It's all about JESUS - He is RISEN

John 3:16-17
"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again".

This morning at 11am we held a one hour Easter Sunday service in Lyons. We began the set up from around 9:15am doing a couple of trips in the bus to transport all the things we needed for the service. The team did a great job working together to get it all set up. People started arriving and we kicked off the service! Troy greeted the church. Laura and Matt led us in worship. The team performed "The Lighthouse skit". Troy preached a fantastic message. We showed one of the video clips from the missions conference about the wells that are being built in Cambodia and Troy shared the type of church we desire to be. I explained about the ALPHA groups we are wanting to begin and how people can become connected to our church. Christina ran a game involving custard and little Easter eggs. Chloe, Christina and Sean led us all in a super hyped up kids church song. The service concluded and we all went outside for the kids Easter egg hunt and a BBQ. It was so good to find that everyone who attended the service stuck around for ages chatting and getting to know each other. All up there were 35 people at the service (not that numbers matter - but people matter to God). This number was made up of adults and children - 7 team members from Penrith, 7 of us new "Territorians" and 21 locals.
I am so excited about the future of ImagineNations Church Darwin.

Yesterday was also such a blessed day. We went into the Juvenile Detention Centre. The age range I think is from 12 to 18 I think. 27 young people, all of them boys except for one girl. We were told that 98% of the young people are Indigenous. Chloe and I gave the one female a pedicure and manicure and chatted with her for awhile. The guys in the team played sports (a sports store donated 10 different types of balls to donate) and talked with the boys. We then did a BBQ for everyone (a local butcher donated 10kg of sausages) and then did a gospel presentation to the young people and staff. We had brought in a few bibles as they have a library the young people can get books from. I wish we had brought more with us as after the presentation quite a few of the guys were taking the bibles straight away and asking if there were more!
As a gift to the staff we bought the staff a coffee machine. Gloria Jeans donated mugs and all types of coffee so we made up a hamper and topped it all off with ferrero rocher chocolates! While we were there we also were able to talk with the staff who are just lovely.

I will never forget this Easter 2010. Thank you Jesus for that very first Easter :)