We are excited to announce the creation of a new blog for Christ Community Church titled simply, CCC blog. The CCC blog will keep you up to date on all church-wide activities, news and events and will combine this and several other CCC ministry blogs.

Please note, your current RSS feed subscription won’t be kept up-to-date. If you want to stay in the loop, subscribe to the CCC blog today at http://www.cccomaha.org/blogs/ccc.

This is an update from the CCC short-term mission team serving with Norman & Vickie Sutton at their orphanage in Guatemala.

Hola Iglesia (hello church)

It is officially half way through day four of our missions trip and boy is God working some magic! Thursday night we all went to church in San Andres, which is the village that the orphanage is located in. Normally the service is an hour of worship music and an hour of sermon. This Thursday however, ended up being a full service of worship. Our group got up with the locals and danced the whole time with them. At the end, Norman went up front with the pastor and spoke a little about our group and why we are here in Guatemala. The pastor said he can see the love of God shine through all of us, and for that he thanks us. It was something that none of us will ever be able to fully explain.

Friday morning we went into an aldea, which is a school and we did our hair ministry. I think we washed, cut and styled 20 kids hair. It was such a personal and simple thing for us to do but the appreciation from everyone was incredible. That afternoon we had our first day of VBS and we remained flexible. I think the kids really enjoyed it. Today is Saturday and we went into another village about thirty minutes away, to where a new church plant and did another morning of hair ministry, we also did a skit to the song Everything by Lifehouse. It was not only moving for the village but also for the team.

This afternoon we are doing another class of VBS. Our team is healthy and being as productive as possible. The mountains and scenery here is absolutely stunning and the food is pretty wonderful as well. Thank you for your continued prayer, we hope to make kingdom impact here at Hogar de Vida.

Love and God Bless-

Guatemala Team 2011

This Sunday, during our Gathering service which is in the Student Center from 12:30 – 1:30 PM, we will have a first-hand account of the impact CCC is having in China.

Come hear from our recent team who worked to train and encouarge Christian leaders. Then you will hear from Pastor Tim Perry as he talks about his first-hand experience teaching Pastors and leaders in Beijing through our partnership with Global Partners in Hope and Crown College.

Lunch will be served for $5, and as always, college age students can eat for free.

If you’re looking for a good reason to do some spring/summer cleaning, this is it! CCC Emerge is organizing & hosting a rummage sale to benefit Omaha’s AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling. We need your help – specifically your donations & advertising skills.

The AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling is “a Christ-centered agency dedicated to erasing the need for abortion through effectively serving pregnant and at-risk women by turning their fear into confidence to the honor of Jesus Christ.” Every woman who visits the center is presented with the gospel and given a Bible if interested in learning more about Jesus. Furthermore, the center provides many free services including STD testing, pregnancy testing, fetal ultrasound and parenting classes. To learn more about the center, visit their website athttp://www.aaacpc.com/.

All proceeds from the sale on Saturday, July 23 (8AM -3PM) will go directly to the AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling. Donated items can be dropped off at 1636 N. 107th St, Omaha, NE 68114, on the following dates:

Friday, July 1 from 5:30-8:00p
Wednesday, July 6 from 5:30-8:00p
Monday, July 11 from 5:30-8:00p
Wednesday, July 13 from 5:30-8:00p
Saturday, July 16 from 9:00a-12:00p

Please advertise this sale to your friends, family, neighbors & coworkers. We hope to encourage & bless the AAA center with this sale!

If you need assistance transporting your donations, contact Andrea Carlson at andiecarlson@gmail.com.

We are now taking applications for anyone interested in participating in a short-term mission trip to Beijing, China, from November 5 – 15.

This team will consist of up to 14 people and will divide into three smaller teams to participate in the following ministries:

Orphanage – The first part of the team will consist of up to 4 people who will minister to approximately 30 to 35 orphan children at our partner orphanage. Your time will include playing with the children and running a VBS-style ministry each day. The children’s ages range from 2 to 14 years old.

Vocational School – The second part of the team will consist of up to 4 people who will minister to approximately 80 college age students that are studying at a 2-year vocational school. The students are the best and the brightest from all over China, and are training to be future leaders in China. You will have opportunity to teach things like conversational English, music, and more.

Leader Training- Finally, the last part of this team which will consist of up to 4 people will be teaching leadership principles from “the Book”. Instructors are selected with great care based on ability to teach.

If you are interested in being a part of this team, please take the following two steps:

1. Email me at craigw@cccomaha.org or call me at (402) 938-1575 to let me know of your interest so I can add your name to the list.

2. Fill out an application and send it back to me at CCC with your $250 deposit. Once I receive your application I will immediately set up an in-person interview.

Applications can be found at:

CCC Short-Term Application in Word format

CCC Short-Term Application in PDF format

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly via email or phone, or CLICK HERE to download a flyer with more information about this trip.

Restored Hope Apartments

One of the ministries in Omaha that I have really come to care about is called Restored Hope. Restored Hope is a Christ-centered transitional living program that transforms women to be emotionally, spiritually, and financially responsible citizens. Many of these women are single mothers who are just out of correctional facilities or are homeless and have come to Restored Hope to work towards a new start at life. Restored Hope relies heavily upon private donations and also has ongoing volunteer opportunities.

Rachel LeClair and Erin Blaszak learned about Restored Hope at Christ Community Church and decided to get involved. They initially got involved by joining the Maintenance Team in April. The Maintenance Team is comprised primarily of Christ Community Church members and meets at Restored Hope the second Saturday of each month to take care of ongoing maintenance and repair issues. Since that time, Rachel and Erin have continued participating in maintenance projects to help renovate apartments for new tenants.

Projects have included cleaning and decorating apartments and restoring furniture. Additionally, Rachel and Erin, along with Brian Bayliss, Crystal Thiele, and Andy Blaszak (Erin’s husband) – other Christ Community Church members, have gotten involved with the children who live at Restored Hope. While their mothers are in class, Rachel, Erin and Crystal put together activities for the children and spend time with them one evening each week. They hope to earn the trust of these children and serve as positive role models in their lives. Brian and Andy spend one-on-one time with an older boy who lives at Restored Hope and needs positive male role models in his life. This boy has had an abusive past, which has led to anger issues.

There are many ways others can get involved, such as monetary donations, apartment furnishing donations, maintenance work, mentorship, etc. For a complete list of activities or to learn more about Restored Hope’s needs, contact Dorie Peterson, Restored Hope Program Director, at 402-714-7185 or dorie.peterson@restoredhopeomaha.org.

I want to introduce to you Eric Carpenter, the newest member of the Outreach team at CCC. Eric has been working on our team now since the end of April and will be focused primarily on missions activities in the Omaha area.

How Eric even got to Christ Community is very much a God story. Eric moved to Omaha from Kansas City because he felt God called him to move here for some reason, even though he did not have a job waiting for him. Then, because he had heard of Christ Community Church through a friend, he just showed up one day and wanted to meet with somebody to learn more about what we do in missions.

Turns out that I was just beginning the process of looking for someone to add to my team, so Eric got an interview and it was pretty clear that God brought him here just for this job!

Eric has a great ministry background, having worked for ministries such as Sporting Marvels, Youth with a Mission, and Youth Works. In addition to his new job responsibilities here at CCC, Eric is also pursuing a Masters Degree in Theology.

Honestly, you won’t find a more friendly, outgoing, and genuine guy than Eric. I am so excited to have him on our team to see how God works in him and through him as we seek to impact Omaha for Christ.

You can connect with Eric on email at ericc@cccomaha.org or find him on Facebook by searching for “Eric Carpenter Christ Community Church”.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, only four of the six members of our medical team arrived in Peru last Sunday. We lost one member to an urgent medical problem last week, and then lost Dr. Martha Pinto at the airport in Lima, because she didn’t have a visa. As a citizen of Honduras, she asked at the Peruvian embassy if she needed a visa to enter the country long before her trip, and was told that she didn’t need a visa. But, when she arrived, immigration refused to let her enter the country, and sent her back to the USA!

Not one to give up so easily, Martha scurried around Atlanta the last few days and now has a visa stamped into her passport and is scheduled to fly back for free (Fly Delta!) tomorrow night to join our team for the rest of the medical campaign!

Kris Huber seeing patients

Every once in awhile we have a short-term mission trip that seems to struggle from the very beginning, and that’s how I would describe the short-term trip that is happening right now in Peru. Last Saturday a group of medical people from CCC left to work with Dr. Allen George in Peru to perform a medical outreach where people will receive medical care and hear the gospel. But this trip has been a struggle from the very beginning.

Stephanie, Martha, Vaughn, Jenn, Kristin, and Russ

To begin with, for some reason I just had a hard time recruiting people to go on this team. There was lots of interest, but a lot of people said they just couldn’t make it work this time. I was close to cancelling the trip until at the last minute the team size grew from 2 to 6 peole.

The team has trained and worked hard to get ready, only to have one of the team members, the team Pharmacist, need emergency surgery a few days before the trip – so she was out!

Then one of the team members, a doctor who is a citizen of Honduras, got turned away upon arriving in Peru and had to return to the US.

All of this leaves the team short-handed but it also makes me think that Satan has been working over time to distrupt this trip from the very beginning. God no doubt has great things in store for this ministry, so please pray that they will accomplish God’s mission and for God’s protection this week as they minister.

The Sea Container full of medical equipment, medical supplies, tractors, and lots of other stuff is off to Mali and should arrive in 8 to 12 weeks.

Load of supplies to fill the Sea Container

A special thanks to all of you who donated toilet paper, paper towels, and cereal so we could stuff every spare inch of the container full. The Mali team that was here back on May 21st & 22nd were thrilled to see how much stuff we were sending them.

It’s hard for us living back here in the comfort of our lives and homes to really grasp what a blessing it is for these workers to receive all of these supplies. The hospital could not offer medical care so inexpensively without the donations that come in containers like we sent.

Our plan right now, with God’s blessing of course, is to send one Sea Container each year that is full of medical supplies and other items donated by local hospitals and medical providers. If you know of anyone with supplies or have access to some yourself, feel free to shoot me an email at craigw@cccomaha.org.