Vision

Every year 840,000 or more people die of water related illnesses. 840,000. Broken down, that is 2,300 people every day dying of water related illnesses. Every minute a child under the age of 5 dies because they lack clean drinking water. Every MINUTE!

That’s right, the water we use to fill our pools in the summer, leave running while we brush our teeth, and water our plants with, over 750 million people lack access to that same water. These people are suffering and many are dying from completely preventable diseases.

If you could do something to prevent even one more death due to lack of clean drinking water, would you? If there was something practical you could do from your house in Minnesota that would make a profound impact on people’s live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the worlds POOREST nation, would you?

Well the truth is your CAN help. You CAN save lives. You can be a part of making that 840,000 deaths annually, lower and lower until the number is eventually  ZERO.

How can you help? Well, a few years ago Crossroads partnered with World Vision, a faith based organization committed to bring clean water and resources to the countries that need it most, to begin a water project in Swaziland. We raised money to help with the water project as well as had the opportunity to sponsor children from the region.

As of last year, 2014, the water project in Swaziland has been completed! Praise God! Now, Crossroads is going along with World Vision to the Congo to bring water and resources to the poorest country in the world!

Last year, many of you began sponsoring children from the Congo. If you haven’t taken the opportunity to sponsor a child, maybe now’s the time! Learn more about that, here.  Child sponsorship invites a person like you or me to support and help look after the well-being of a child in need from another country — until that child and community become self-sufficient. It’s an incredible opportunity to love people half way around the world.

If sponsorship isn’t for you right now, there are more ways to help. Each year, World Vision does a 1/2 marathon in summer (August) and a Full Marathon (October) to raise money to give people clean drinking water for life. FOR LIFE.  Are you a runner? Why not run with a cause this year. Crossroads is beginning to assemble teams for the Half and Full Marathons THIS MONTH! Team captains, training schedules, encouragement, oh my! Details to come soon!

Not a runner, but know some people crazy enough to run 13 or 26 miles? Why not support them as the they run! Every $50 they raise gives one person clean drinking water for life!

Crossroads just sent a team of people to the Congo on a vision trip to see first had the work that World Vision is doing! They just came back and the stories, pictures and videos are amazing! We are so excited to share these with you in the coming days and weeks.

We have set our sights on God and we know that His vision is to have a world where clean drinking water is accessible to EVERYONE, and that Everyone know HIM deeply! We are so thankful for the vision that World Vision is casting and so excited to be part of the AMAZING things God is doing through them all over the world.

        

We’ll see you this weekend!

Lisa Adams
Director of  Missions  

Advertisement

Not Just Once a Year

It’s impossible to escape Valentine’s Day. Like it or not, whether you’re married, single or somewhere in between, like Mondays, it comes around eventually for better or worse.

While I don’t necessarily love Valentine’s Day, I do love loving people. I’m the person who sends random cards or buy someone a present because I was thinking of them. I go to plays, and concerts, and events that my people are involved in because I think rooting for each other is about the best thing we can do. I call to check in even when I don’t have much to say. I am grateful for the people who grace the pages of my life story, and I don’t think ” I love yous” should be reserved for ONE day in February when we feel obligated to say it…and also…it’s just COLD in February so I feel like everyone a little bit bitter, and no one wants a cranky, forced “I love you.”

“I love yous” should be given out freely and as often as possible.

One of the most beautiful things in this world is the bond you share with another person. Whether it’s your mom, your spouse, your best friend or your children, it’s special and rare and God put those people in your life to support you, to hold you up, and to see you though this messy life.

I’m acutely aware of how much goodness and love the people in my life radiate. I’m grateful for the love the show me. So I want to take the opportunity to tell them how much I love and appreciate them as often as possible.

I am also so aware that there are so many people in this world who have not known love like I have.  There are 21-36 million people who are caught in a life of slavery and violence. There are 153 million children from babies to teenagers who are orphans. So many people who don’t know that love doesn’t have to painful or earned.

I want to challenge all of us to love the people in our lives well. Call them. Root for them. See them in person. Let them know they matter in the way they will most appreciate it ( Oh hey, 5 Love Languages!.). Say “I love you” as often as possible. let the people who make this world feel like home know they are appreciated.

I also would love to challenge us to find away to love the people outside our immediate circles as well. Pray for them, Volunteer in your community. Pay for someone’s gas or coffee. Do something, even if it’s small because love will change the world.

We have some great ways to love people coming up! Our February GOment in Woodbury is taking gently used clothing and other linens for The Dwelling Place, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.  In April, International Justice Mission is hosting the Global Prayer Gathering in Washington DC. There are a ton of local organizations that need volunteers. Find opportunities in our GO catalog, here.

No act of love is ever a waste of time. God loves us so much he sent Jesus, and Jesus loved the world so much that he now sends us to love everyone. Let’s really be the type of people that love hard and freely, the way Jesus calls us to.

Nicole Case
Web Administrator 

The Dwelling Place

As we are now in week 3 of our marriage series, I’m thinking about all of those people whose relationships are difficult, and painful and abusive. Domestic violence is something over 10 million children witness annually. 10 million children who are growing up to learn that abuse is synonymous with love. 10 million children who will grow up stuck in a cycle of abuse, being afraid of love, and/or becoming abusive themselves.

Domestic Violence is the leading cause of injury among women. That’s more than car accidents, rape, etc. In fact in the United States a women is beaten or assaulted every 9 seconds.  In the time it takes you to snap a selfie, a woman somewhere has been beaten. And every day in the United States, three or more women are murdered by husbands and boyfriends. In, Minnesota, in 2014 there were 23 documented deaths due to domestic violence.

And that’s just in the United States. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family.

These statistics are heart breaking, and my intention in sharing them with you is two fold: 1. That we may remain aware that domestic violence takes many forms, and the people affected by it need our help and our prayers.

2. Our GOment in Woodbury this month is The Dwelling Place.   The Dwelling Place is a transitional shelter providing safe housing and structured programming for battered women and their children. Residents may stay 12-18 months to receive healing, and acquire the necessary skills to achieve independent housing, a sustaining income, and violence free lives.

Domestic violence impacts so many and as the Church, we want come alongside organizations that are trying to make a difference.  The mission of The Dwelling Place is to protect families and heal lives affected by domestic abuse by providing safe housing, Christ-centered programs, training in life skills, and community education.

Crossroads will be helping The Dwelling Place by donating gently used clothing, towels, bed linens and winter wear.  Stop by the table at the Adults counter each weekend to drop off your items and donations through the weekend of February 28/March 1.  There will also be resources about domestic violence and ways for you to volunteer if you are interested.

Also a quick update from last week: the Mexico Mission Trip meeting is now on the 21st of February. Details can be found here. 

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions 

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Tina Turner was not the first person to ask this question. The answer is simple. Everything. Love has everything to do with “it.”  Love (or finding it) is the reason we do most things. It’s why we get married. It’s why we buy expensive bridesmaids dresses to be in those weddings. It’s why we’d die for a our children. It’s why we answer the phone at 3 am when our people need us. It’s also why we throw surprise parties, send “thinking of you cards,” celebrate the achievements, milestones and people.

Love is why we fly halfway around the world to help people we don’t know, and we hit our knees every day to stand in the gap for those who are hurting, who need answers, who desperately need to find joy and hope.

Love is the big deal, right? We want to love people well, and in the way they most need it. This spring, Crossroads has two missions trips coming up that happen to be in country (or right over over boarder)! If you’ve never been on a trip, or are feeling like now is the time to spread the love….now’s a great time!

In April International Justice Mission hosts the annual Global Prayer Gathering, in Washington DC. You’ll get to see first hand the work the IJM is doing all over the world. You’ll to talk with, worship with and pray for the people who are on the ground in the places that need love the most. It’s an incredible weekend. for details, click here.

In March, there will be another trip to the orphanage in Reynosa, Mexico.  There’s an informational meeting at the Washington County Library in Woodbury on February 14th. For more information, please contact Rick Ross ( rickross400@msn.com; 651-442-8314).

Last weekend, Justin and Trisha Davis kicked off our new series called “More than Words.” The marriage conference was amazing. There was such a buzz of positive energy all weekend. It’s awesome to see couples being passionate about their relationships and wanting to do the hard work to make them beyond ordinary. Thank you to all who volunteered and attended. I can’t wait to see what God does with this series in our relationships!

Excited to see what’s next!

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions 

IJM Field Office Update

Mission trips are funny things sometimes. We are called to love our neighbor across the street and across the ocean. So we go. We get passports and visas and shots. We hop on planes, and take buses for a week or 10 days, to help. To get our hands dirty. To do what Jesus calls us to.  We hold babies, offer clinics, build houses and teach English and in those days we feel closer to God. We watch him preform miracles in front of us. And it’s amazing.

And then, we go home. Changed by the experience, yes, but often we are left to wonder if what we did on our trip…made a difference, a dent, an impact.  Are people’s lives changed for the better? Is there justice for those who need it? Did we do our job? Sometimes we never get to know, but sometimes we do.

This week, I had the opportunity to get a field update from the IJM field office in Kampala, Uganda, and the conversation was filled with so much hope. In the summer for 2013, a group of women, myself included, from Crossroads went to Uganda to help organize court files along side two other churches in an effort to stop land grabbing from happen to widows and orphans. Land grabbing, as you know, is illegal in Uganda, but was virtually impossible to prosecute due to the fact that lawyers could never find the files.

The court house we worked in was one of the worst in Uganda. Cases were often delayed for years, or never tried at all because of lost or missing files.

This week, the IJM field director, Kathryn Wilkes, told us that because of the work that we did alongside other churches, files are now found immediately. Lost or missing files are now never an excuse for cases not to prosecuted! What incredible news!

Along with organized court files, they are offering police training to police officers so they know all the laws in their country, making the justice system even stronger.

The work that IJM does is slow, and hard but they are seeing prayers being answered, justice being served, and amazing work God is doing. We are so thankful for what they do, and their faithfulness to their calling.

I just wanted to let you know that April 16-17 is IJM hosting the Global Prayer Gathering in Washington DC. It’s 2 days of amazing stories of God restoring, rescuing, and rebuilding his kingdom through the work of IJM. It’s an amazing time or worship, prayer, and stories. I’d love to have you join me. For more details, click here.

See you this weekend!

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions 

---

Refine Us

Relationships are difficult. They are full of give and take, compromise, love, grace, truth, mistakes, apologies.. the list goes on and on and on. You open yourself up to other people giving them permission to love you and to hurt you. They are scary and exciting and frustrating and refreshing. It’s not for the faint of heart. They’re absolutely worth the all the trouble we go to to have them. They make our lives…beyond ordinary.

All relationships are sacred, but perhaps the one type of relationship that seems be under attack the most, the hardest to maintain, the one that throws us for the biggest loops, causes the most heartache and joy…is marriage.

Marriage is a battle field,(do we have any Pat Benatar fans?)  and every marriage is different. Each person brings something totally different to the table. So…how do we do marriage well? How do we make marriage something worth fighting for? How do we prepare for marriage well? How do we recover from a marriage that left us brokenhearted? How do we seek to see and love the people with whom we are in relationships….like Jesus does? Where do we even start?

Those are tough questions, but essential to having relationships that make us better, that bring us closer to Jesus….that are beyond ordinary.

Next weekend, January 23-24, Justin and Trisha Davis, authors of the book Beyond Ordinary will be here for the Refine Us-Marriage Conference. They’ll share their story of joy and heartbreak and their journey back to each other. They’ll give us tools that will help us make our relationships extraordinary!

If you’re happily married, If your marriage is struggling, if you’ve been married for 38 years or 6 months, never been married, or you’ve been married and hope to be again, we encourage you to come. It’s for everyone. We were not created to do life alone.

Relationships matter, they are worth the work and worth fighting for! If you only do ONE thing this coming week, register for this conference. You will not regret it.  Click here to register.

See you this weekend!

Nicole Case
Web Administrator

Simple, As it Should Be

I really like New Year’s Day. I think there is something beautiful about a seemingly clean slate, unwritten futures, and the possibility of anything happening. I like living in a world of endless possibility.

You should know, though. I’m terrible at resolutions. Absolutely the worst. I make a list of them and then….i forget about it when life gets back into normal rhythms and then i have an uncrossed off list of things i wanted to accomplish, and that never feels good.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been picking one or two words I want to focus on through out the year. It helps me be intentional, it’s doable, and above all else, it’s simplified.

Our current series, Simple,  has really gotten me thinking about getting down to the simple of roots of what Jesus taught us. We are called to love. Love God. Love people. That is simple, right? Well, yes. But sometimes it’s hard to love people, right? Like sometimes hurt, and being right, and brokenness get in the way and we forget to love people. And relationships suffer because of it.

That’s why, this year, the word I’ve chosen to focus on is, grace. Jesus extended grace to everyone.Everyone. including the people who hated him. Shouldn’t I try to extend grace to everyone, too? Even the people who have hurt me, or don’t like me? Isn’t there more to their story, too?

I also think it’s important to extend grace to ourselves. Currently, I’m awful at this. I’m super hard on myself all the time. Sometimes we’re in the refining fire, and some times we are living the dream. It’s important to remember that Jesus is at work in every season. If i used more grace with myself in and the people around me, who knows how things might change. I think, thought it will bring me closer to being more like Jesus, and it will strengthen my relationships.

Speaking of relationships, we all have them, right? They all take work. Some more than others. On January 23rd and 24th Crossroads hosting the RefineUS-Marriage Conference, hosted by Justin and Trisha Davis, authors of Beyond Ordinary. Now, don’t let the “marriage conference” part scare you. Currently, I’m as single as you can be and I’m really excited about it. We are going to figure out what good relationships look like. How to have them, and how to navigate them when everything feels wrong. Those tools are universal. So, if you’ve been married and aren’t any more (for whatever reason), if you want to get married, you’re newly married, or if you’ve been married for a million years, COME! There is something to be gained for everyone! It’ll be the best $10 you’ll spend this January. Maybe even this year!

We’ll see you this weekend for week two of Simple!

Nicole Case
Web Administrator

Drifting

And just like that, it’s 2015.  Sometimes I’m amazed at how fast life passes me by. Blink, and the year is over! And sometimes, I’m amazed at how long it takes for a day to pass by. Like the entire day went by in slow motion.Time is a funny thing.

As I have gotten older, the things that impact me and bring me to my knees have changed.  Things that I never saw in my teens, I see weekly now. Cancer, divorce, and death all rear their ugly heads far too frequently. War, poverty, and violence fill up my view of the world. And if I’m not careful, these things can also change the way that I see God.   It’s a daily practice to make sure that I continue to believe that God is who he says He is and that I live my life like that. If I’m not careful, it’s actually quite easy to drift away from church, from reading the Bible, from prayer, from community.

Have you ever found yourself drifted in your faith? Blink, and it’s been a year. Try to get back from where you drifted from and it’s like every day is hard.  Do you have daily practices?  How do you make sure that God is getting the attention He deserves from you?

The beautiful thing about January 1’s is that it’s a great time to reflect on where we have been, how we got there, and then dream about where we want to go and what it will take to get there.  Crossroads wants to help you!  Perhaps you want to meet some more people and grow in your faith?  Our small groups are a great place to do that and they launch in January.  Maybe your marriage needs a little TLC?   We have an amazing marriage conference at the end of January you won’t want to miss. You can find details, here! Maybe you need some adventure and need to be inspired by God’s work in the world?   There are mission trips a plenty!  Maybe you’ve drifted and you just want to know that God exists and He loves you. Our upcoming series “Simple” will help you find your way back.

It’s never too late to try something new or to begin again. And after 2014, I’m incredibly grateful for that.

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions

Thank You

Merry Christmas, everyone! Now that the halls have been decked, the presents have been unwrapped, we’ve spent time with our people, as we begin to get back in to the normal rhythms of daily life, I want to take a moment to say, “thank you.”

Our annual mug sales were a huge success, again! We’ve sold out again this year raising over $15,000 for International Justice Mission! That’s incredible. $15,000 means a year of after care services for widows and orphans. $15,000 means fewer women and children are living in fear of losing their homes and/or their lives. $15,000 dollars also means training for 150 police officers, strengthening the justice system in Uganda! I’m so thankful for our partnership with IJM and the work they’re doing. God is moving in big ways and we get to be a part of it.

You’ve given the gift of hope, progress and change this holiday season. Thank you.

I also want to thank our volunteers. None of this could have been done without the help of our amazing volunteers. It takes a ton of planning, hands and preparation to get ready for these weekends. Thank you for your time, your willingness to serve and your great attitudes. Thank you for your help over that last three weeks. I am so thankful for the team of volunteers behind me.

It’s been an amazing year in Missions. We’ve seen God move in incredible ways. I can’t wait to see what 2015 has in store for us! So grateful to be in this with you!

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions

Waiting

I love this time of year. I love the smell of Christmas Trees, catching snowflakes on the tongue, all the sparkly gold ribbons everywhere, getting updates from friends and family near and far. It’s a the time of year when things seems to slow down and the world feels smaller, in the best possible way.

However, this season is hard for many of us. Weather it be saying goodbye to a loved one, strained relationships, a medial diagnosis, financial struggle, or uncertain futures, we’ve all had our share of struggle in the midst of “the most wonderful time of the year.”  In the face of those realities, it’s often hard to wait for things to get better, to turn around, to get some relief.

And isn’t that exactly what Advent is? The waiting? The uncomfortable anticipation of the One who has come to fulfill the prophesy. The One who’s come to make all things new?

This year, I’m mindful of, and praying for those people here and around the world who are waiting: for relief, for a better days, for God’s promise to be fulfilled. This year, I’m praying for those widows and orphans who live in fear of losing their homes and lives. I’m praying for the people who are enslaved, oppressed, and in the margins.

I pray with a hopeful heart that because of Jesus all chains have been broken. That the wait is over,the promise is fulfilled!

I encourage you to join me as I pray for those people who feel lost and forgotten this year. I also want to encourage you to join the movement of Jesus-like people doing Jesus like stuff, and find a way, either locally or globally, to bring relief to the people who are desperately waiting for something to happen. Volunteer in your community, sponsor a child, go on a mission trip!

A great way to help those who are being marginalized is by buying a Christmas mug! This is the last weekend we are selling them. 100% of the profit is going to support International Justice Mission!  Help bring hope and relief to those who are waiting on it!

Next week is Christmas, and we’d love it if you would invite someone to one of our Christmas Services with you. You can find the times and locations, here.  Let’s celebrate the One who came to change everything.  Can’t wait to see you!

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions