Greetings,
We have arrived safely, thanks be to God! We were greeted with big smiles and open arms by our friends here at Mt. Olive Baptist church. We are all in good spirits, a bit tired, and excited for the work that God has prepared for us. Thank you for your prayers for safe travels.
This past weekend was our annual Fall Summit for Street Level! We had participants students from UW Stout, UW River Falls, and UW Superior at The Blind Munchies Coffeehouse in Menomonie on Friday evening & all day on Saturday. We were also joined by guest speaker Te V Smith from New Orleans, LA.
We can’t wait to get together with Menomonie, River Falls, and Twin Ports for our 2024 Street Level Fall Summit!
Interested in joining us? Drop by one of our Street Level Meetings to sign up – or feel free to reach out to us at streetlevel@jfbelievers.com with questions.
Looking to get to know us this year? Come join us this week – here is what we have going on!
Street Level is taking a break from our normal scheduled programming on April 29th, and INSTEAD will be on campus giving away free coffee and hanging out! If you’re on the UW Stout or UW River Falls campuses – stop by from 4-8pm to get some free coffee from The Blind Munchies Coffeehouse and to hang out with us!
Street Level is having its Spring Summit this weekend April 5-6) in Duluth!
Participants from UW Stout, UW Superior, and UW River Falls will gather in Duluth for a weekend of teaching, fellowship, and worship. This is our twice a year gathering aimed at those who want to go further in their walk with God.
Appreciate all who signed up! It’s going to be a great weekend!
Our morning started off on the train arriving in Chicago. The conductors announcements and lights let us know that we were nearly there. Everyone scrabbled to collect their bags not forgetting to grab the goodie bags that Mt. Olive church sent us home with.
The group split up to get the church van situated for the road trip back. The rest of the group marched towards the best, nearest, and open coffee shop. After getting caffeinated we pilled into the church van and car and drove out of Chicago.
It’s been a whirlwind of a trip, filled with good food, lots of laughs, and hard work. Thanks for holding down the fort while we have been away!
Finishing up our last day at Mt. Olive included cleaning the bed barn, pairing some comforters and sheets for deliveries, taking down our beds and mattresses, and enjoying fried chicken for lunch with a couple more stories from the guys that have been working with us this week.
We piled in the vans shortly after and headed for Memphis, which included a drive past Graceland. This evening we’ll be catching the trains back to Chicago for our last leg or the trip back home.
Thanks for all your prayers during this time. We’ve been blessed in our time here and by all of the folks we met.
This morning the group split up to serve in multiple different areas. About 6 people went to a Food Bank in Boonville where they helped distribute food to over 200 families. Another group of 3 was able to deliver 1 bed in Tupelo. 3 people went to collect additional mattresses from storage and brought them back to Mt. Olive Baptist church. The rest of us helped to organize the work shop and storage garage.
Once the team re-convened, the race to construct as many beds as possible was on. After today, our last day working in the shop, we have constructed 200+ beds in our time here in Mississippi. We were able to make one more delivery of 2 beds to down town Baldwin. Thus, we were blessed to be able to deliver a total of 19 beds to families in the northern Mississippi area.
We closed out the day by going to a buffet to get catfish, shrimp, and all sorts of southern food! We can’t believe the our time in Mississippi is almost over, but we are excited for a couple of adventures still to come.
That’s all for now folks!
Today we continued our work with the team from Mount Olive Baptist Church making bed frames and trying to put a dent in the generous amount of delicious southern food provided for us. In the afternoon some of our team assisted the church with Wednesday evening meal prep and delivery for people who can’t leave their homes.
For dinner we visited Wayne, the director of the Baptist Student Union at Northeast Mississippi Community College. Wayne made us dinner and homemade ice cream, and we had good conversation with him about his work the past forty years in campus ministry.
