SpringHill-Identified

This past weekend Bridges took 5 "BTC" students on their first SpringHill Fall Retreat! The girls were living large in air conditioned cabins while the guys toughed it out in non-air conditioned cabins! Everyone had a great time and many of the students overcame some enormous fears, particularly the zipline! Besides the zipline, we had fun playing Z-ball, going down the water zipline, and walking through the prayer labyrinth. One of the favorite aspects of the weekend was listening to the speaker, Eric Timm.

God used Eric to transform our student's lives and draw them closer to God not only through his incredible stories, but also through his contemporary, awe-inspiring art. Our students were challenged to examine their lives to determine what they place their identity in and to see that Christ alone can fill the hole in their hearts. God lifted some major burdens off all our hearts last weekend!

Summer Slam (Student Led)

This is our third year of Summer Slam and we decided to let our high school students be on the leadership team that would plan and implement the program. Here are our 4 student leaders. They have done an awesome job of leading and mentoring our middle school students.

Our theme this year focused on finding yourself, knowing your purpose, and career exploration. Casey and Travis have shared with them the ultimate purpose of knowing and serving Jesus Christ. From there, they have learned about relationships, teamwork, careers, and creative arts. In addition to learning we have taken the students on some great trips that include: swimming and tubing at Lake Manitou, bowling, an overnighter at "The Valley," and the new family center "Go Bananas." Next week we are reading and throwing a carnival for Kokomo Urban Outreach children, playing games with some folks at a nursing home and ending the summer with our traditional trip to Indiana Beach. Here are a couple of our students playing guitar hero.

KAA, U Know!!!

Bridges just returned from another awesome trip to Kids Across America summer camps and we had a great time. This year we took 7 students, all of them were first timers except Marquise.
The students had the opportunity to experience some awesome activities. Most of them said their favorite activities were treetops, tubing and the pool. We spent the week getting krunk and hype for Jesus. We already can't wait for next year!

Reload Conference in Indianapolis

At the end of April, Bridges took our high school students to an urban ministries conference called Reload. It was unbelievable! We learned about transforming our community, being relevant to youth of this generation, and how to make a true difference on a urban level. Pastor Harvey Carey, the picture above, was the keynote speaker and really challenged us to change the way we minister to youth. Worship was awesome and networking with urban leaders was very beneficial. Our youth talked the whole way home from Indianapolis about some of the ways we can improve Bridges. We highly recommend Reload!

Family Day at Indiana Wesleyan

Last March, Bridges took our students and their families to Indiana Wesleyan for a fun day on campus. Students, volunteers and families from both middle school progams and our high school program saw "National Treasure 2" on campus, hung out in the game room and had pizza at Mario's. It was a great experience to get our kids on a college campus and provide an opportunity to spend a day with their families. Hopefully, in the next few years we will have a few students attending IWU.

30 Hour Famine

Bridges had 26 students complete the 30 hour famine that raised money and awareness for World Hunger. Here is the Top Ten things about The Famine:

1-Witnessing teenagers not eating for 30 hours for World Vision

2-Playing Prison Dodgeball

3-Going to the YMCA friday night and hanging out in the HYVE

4-Playing Guitar Hero

5-Juice breaks every two hours

6-Playing sardines at Main Street United Methodist Church in the drak

7-Volunteering our Satudrday morning with Kokomo Urban Outreach, Howard Haven County Home & Angel Food Ministries

8-Our worship service on Saturday afternoon

9-Raising hundreds of dollars for World Vision ($1 a day feeds a child)

10-Breaking the fast with a feast (pizza & dirt pudding)

Raise money for Bridges online!

We have a simple and easy way to raise money for Bridges! There is a search engine at www.goodsearch.com that lets viewers raise money for their favorite charity (the search engine is powered by yahoo and is very similiar to google). Just go to the website, put "bridges outreach" in the charity slot and start searching for what you need. You can also put the website as your homepage and you can shop online (3%-25% of your sales go to Bridges). Everytime you search for something part of the proceeds go to Bridges. Spread the word to others that you know and hopefully it will be one more way to help us invest in the youth of our community!!

Back to School!!!

School is starting back up soon, but before it does we wanted to recap the awesome summer we had. Our summer got off to a great start with our annual trip to Kids Across America Kamps. We took 6 students and they all had an awesome time. After KAA, we went right into Summer Slam and started teaching the students about making healthy food choices and partnering that with exercise. We had a great time at Summer Slam and ended the program with some community service and a trip to Indiana Beach. Our summer concluded with a trip to SpringHill Camps with 18 of our Bridges students. The students had a great time and some awesome experiences at SpringHill. If you are a Bridges student and you participated in any of these activities leave us some comments what you thought about them.

Student comments on recent bridges events

Students- take the opportunity to comment on some of our recent experiences the past few months. The 7 Project, Dare2Share in Chicago, North Beach, volunteering at Camp Tycony, or anything else you want to share about. Use as many details as possible!!

Student's Perspective on the Blog

The Bridges "blog page" is going to be student focused. They will report their reactions to past field trips and Bridges events, communicate with each other and staff, and show off some off their talents. Please check it every once in a while to see how Bridges is looking from the student's perspective. The Bridges "news page" is where the staff will communicate our news to the community and all our supporters. Both pages will be used to keep people up-to-date with Bridges Outreach.

Winter Wonderland!!!

Our city has been taken over by snow!!! The city of Kokomo is pretty much shut down for the second day in a row. School has been cancelled for the last two days, so obviously we haven't met with our students in two days either. We are leaving on Friday to head up to Michigan for a weekend retreat at SpringHill Camps with our high school students. Please pray that the weather cooperates for us. Please also pray that we have safe travels, snow could turn this 5 hour trip into a 7 or 8 hour nerve-racking trip. We know we'll have a great time and we'll tell you all about it when we return!

Earl, try to stay on the tube next time!

Last weekend Bridges went on our annual ski trip with First Church of God. We went up north to Timber Ridge in Kalamazoo, MI. We got there Friday night and stayed the night at the Holidome. There we did some swimming, played some video games and some ordered some late night pizza. We also joined some other students to hear a message from Pastor Brad Johnson and a time of worship.
Altogether Bridges had 11 students go, 7 from Bon Air and 4 from Central. 1 of the 11 tried snowboarding and the other 10 went tubing. We had an awesome time doing everything! We didn't have any moments quite as funny as Israel taking out the orange safety fence at full speed last year and no one topped the smell of Jons' socks from two years ago, but we still had a great time!