It's Been Awhile

So, it definately has been a few days since my last post. BUT HEY!! Cyndi and I have been busy!

Right now we are in the middle of VBS, which is totally rockin'! Cyndi is the official photographer and I am leading the kids in some really fun and outrageous worship! We have a ton of volunteers which is awesome to see so many people give up their evenings to come and spend time with kids. I am really proud of our youth, who are really doing a great job serving. I especially want to point out Sarah and Lydia who are teaching a class by themselves!! Way to go ladies!

Well, on a different note...MY PARENTS ARE HERE!!!

You have no idea how excited I am! I knew they were coming into town but they came a few days earlier and totally suprised Cyndi and I. REALLY SUPRISED! My sister left Sat. and we thought we had about 4 days before my folks were coming in. So the apartment was a mess, and we weren't ready for visitors again.

But they're here and I am so glad! I missed them...yeah, I know it was just May the last time we visited with them but that's tough for me. I am a big Momma's boy...and being 12 hours away from Momma is difficult.

Well, anyway gotta go finish uploading some stuff to our new student ministry web site...take a look at it sometime.

www.coastalcommunitychurch.org/waves

LATER!

Tomorrow is going to be AWESOME!

Here it is Saturday night and I am just thinking through our Church worship service tomorrow as well as our student gathering for tomorrow night.

Tomorrow morning is going to be so awesome! We are trying some new things throughout our service. I believe this will enhance our worship gatherings, as well as create a more welcoming, more relevant, more outreached focus environment. Also, our missions team will be reporting on their trip to Jamaica. I know Cameron and Twila are a little nervous about speaking but they will do great.

You can check out the highlight video on You Tube- either do a search for PastorJeremiahJB or type in Jamaica...it will come up eventually.

I hope we have over 20 new people! Honestly, I hope at least 10 of them are students. I love visitors, and I love when they see that we are committed to Jesus and His people!

Alright, enough randomness in my head for the night.

By the way check out my friend Andy's blog...he makes me laugh!

fun day at Carowinds...

What a fun and crazy day yesterday! Imagine this...
6am-students showing up ready for a day filled with Roller Coasters, Water Rides, and so many awesome thrill rides.
We drove to the North Carolina/South Carolina state line to hang out for the day at Carowinds Amusement Park.

I enjoy the rush, excitement, and times the fearful adventure of Roller Coasters. Well our students were awesome, well behaved, kind, and really showed Jesus in all of their actions. Their youth pastor on the other hand was a little frustrated and pulled a really stupid thing. I lost the van key. I don't know how it happened, I had it one minute and the next it was gone.

However, not to worry. I called Enterprise (they pick you up) and they took care of it! They called a local locksmith got a new key made...no worries. I did get a call this morning from Carowinds saying they found our key! A day late and a dollar short.

The ride how was filled with excitement of the day and excitement about our next event...The Summer Retreat.

I love our students, they are so filled with energy, compassion, and kindness. Carowinds was great but our summer retreat is going to be so much better!!

so pumped...

Well, tonight was my first night back with all of our youth in a couple of weeks. I am pumped! We have so much going on in the next few weeks and I am just so excited because we will be spending a ton of time with our youth group! I really do love these awesome young people! They energize me!

This Wednesday we head to Charlotte, NC for a fun filled day at Carowinds Amusement park! I cannot wait, I love roller coasters. It's hard not to love them when you grow up going to the Roller Coaster Capital of the World...Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH.

I am really excited about August coming here in just a week. I know a lot of our students aren't too happy because that means back to school. However, I am excited for our Summer Retreat to Atlanta, GA. This year's theme is "downpour." In which we are asking God to downpour Himself on us. I desire to see revival to much, and I especially think it will start with our students.

I am so excited for some of the things our student ministry team is planning for the fall... So be on the lookout for some exciting series, events, and other stuff.

Remember to invite your friends!

The Last few Days...

Well, I am actually sitting in my office here in Charleston and realized I have alot of catching up to do.

However, I need to feel you all in on what has happened the last few days in Jamaica. So let me start with Sunday.

We woke up ate breakfast and rushed off to Generations Church, which is located right across from the best Chinese restraunt in all of Mandeville. Seems like a typical Sunday to me. As we arrive we started setting everything up for the morning and next thing we know, we have a dozen or so people there and we just begin to pray. What an amazing experience just to see and be a part of a church just starting out and to hear their prayers.

So at 10am people begin to come in for the service and what an incredible time of worship we experienced. Louinel, the worship leader, did a great job. He shared a lot that was on his heart. He and his wife had a baby just a few weeks ago...which was a very exciting time in Generations Church, he was the first baby born into the church. However, he only lived for six days. Their was nothing physically wrong with him but somehow fluid got into his lungs. Upon finding their baby in a state of barely breathing, Louinel litterally ran to the hospital with his child in his arms. The baby died in Louinel's arms.

While, Louinel was telling this story I was reminded of King David when his child with Bathsheba died. What did King David do? He fell to the ground and worshipped God. Here Louinel was worshipping, and it was powerful. After we were led in worship, Dwight stood up and gave the Word of God. The more I hear Dwight speak, the more I am so impressed. He truly spends a lot of time praying, focusing, studying, and just communing with God. And God blesses that! The Word was powerful.

After lunch, we drove to Kingston. I have never been to Kingston for several reasons: 1. Never had anyone to drive me there. 2. I was always told not to go there because it is supposedly the murder capital in the world. 3. I have been to scared to go.

I WAS WRONG! Kingston was such a humbling experience. Dwight and his twin brother Dwayne grew up in Kingston, and I have been friends with these guys for a few years and they really wanted us to see their roots. So off we went. The road to Kingston is very nice, there is even a toll booth that you have to go through. However, in Kingston I got a little worried. The streets were filthy. The town made the ghetto of Detroit look like a place were millionaire's live.

Going to Dwight and Dwayne's child hood home left me speechless. To see a place where they live so close together, where children play in the street, no running water, no privacy, community bathrooms, and the smell isn't that great, it was an experience I believe everyone should encounter. I was moved to tears because knowing how much Dwight and Dwayne love the Lord was not hindered by living conditions. Wow!

We also, went to church in Kingston! What an uplifting service, we danced, we sung, we heard God's Word...WHAT A DAY! We ended the day by driving back to Mandeville, but not before stopping and eating at Wendy's...THAT'S Right, AMERICAN FOOD! Monicea loved it!

Monday, we drove to Whitehouse to take Monicea home and then off to Montego Bay for the day. Nothing to unique about that except that I rode my first Jamaican taxi in MoBay, going to pick up food at Pizza Hut for the team.

Great experiences, good fun, better ministry...Twila and Cameron were so awesome and this trip had to be one of the best trips I have ever been a part of!

Jamaica ~Day 5 - THE YARD IS ON FIRE

That's right you read it correctly...the yard was litterally on fire and guess who set it.
Our Team did it! Don't worry we were in control the whole time.

Well, after several days of mowing and weed wacking, we decided because of all the rocks, and rubbish that we needed to do a control fire on it. What a site to see! It was a great experience, and now the yard is going to be able to be nourished and farmed.

This evening we went to Generations Church to clean and run practice. I was just in awe of the worship. It's so great that we serve such an awesome God and that worship is just not an American movement but an intimate experience, an encounter with the Creator. It just amazes me that we serve such a BIG GOD!!!

Anyway, tomorrow after church we have a great experience in store. Dwight and his twin brother Dwayne are from Kingston, Jamaica's capital. And we have an opportunity to travel there tomorrow, and so we are going to go for about an hour or so to see where Dwight grew up and check out another church plant there! We are so excited!

Cameron says hi to everyone and he can't wait to see everyone. And Miss Twila wants everyone to know this has been a great experience and she has lots of stories to share when we arrive back.

Until next time...
Many prayers and blessings to you all... CYNDI I LOVE YOU!!

Jamaica ~Day 3 & 4

Wow, what a busy couple of days we have had.

Yesterday, we woke up and their was no water! Which is not always good, especially when you are planning on having a hard day working outside. We went back to the young men's home to finish up some work to prepare their new area for farming and discovered that we could not cut the rest of the area with a lawn mower or a weed wacker. So here was John and my solution...BURN IT! Dwight laughed and said that was our solution to everything but we were serious. So we sprayed some extremely toxic weed killer and Saturday we are planning on going back to burn the yard. So we actually mowed the lawn and made their yard very nice.

As we arrived back to the house I was praying that water would be back on so we could shower...and praise God it was!

In the evening, we visited Generations Church as their worship team was practicing. It's very interesting and exciting to see a church plant taking off. Quickly, Twila, Cameron and I went to work...adjusting sound, audio, and anything else we could help with. Twila is actually going to train a few Jamaicans how to run keynote and propresenter...and I will be training some Jamaicans how to run sound.

Today, we drove down to Whitehouse to visit McAlpine, and to visit My Father's House, a local foster home. Our day started off a little late, but eventually we made it to the Westmoreland parish. On the way, we noticed a huge fire that seemed out of control, which was an interesting site to see.

After a great day of ministry building relationships, listening to stories, talking to people in Whitehouse, we headed back to Mandeville.

For dinner, Dwight and Shanda took us to this seafood restaurant next to the sea called, Little Ochee. I must say, it was some of the best seafood I have ever had! Jerk shrimp, garlic buttered lobster, fish, and curried conch were all on the menu. After dinner we came back to Mandeville...a very exhausting but yet very awesome day!

By the way, we have a very special guest...Cyndi and my Jamaican daughter Monicea. We have had on our heart to adopt this little girl for the past two years and have been working on it. It is very difficult to adopt in Jamaica and we aren't quite old enough to adopt in the states, but as they say in Jamaica...Soon Come.

She is having a great time, and she absolutely love Cameron and Twila. Cameron actually played Barbie's with her :)

Until next time America, Brown signing off.

Jamaica ~Day 2 ...off to work we go.

Here we are in Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica...and it is so much cooler here in the mountains. I believe it feels even cooler than it is in Charleston.

Well today was a great day!!! We traveled to a young men's home to assist in some lawn care. So I was thinking okay, no big deal...a little lawn mowing, a little weed pulling. Boy, were we suprised!

The yard had completely overgrown and was thick...so we went at it. Now, you may be wondering why did ya'll go all the way to Jamaica just to take care of lawns. Well, this home is for young men whom have just come out of an orphanage and they are being trained to survive as a Christian man, here in Jamaica.

We spent all day on the lawn. As some of us were using lawn mowers, weed wackers, and whatever we could use...Cameron went to town on the weeds with a maschette. It was a great day and much work got done.

This evening we went into Mandeville to see Generations Church. What a cool experience. As Dwight and Shanda were showing us around all I could think of is wow...they are doing things so much different than the typical Jamaican churches.

We ended the evening by visiting a local ice cream shop, were Shanda got a bad case of the hiccups, that had us laughin hysterically for a good thirty minutes.

Tomorrow, we are heading back to the young men's home to finish up the yard.

Until next time.

Jamaica ~Day 1

From Montego Bay to Mandeville, it seems as though we have been all over the island of Jamaica.

Twila, Cameron, and I flew into MoBay where we encountered customs and immigration. Actually, we didn't have to bad of a time, the lines were just extremely long. After hassling with Jamaica car rentals we drove to Whitehouse, Westmoreland. Where we met a lot of great people.

Twila and Cameron were introduced to Monicea, the four year old girl that Cyndi and I are in the process of adopting. They also got walk through Randy's (a little boy Cyndi and I sponsor) house and see how Jamaican's truly live. Randy and his father live in a two room house. A house that is litterally falling apart.

Next we met Miss Sadie, an incredible prayer warrior. This woman prays daily for the island of Jamaica but also Coastal, Taylor Univeristy, and several other ministries that feed into the island.

After leaving Whitehouse we headed to Mandeville to meet with Dwight and Shanda. On the way, God definately protected us. As we were driving a young man rode his bike down a hill and almost pulled out in front of us. For some reason John (who was driving us), started being pulled toward the center of the rode. GOD WAS WORKING...we would have hit this young man, praise God we didn't.

SO we are sitting here in Mandeville, tired but encourage and ready to serve. Tomorrow we are heading to a young men's home. We will be ministering by delivering clothes, and doing yard work. Cutting lawn, pouring cement, and even cleaning some chicken coups! What a great day ahead!

Good night!

sitting in the airport...

Well, here I am along with Cameron and his mom, Twila. Sitting in Charlotte, NC at the airport.

We are on our way to Jamaica and the excitement is contagious. This morning at 4:45am est, I hear a knock on my front door. And if you know me at all you know that I HATE mornings...seriously I do not believe 4 o'clock should come twice a day. Okay back to the knock on the door.

It was Cameron and Twila, both looking as though they have been up and ready to go for hours and hear I am just barely out of the shower. They were pumped. Well we made it to Charleston International Airport (thank you Miss Janie) with no problems. Which is very unusual for me, especially flying US Airways aka US SCAREWAYS.

Our flight was delayed a bit but no problems.

We are pumped and excited about ministering to the Jamaican people, as well as the missionaries we will be working with. I asked Cameron what he has thought about the trip so far and he can just say, "Cool." Twila, on the other hand, is definately ready for the new experience. Already this morning she has ministered to several people. She knew a few people at the airport and was so pumped about telling them that we are going to Jamaica on a missions trip.

It's going to be a great week!

Keep checking out the blog for more updates throughout the week!

Undercurrent update 7/08/07

Well, tonight was our weekly student ministry program we call UNDERCURRENT.

You could definately tell it is the summer time and people are on vacation...Seems like when summer hits people tend to check out of church too.

But we had a great group of students and their passion to worship, learn, and hang out together is absolutely incredible! I love our students! They are so encouraging and have such a great attitude about everything.

Tonight we continued our series entitled, "Divine Obsession." We continued to seek out what or whom our obsession is. As we know, God is obsessed with us, but did you know that His love is so immense and He desires just for us to know Him. Not just the hi God how's it going, type of know Him. NO! He wants the I KNOW GOD, type of relationship. Meaning, He wants to truly hang out with us, be there at all times, share His name with us!

Wow, what a great night!

I'm Going Nuts

So many thoughts are going through my mind right now and I don't even know where to begin.

-Why has God blessed me with an amazing life? Seriously, I have a great wife, great friends, a loving church, an awesome family, a home to live in, and so much more.

-I leave in three days for Jamaica, along side Cameron and Twila...I am really excited! I get to see my friends Dwight and Shanda, John, and Emily. I will also get to reconnect with some of the other relationships that I have built in Jamaica...including Monicea (Cyndi and my soon to be adopted daughter) and Randy (Cyndi and my little boy, whom we sponsor).

-Church on Sunday is going to Rock! Undercurrent Sunday night is going to be even better!

-My apartment is a mess and I'm not freaking out about it.

- Jesus loves me!!

Okay, that is enough random stuff that is in my head right now... By the way go see Evan Almighty, it's a great flick!

great students...great message...great night

What a great night!

Sunday July 1, 2007 - 6pm

Hillsong's new cd blasting away, students pouring in, ping pong balls flying, and the foosball table going crazy...
What's going on?

WAVES student ministry's Sunday Night event known as UNDERCURRENT.

We started a brand new series entitled, "Divine Obsession." Last night we talked about God's inseperable love for you! He is obsessed with you and he loves you so much that no matter what happens, he will always love you. Check out Luke 15:11-32 or copy and paste this link: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015:11-32;&version=51

Students were challenged to leave their doubts, insecurities, and anything else that hinders them from being obsessed with God.

I am just so pumped about what God is doing and can't wait for next week!!