Month June 2009

You Want To Participate?

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

One of the strengths of the Youthmark Mission Venture is that it is so much more than a mission trip.  Besides the training materials (mission prep workbook, leaders guide, retreat, etc.) the participants and their families get blessed with additional publications.  

 

Now you can too! (more on this in a second)

 

As I have posted before and now you can see for your own eyes, the books are done and about to be used.

 

RoadGrip-Cover

 

RoadGrip is the Guided Study for the YMV participants while on their Mission Trip! The students and staff and any “adopted” student in the community will be guided in His Word during their mission week.

 

HomeBase-CoverHomeBase is the Guided Study for the Families of the YMV participants.  While the students/staff are out on the field, we’re asking the families to study the same Scriptures but are specifically challenged to live it out at home!  This book is now also available to you!


 

Merge-CoverMerge, which was originally entitled, 14 Ways for 14 Days has emerged as a brand-new way to come home.  For years, I believe, Youth Pastors have missed the mark at bringing the teams home well.  Merge contains 18 study sessions through the book of James!  Rather than relying on the “Mission Trip High,” we’d like to see everyone continue their striving hard after the Lord after the trip is done–this includes the participants, families and now you!  This book, especially geared for the adolescent believer, will challenge the reader to live out His instructions to us very practical ways!

 

Each YMV participant will receive his or her own free copy (all three publications), however, Youthmark is making the latter two books available to you, our prayer support team.  In addition, Youth Pastors are encouraged to purchase Merge for the remainder of their Youth Group so the two groups (mission team and the students back home) can “merge” together to live out the Great Commandment and Great Commission together at home!


If you (the “at home reader”) would like to purchase your own copy of Merge and/or HomeBase our Publisher (Spire) has given us permission to sell these to you at a very low $5 cost per book (plus shipping if you can’t arrange for a pick up from me). The book has a list price of $9.99, you’d you’re getting it at 1/2 price! 

 

Email us at missions@youthmark.com and let us know what you’d like and your address, then we’ll send it to you with a simple invoice at $5 (plus minor shipping cost) for each book you order. UPDATE: This half price offer is only available to Youth Pastors and the Blog Readers through the beginning the of actual mission trips (June 19, 2009), after the YMV’s begin we will only be able to offer a different discounted rate to the Youth Pastors for their team orders only.

 

If you are the praying type, and we know you are, I’d especially encourage you to order a copy of HomeBase and do this study along with the team you are praying for and reading about on their blog (http://youthmark.com/blogs.php). 

 

My prayer is that the Youth Group and Church would be united in their attempt to live out the Great Commandment and Great Commission together (whether they were on the mission trip or not).  

 

I can’t wait to see the way the Lord uses these publications in the lives of all who read; I am already looking forward to writing the 2010 editions of RoadGrip, HomeBase and Merge!

 

Grace,
Brian

Prayer Works!

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

God is great! 

 

Thank you to all who have been praying faithfully for Youthmark, an I’d like to specifically give a thanks to those who lifted up these last requests over the weekend. The Lord answered these requests in His timing and in a way that has eased my mind!

 

The Writing

RoadGrip, HomeBase and Merge are all not completed, edited and off to Graphic Layout for final publishing.  The quick turn-around is still a matter of prayer, but the toughest part (writing) is now complete!  I will post the specifics about Merge in my next post.

 

The Needed Call

Jared Coe, a friend and Youth Pastor in Glenwood Springs, CO was a late addition to the YMV’s this year.  While out to Colorado to train students in Colorado Spring (two churches) I made my way up and over to Glenwood to do a last minute training of the Glenwood Springs students.  The only problem:  we didn’t know for sure where they were going to go.  Jared (who has done two trips with me in the past) wanted to do a custom trip and stay in state.  

 

While serving as a Youth Pastor in Phoenix I had taken three teams into Southern Colorado, so it seemed like it would be a an easy land to get one of those three churches to commit to be the “receiving” town for Jared’s group.  Well, for whatever reason, one town/church had a very busy summer and didn’t think they had need for a team.  Another town was very slow in getting back to me and the pastors had changed since I had served there and it seems they weren’t that interested just by how slow they got back to my every call or email.  The third town/church seemed to be a little too far out of the way for Jared’s group, so I was pursuing other options.

 

Because of my great relationship with an organization, Village Missions, I decided to pursue a VM church in Colorado.  The only problem, the Pastor in Kittredge (the church I pursued) was on a mission trip to Poland.  He did, however, respond to an email, and this gave me great hope as he expressed interest.  Well, in order to keep this post from getting too long, long story short, I FINALLY spoke to the Pastor yesterday (after he had returned) and he gave a resounding “Yes” to having a team!  So, without further ado, welcome to Kittredge, CO for a YMV team!  Praise the Lord!

 

The Launch And Landing Details

The other potential “stress” was coming into play last week as well.  Each of our trips starts and ends in a hub city.  The Montana and Idaho are going Launch/Land in Spokane.  NorCal will be in Salem, OR, The Gulf Coast teams will hub in Dallas, and the Hawaii team will be in their town of Anahola.  Well, the only problem, my original Spokane hub church was not able to commit to being the Hub.  So, with less than two weeks before our first trip, we didn’t know where our Hub was going to be (keep in mind we have three different weeks of MT/ID mission trips!). Again, long-story-short, God answered prayers in a mighty way and over the last three days I had two churches say yes to being our hub!  We only need one, but I am thankful that two churches stepped forward!

 

Thanks for your faithful prayers!

 

More Prayer!

Because there are 24 different teams going on the mission trips, it is nearly impossible for me to keep my blog up to date with all the specific requests for each of the teams.  I am going to post an “adopt a team” blog in the next few days.  I did this through my prayer letter and we have several teams adopted already, but we want more people praying faithfully for each team.  Please go to www.youthmark.com and click on “blogs” and you’ll see the list of teams.  Most of the churches are using the blog, some will kick in just for the trip.

 

Grace,
Brian

Weekend To Do

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

We are officially two weeks away from the launch of our first mission trips!  The first weekend will only have one team going out.  First Baptist of Chehalis will be heading to Simms, MT!  

This weekend will be crunch time for the completion of a few major projects in order to have things set for the trips.  Please take the time to praise God for the following items and the pray for the things that still need to get done!

Praises:

  • I have the Mission T-shirts in tow (picked them up today)
  • We have all of our Launch/Landing sites set up and confirmed!
  • Road Grip and Home Base are completed and off to graphic design and publishing (for a quick turnaround).

Prayer Requests:

  • The Merge (previously 14 Ways for 14 Days) needs to be completed by the end of the weekend, this underwent a MAJOR change I will post about after it is complete, it is exciting though!
  • Waiting for a very important call from a receiving town Pastor who has not gotten back to me, this could throw a major wrench in things (him not getting back to me), so pray all the details get worked out and that he calls me ASAP!
  • Working on some final details for the schedules of the Launch and Landing weekends.

Thanks so much for your prayers!  I am so thankful to God for His provision and am trusting Him with all the details!

Grace,

Brian

Mommy and Halle to the Zoo= Daddy + 2

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

I have a wonderful day in store, Elisabeth has volunteered with Halle’s class to the Zoo.  What a glorious Seattle day for that adventure.  I’m pretty excited for what it means for me as well.  I get to spend the entire day with Will and Audrey on an adventure of our own.  

There are a few things I still need to get done throughout the day so it’ll be fun to introduce the two to a couple of my regular Wednesday activities!  After breakfast and clean-up we plan on dropping by the Burien Network to hang with the 6-8 Youth Pastors I normally meet with on Wednesday.  We’ll probably cut this one short, because I don’t think those guys can keep up with the discussion topics Will plans to bring to the table today.

I need to swing by a T-Shirt place to pick up my summer missions t-shirts, so that will be fun for the kids to see how T’s are printed.  I then hope to treat the kiddo’s to lunch, depending on the time we’ll join the YP network at La Costa for some good Mexi-food or we’ll do some picnic stuff to a park. 

After a Will nap (and my opportunity to do a few tasks) I’ll take the kids to a park before we fry from the heat and come home to hear about the great zoo adventure!

Pretty excited for a GREAT Daddy, Audrey and Will day!

I have a couple important ministry posts coming over the next couple of days!  Stay tuned!

Grace,

Brian

Want some Garlic on your wax?

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

I have been battling some sort of sickness for about the last week.  Minor muscle and joint aches, then some sort throat for a day, then all of a sudden I am fine, only to have it return the next day; this went on from Tuesday to Saturday last week, well, then it just hit full-bore for Saturday thru today.  My throat is pretty raw and my ear began aching Sunday as well.

I almost went to the doctor last night, but c’mon, who wants to spend $100 on a doc saying “it’s probably just a viral thing, you need to wait it out?”  So I saved myself $100 and told myself, “it’s probably just a viral thing, you need to wait it out.”

So, this morning my wife remembered she had some really cool drops for ear-infections.  So we tried them on my ear. I say this just in the case you see me sometime in the next couple days… you might smell me before you see me actually.  A couple of the main ingredients in these drops: olive oil and garlic! 

Welcome to my Italian Restaurant, would you like some ear-wax Lasagna?

My throat still hurts, but weird-as-it-might-sound, my ear feels (and smells) better!

Grace,
Brian