Scott Dixon

The following is a note from someone who visited our project. I will tell you his story after you read the note. Then I think you should go back and read it again.

"Hey Everyone!
I really wanted the chance to say goodbye to all of you, but unfortunately that would have led to me being placed in a cage against my wishes. You gotta do what you gotta do right?

I don't think I can ever express how much ya'lls kindness impacted me in a letter, so I'm not going to try and risk bumbling it up. Thank you thank you thank you. I will remember this for the rest of my life with ease. I plan on being in Vermont for a long time, if anyone finds themselves in the area I would like nothing better than to let you rest in my space for as long as needed.
Thank you again.

{contact info}

P.S.
I fixed up the blue bike. it should work alright, I took a tube out of the seemingly homeless front tire to fix the blue bikes flat. I hope that was alright. Ride and drive safe!

Also this:
If my stay caused you any hardships or inconveniences I am very very sorry."

I will never forget Scott Dixon either. We were hanging out in front of my apartment building on Summer Project. Then this kid rode up to us on his bike and asked if he could stay and chat a little bit. We said sure although I was quite excited because it was a gospel conversation waiting to happen where I didn't have to initiate.

The really cool unexpected part was that he said he was actually biking from Vermont to Florida to visit his mom and surprise her. He's been biking for as long as we've been on project just finding some random places to stay the night. He was just gonna stop and talk, but as we talked a little bit, Jimmy and I, we got into discussion about what we believe. We asked him what he believed and he didn't really seem to have a definite answer. I asked him if we could show him what we believed. He said sure and seemed excited that people wanted to talk to him. We went through the knowing God personally booklet and at the end, long story short, he said he wasn't ready for a commitment like that until he thought about it more which I respected. He said he just wasn't there yet.

As we talked some more, he was sharing some stories about times he has had with people on the way down; he talked about how people would give him a place to stay the night or pay for a hotel or pay for his food and he said some of them were Christians like us and talked to him about God. Through all his stories, I could so clearly see the evidence of God working in him. It was no accident that God brought him to project to talk to us and God put us here and put him there to hear us talk about God, and we mentioned this to Scott and he thought it was a really cool thought and was open to it. He needed a place to stay the night and we aren't allowed to invite people into our rooms, so we suggested he either found a place in the grass along the beach or sleep in the grassy area in between our apartments which he did. He said the next morning that he wanted to make us french toast. I didn't know how he was gonna go about doing it, but both Jimmy and I had to work and when we went to work the next morning, he was still sleeping. We had told him the previous night though that over the next day which he was going to take the day off, that he could talk to anybody from Campus Crusade for Christ and that they'd be more than glad to talk with him and he ended up talking to like 9 or 10 people.

When I finally got back from work, I found him and talked to him some more. He said he talked to more people and that people here were really nice to him and he was really enjoying it. He said he was just going to stay the night one more night and then be on his way out in the morning after he got his back tire fixed because a spoke broke. After going up to my room for a bit, I felt God calling me to give him $20. I don't know why, but I couldn't resist the Holy Spirit moving. He had $150 to go the rest of the way to Florida and God just told me to give him some money.

So the next day I expected him to be gone when I got back home from work, but was surprised to see him still there. I then went up and talked to him. He said that when he got up in the morning and had breakfast somewhere that he had an overwhelming sense of fear that he would get hit by a car and die. I could see God working in his heart showing him that he isn't secure in what would happen after he dies. He felt he just couldn't bike today. He also said that at breakfast, a guy came up and paid for his meal randomly. He just took his bill and said he would take care of it. How awesome is it that God is just pouring out his love to him and grace!

The cool thing about the $20 I was planning on giving to him... I couldn't find him the previous night to actually give it to him. I then went up to some people who were in the grassy area where he was sleeping and asked them to give him the money because they were staying up later that night and I wanted it to be delivered. The awesome part is that because God brought me to give it to them to give to Scott, God worked in them to contribute more money and they pooled some together and presented it all to him. They told him that God loved him and that we didn't feel sorry for him but rather that God was calling us to give him the money. God works in such amazing ways.

Fast forwarding again back to today, I wanted to go out to eat at Denny's, so I found someone else, Chase, who had a van who could take me and then invited Scott to come along which he was glad to. It was cool just to hang out more and show God's love to him even more. After eating, I told the two guys that I would pay for their meals and then Scott just looked at me and tried to refuse and said that we've already done so much for him and he was so grateful but God wanted me to pay so I did and he was just constantly shocked at how different we were.

There were many more details that I'd love to share with you in person, but he never did come to Christ while he was here from what I heard, however, he talked to many project people and saw the love of God. Tonight, they sorta kicked him out. I would have liked him to be able to stay for one more night, but God had other plans. We've done what we could. We now have his contact information and he wrote everyone a letter which you read at the beginning of this post and want you to read again now that you know the back story to it. He said he will never forget this and the love that we showed to him and that is what this Summer Project is really all about.

Praise God!

If you want more details, when I get the time, I'd love to talk to you about it, but time might not open up for a bit.

Time is flying by...

Wow, have things ever been busy down here! I have a job at Chick-Fil-A and I have to wake up at 3:55 in the morning in order to get there on time at 5 AM. I have all the early shifts which is not really my preference, but God is teaching me things.

When I first got my job, I was picturing myself working on the cash registers or helping out in the front rather than doing stuff in the back, but just the opposite happened. I spend most of my time filleting raw chicken and then breading it followed by putting it down in the fryers. It gets old pretty quickly and I just didn't want to do it any longer. I had a pretty negative attitude about it always working early in the morning and never getting enough sleep. I really wanted to quit at one point, but we are not allowed to quit our jobs on project.

Then on Sunday evening when we have one of our two project group meetings for the week, God really broke me down. I prayed that he would because I felt like I just wasn't having the relationship with Him that I wanted and felt somewhat distant as I got caught up in all the activities and didn't take the time to have some quiet time with Him to recharge. That Sunday night though, one of the girls from project came up to share something with everyone. She had severely fractured her ankle skim boarding and was taken to the hospital. She then found out that she was going to have to have surgery. She came and told us all the news and that she was going to have to go home and leave project early. I felt so bad for her as I knew how awesome it was to be at project and she started crying a bit.

Imagine meeting a new family, new brothers and sisters in Christ to grow together with where you have the whole summer. Well, that is what Summer Project is and she was expecting that to happen. Then when this happened, through her tears, she was able to tell us that she knew God has a plan in it. She told us that it broke her heart to have to leave us all because we've all become so close of friends.

Then it got me thinking... what am I doing complaining about my job all the time. I just went to work, got back and was really crabby. All I would do was complain and try to make people feel sorry for me. Was that glorifying to God? Of course not. I have this awesome privilege to be on Summer Project in the first place, and secondly, I actually have a job where I can make money which is not always and easy thing to find. There are about 5 people on project right now who do not have jobs and they are having a hard time finding them. They've been working every day looking for jobs actively and there just don't seem to be any or people are just not getting back to them soon enough.

Through all this, God is just showing me to be content. In Michigan, I couldn't just go to the ocean beach a block away and swim in the nice warm water in the nice hot weather. I absolutely LOVE the weather down here. It's upper 80s pretty much every day and gets down to mid to upper 70s at night. I have not yet worn a jacket while I've been down here and there are very few bugs down here. You can just sit out at night in our yard and hang out with people and enjoy the nice breeze. I have so much to be thankful for. Tomorrow I am going to do some sharing of the Gospel out on the beach with my friend Matt Bahr, and I'm really excited for it. Today is "Killing the Giants" week and the theme is: "If you had one week of your life to dedicate to sharing the gospel, what would it look like?" We are all challenged to initiate conversations as much as possible this week with the intention of sharing the gospel. The beach has SO many people on it and there are so many opportunities as it is a vacation spot and people are coming just for like a week at a time. We have really loud neighbors that like to party and rather than being frustrated by it, God has just worked on the hearts of people on this project and every night there are a lot of people going and sharing the gospel with them.

The environment down here is just so amazing and I am so greatly blessed with this opportunity. Thank you so much for your prayers all who are praying and thank you for your financial contributions to all that gave as it would not have been possible for me to get down here without God working in your heart to give!

I need to get to bed. I have the next two days off of work which I'm really excited about which is the only reason I am up until 12:44 AM. Thanks again for your prayers

First few days down.

Well I finally have a little bit of time to write a little bit. Since I got down here, I've met tons of people, although I find it very difficult to remember all the names. There are 92 students on Project and I knew none of them before I carpooled from the Twin Cities area down here. I've already swam in the ocean two times at night with the full moon and it was warm and the air was still warm. I haven't worn a jacket yet and if anybody knows me... that must mean it's decently warm. It's been in the 80's so far and gets into the upper 60's at night.

I have moved into my apartment I'll be staying at and I have 3 awesome roommates. I just swam in the ocean and hung out on the beach a bit today as well. Yesterday was day 1 of 2 for job hunting which explains why I had the free time to hit the beach today. I got a job at Chick-Fil-A yesterday. The managers came to our project site and explained everything among some other employers from McDonalds. There were more project options as well as places that people have worked in the past.

I told myself I wasn't going to work fast food again, but Chick-Fil-A is different in quite a few ways than the other places and about 12ish other project students are also working there. We applied, got accepted, went through orientation, and ordered uniforms yesterday and we're entered into the system. It was so convenient for the job to just come to us. Some people are still looking for jobs now including one of them being one of my roommates.

We've been having various project orientation type things going on this week so far and it's been great getting to know everyone and seeing God work in unique ways. I've done one outreach so far, but am soon to do more. At night, we've been singing praise songs on the beach together and it's just a great place to focus on God with all of my new friends.

Please be praying for boldness for everyone on project and for open hearts for the people that we will be sharing with that we would be led by the Holy Spirit and that God would use us in really incredible ways in the lives of those at our work places and on the beach!

Until later,
Nate

God providing through unexpected means

Today I went down to Marquette with my parents to talk to a guy at the Window Store about getting a new roof on our house and new siding. We talked for quite a while and looked at some different options. As we were making introductions, we talked about the warm weather and he said people who like hot weather will like it and he looked at me waiting for a response to see if I liked hot weather. I told him that I was going to South Carolina this summer. After everything, at the very end, he asked what I was going to be doing in South Carolina and why I was going down there.

Then I got to tell him that I was going on a missions trip to North Myrtle Beach with Campus Crusade for Christ. Then he asked me how I was getting down there and paying for it and I told him I've been support raising and writing letters. I also mentioned that I was still down about $300 and I'm leaving a just a few days. Then he asked me how people generally support me and I told them to write out checks to Campus Crusade for Christ and then I give it to them and they reimburse me for them. Well, then the most unexpected thing happened. He said that he was a Christian and he wanted to support me! He said he would send a check in the mail. I couldn't believe the random guy at the Window Store doing things for our house would want to support me on my Summer Project.

Here I am getting down to the wire with things wondering where money is going to come from after being short about $1000 about a week ago and God is just providing for all of my needs just as He promises in His Word.

Isn't it just amazing how God works? Just when I thought it was impossible to get any more money because I didn't know who else to send support letters to, God provides someone who is willing to ask me what I am doing this Summer, he asked me how I was funding it and wanted to help me out and I didn't even have to do anything. I didn't even ask!

I need to trust God completely. I don't know why I doubt. $1000 in a week? Yeah. God can handle it.

Now, he didn't say how much he was going to send, but I am still getting some money in from other people and I know the rest will come in on time. Praise God!

Another huge encouragement to me is a check from a friend totaling $350! That is no small chunk of change. That was a big part of how the $1000 was reduced. God's timing is best. I have such unspeakable joy just watching God work!

I will be sure to keep this updated as God continues to show me things!

Excited to get out there!

Well, if you are reading this as the top post on the page, that means either I haven't gotten down to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, or I have gotten down there and haven't posted an update yet.

I will be using this blog to update you on what God is showing me and how He is working in all of us students down at the project. I will be sure to post shortly after I get down, but I am going to leave it like this for a while.

If you would like to keep this page handy, press Ctrl+D to bookmark it. The nmbsp in http://nmbsp.blogspot.com stands for North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Thank you so much for partnering in this ministry through either prayer or financial support or both! I know you are looking forward to see what God does as I am!

I am currently at 47% support.