, confident that Frankie would receive the message he needed to hear either that night or another time at CHIC. While we were huddled in prayer with eyes closed and my arm around Dave, I felt a presence right next to me. I opened my eyes and saw a young boy with his arm around Dave and his head pressed against Dave’s chest—Frankie. I left the leader and student to work out their situation and praised God that Frankie sought out the leader who cared so much for him.

Thank you, Edgebrook, for praying for me while I was at CHIC. Many wonderful things happened during CHIC and will continue in the weeks and months to come, as students, counselors and volunteer staff remember what was said and how God met them at CHIC.

Ann-Helen Anderson
July 21, 2009

Each year, around Thanksgiving, we have a Giving-Thanks Dinner Program and offering. It gives us a chance to Thank God for His faithfulness to us. This year, the "Giving Thanks" Dinner and Offering will have a strong missions theme! The date is Sunday November 15th. Please mark this important date on your calendars. More details will be available soon. We anticipate a wonderful day of praise to God for His goodness to us and to our church.

The "Giving Thanks" offering this year will go toward meeting the recommended mission giving levels to the Central Conference and the Denomination. As a reminder, in order to balance our budget last year, we reduced our mission giving to the conference and denomination. As a congregation, we agreed that any surplus at the end of the year would be given to try to reach the recommended giving levels of 10% of our budget to the denomination and 5% to the conference. We are well below this goal.

The trustees have set a goal for the "Giving Thanks" offering at $9,000 with 1/3 to go to the Central Conference and 2/3 to the Covenant Denomination. We are hoping and expecting that our regular giving will remain at the faithful level that it has been. That will enable us to make this important and unprecedented gift to reach others for Christ and to continue to expand God's Kingdom.

Please join us in prayer, and consider your involvement so that together we can reach this goal! More to come.

In Christ,
The Trustees

Dear supporters who care enough to pray for immigrants and asylum seekers in Belgium,

As they came for a farewell waffle dinner in our home, 5 year old Ingrid was sharing (with great enthusiasm, I might add!) that she had just been to see her grandpa in the hospital. It was her first trip to the hospital here in Belgium, and as we waded through many “important” details, we finally got to the bottom line: “Miss Barb, my grandpa is getting better” to which Miss Barb promptly replied “How cool is that, Ingrid! You see, God is answering our prayers.” We had just prayed in church that morning for her grandpa. It’s so like God to hear our prayers, to answer them as He sees fit, and to encourage us with results along the way.

I have heard myself say several times in the last week “Wow, God is sure hearing our prayers”…..when a friend came back from a missions trip and told of all the hard physical work she did, but also that she got good Sabbath rest as we had prayed for rest….for a friend who has previously asked “do you really believe that Jesus is the son of God?” who has accepted an invitation to join us with her family for an evening meal and conversation….for all the safe travel and good connections with supporters while I was in the US for 3 weeks in June….for a good finish to the women’s programs with a picnic, good food, laughter, smiles all around and we even had sunshine for both events!

The summer months here have a slower pace in the sense that we take a break from many of our “weekly activities” because so many people are traveling. This does allow an extra measure of time to work on Dutch language study, preparation for VBS and one-on-one meetings with the women and their families. My colleague Hannah is busy doing a month long intensive Dutch course, Jared is working on all the prep and details for VBS. Steve is meeting with several young men this summer, and I’m helping to host a missions team from N Carolina who are coming to work with women and children at the centers for asylum seekers for a week.

Like never before have I understood these words from 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

I acknowledge that I am a child of God.
I acknowledge that I have been called by His name.
I acknowledge that my best position before God is one of humility.
And I acknowledge that I struggle with being humble! Sometimes I just plain want to run the show!!

Yet I long to hear from heaven. I know that we cannot go forward in ministry here except that we’re praying together, learning together, and struggling with our humility together. And so…..

Happy Fourth of July weekend to all of you! Here in Mexico, this weekend is important for a different reason; this is election time of the year. While this is not a presidential election year, yesterday the people voted (haven't even seen results yet) for a new governor for the state of Nuevo Leon and new mayors for Monterrey and the other cities. So in June we saw a crescendo of advertising, flag-waving and robo-calls promoting and smearing the various candidates.

Also in June, Monterrey, and all of Mexico, experienced a frenzied attempt to return to normalcy after having been "held hostage" for several weeks in May by the swine flu. Everyone (schools, businesses, government, families) had to try to cram two months of activities into just a few weeks before the real summer season hit. The ministries of the Family Development Foundation (FDF) were no exception as we had a very busy month. The following are a few of the major events:

We are actually writing this from the city of San Luis Potosi as we travel to our summer staff retreat with all the other Covenant Missionaries in Mexico. When we get a chance, we will get some photo albums of all these activities posted on our website ...and maybe a pic or two of the boys! We send our love, greetings and thanks to you, our partners in ministry, whom we hope to see soon while on home assignment. Please let us know if your church is interested in us visiting sometime this fall, winter or next spring.

Blessings,
Nils, Erika, Matias and Lucas

Here's the latest from Erin Neises, short term missionary w/ Campus Crusade for Christ, serving in Malaga, Spain.

Prayer Team! Thanks so much for your prayers these past several weeks! God has been moving inside me, deepening our relationship. Since my baptism, God has ignited this new passion, this new love, that I never experienced before. I feel stronger than ever in my walk with the Lord, waiting for Him to reveal the next step.

Please pray for these few things right now:

I love that God has called you to be a part of His amazing work here in Spain. Please email me back and let me know how I can be praying for you and your family!

BLESSINGS!

On Sunday, June 19th a Bags Tourney and picnic lunch were held on the side lawn of church. Several rounds of Bag Toss were held and the Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shop in Niles donated a portion of our lunch and provided an additional 10% discount off our order. About 40 members and friends were in attendance.

Several folks also played the “Sniff my Spice” game and the competition was fierce. For all those who had to leave before the answers could be shared, here they are:
#1 = onion powder
#2 = ground cumin
#3 = whole cloves
#4 = caraway seeds
#5 = garlic powder
#6 = celery seed
#7 = anise
#8 = ground allspice
#9 = ground sage
#10 = oregano

Everyone seemed to have a good time and we look forward to another tourney soon!!