We don't just serve people on 9th street...

You can only post so many pictures of flipping burgers on South 9th Street. But during a great BBQ this past Saturday with 412 Crew youth group of Church of the Cross here in Modesto, I caught Arlie feeding a new friend.

Our youngest group yet!

At the very end of April and beginning of May, we hosted a team of Junior High students from Sacramento for a small outreach here in Modesto. We've never worked with a group so young (several of them were 12!) and didn't know how they would respond to our style of non-work project/relational outreach. That's them up there, eating at one of our favorite taco trucks.

They did great! They really caught our heart to listen to people's story and give folks the grace of listening. Their last night with us, we threw a BBQ for the South 9th Street community.



I was flipping burgers on the grill which puts me kinda in the center of things and there was a time when I looked around and saw all the kids patiently and kindly listening to someone's story.



There was one group of kids that listened to a struggling friend for two whole hours. Yeah, TWO! It was beautiful. This was a nice night on south 9th St (I know for you locals, that sounds a little strange) but God really met us down there and we had a great time with the people and the group did so good.

After we cleaned up and prayed our last prayer, their leader wanted to take them for ice cream and that's when we remembered Elvis Karaoke at our downtown A & W. Oh yeah.



Me and Jimmy got things started...





And the group got into it too...maybe a little too much ! : )