Sent to Love means...

• Sending 300 backpacks of food home with students every week of the school year.

• Adopting or fostering 50 children over 5 years. 

• Providing free childcare and student ministries on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights including small groups so children and students grow up with 5-10 adults investing in their lives.

• Partnering in Bangkok to stop sex trafficking and give hope by teaching conversational and written English using the Bible as a source.

• Partnering with New Life Church Stockholm as they start churches across Sweden.

• Partnering with the Timothy Initiative, an international disciple making and church planting organization.

• Partnering with Converge Worldwide in church planting around the world.

• Partnering with World Vision to bring clean water to much needed areas of our world.

What will be your "sent to love" story?

As part of the Aspen Grove Network we start and support sites through out the Twin Cities. All the sites and missional communities are interdependent working to expand the opportunity for people to know the love of God found in the Lord Jesus. Currently Aspen Grove sites are:

• Woodridge Church – Medina

• The Highlands Church – Delano

• Mercy Hill Church – Minnetonka

• Foundry Church – Plymouth

EVERY MEAL (Formerly Sheridan Story)
More than 300,000 children in Minnesota live with food insecurity.  We’re on a mission to change that. Every Meal fights child hunger by focusing on filling the food gaps children face on weekends, extended breaks, and summer when they’re not able to access school meal programs. When they don’t have consistent access to enough food, the risk of hunger is very real. Through our multiple food gap programs, we provide children and families experiencing food insecurity with access to good food. You can sponsor a child for $150 per year.

OTHER INITIATIVES IN OUR CITY:

• We join with Converge North Central in church planting efforts across the Twin Cities and through out Minnesota.

• We regularly participate in food drives in our local area through IOCP.

• We support Young Life in Orono and Wayzata schools.

FAMILY SERVING OPPORTUNITIES IN OUR CITY

Many of our attenders have asked for ways that they could serve our community as a family. As a church Sent to Love we wanted to provide you with a list of opportunities in our city that would be a good fit for you and your family. Click HERE to download the list, look it over and pray about how God could use you in our city to love others. Each of these organizations can be contacted directly with the information provided.

We partner with Converge Worldwide in church planting across the United States.

Student Mission trip to Utah each summer. This vision trip will help our partners at The Front Church in Salt Lake City, Utah run their amazing Kids Camp ministry.

WORLD VISION WATER PROJECT

World Vision Water Project

• Everyday 800 kids 5 years and below die due to dirty water 

• Usually kids walk for the dirty water and predominantly  girls

• Kids are often abused, trafficked and attacked by animals on the walk 

• Kids especially girls don’t get to go to school because they have to walk typically 8 miles a day in total for dirty water 

• $50 brings lasting clean water and completely changes a life! 

• You can save a life for $50!

TOGO​

Leadership and Employment help for Pastors and Church Leaders$200 pays for an internship that results in a lifetime career$1000 for a Community College degree that will provide a community leader.$5000 for a University Degree that will equip a nationwide leader.

The Togo team is building a 7 bedroom guest house for interns and visitors. Internships are one of the best ways to get long term missionaries in Togo. The cost of the guest house is $50,000.

THE TIMOTHY INITIATIVE

The Timothy Initiative (TTI) is one of our ministry partners and is an international disciple making and church planting movement. Imagine starting a church in a dried up river bed in Africa or sharing the Gospel in Asia with someone who's never heard of Jesus. Imagine the thrill of planting the first church an unreached village has ever had! More than 3 billion people, 41% of the world, live in areas with little to no access to the Gospel. 

Imagine starting a church in a dried up river bed in Africa or sharing the Gospel in Asia with someone who's never heard of Jesus. Imagine the thrill of planting the first church an unreached village has ever had! More than 3 billion people, 41% of the world, live in areas with little to no access to the Gospel. You can plant a church for $34 a month!

Our network of churches has a goal of planting 1,000 churches! Help us reach that goal by committing to being a sponsor. 

You will be able to pray for your new church plant and follow the progress. Click the button below to learn more and plant a church. Yes, you can plant a church with people who have never heard about Jesus for only $34/month for one year! CLICK HERE to plant a church!

HAITI TEEN CHALLENGE

We partner with Haiti Teen Challenge, a residential recovery program in Haiti.Haiti Teen Challenge (HTC) is the only residential recovery program in Haiti where troubled young men and women are transformed by Christ and equipped to be catalysts for
change for THEIR nation. HTC is gospel-powered, community-based, owned and led by Haitians. Learn more here about why Haiti is so troubled.

Our team leaves June 15th and returns June 21st. Each day we will post an update here while they are there.

Please pray for:

• Travel safety

• Unity for the team

PHOTO FILE updated daily.

Sunday 10:09PM

We just landed and are now on our way to Sumpango. Everyone is safe, getting along, and tired.

Monday

Our team woke up in Guatemala this morning!! We arrived at Breaking Cycles late last night after a long day of traveling. This morning we are going through Breaking Cycles Orientation and getting ready to head out on our first day of ministry. Our lunches are packed, our rain gear is ready and with God’s Love we are headed out!!

Tuesday

Yesterday was our 1st work day.  Our large group is split into 6 crews and each crew has a different worksite.  4 of our crews are building homes for 4 different families.  Those crews did all kinds of work from cutting rebar to mixing cement to hauling cinder blocks up steep hills and across rock-filled roads.  They have a goal for what they need to accomplish each day in order to stay on track for finishing the homes on Thursday. The other 2 crews were assigned VBS and neighborhood projects.  The VBS crew painted the inside of the church where they will be welcoming 100+ children to participate in the VBS they will be running today.  The neighborhood crew did the hard work of removing a sandbag wall so that they can build a concrete wall that will prevent daily flooding of the homes that live downhill.  They also chopped out massive tree roots that were causing major problems in the cobblestone street.

Our evening is an opportunity for the team to worship, pray, rest and reflect on all that God has done.  The beds we sleep in are super comfortable and the 3 bathroom sinks that we all share have become a gathering spot of laughter and storytelling.

We hope you are blessed by the pictures of our experiences thus far and ask for your continued prayers as we work hard today.

Wednesday

It is the rainy season in Guatemala and yesterday we got to experience that first hand!  Just after lunch there was a downpour and because most of the walkways in the neighborhoods are dirt we all got to spend time in the mud.  However, that did not slow our efforts or "dampen" our spirits at all!  The crews doing construction of homes started mixing concrete and laying cinder blocks, getting to see the homes start to take shape.  The VBS crew welcomed 140 children to the church building the team had freshly painted that morning.  The neighborhood crew dug a trench for the wall they will be building today.  

God is protecting us and binding us together as a team.  The Guatemala women in the Breaking Cycles kitchen are feeding us SO well.  The translators are so gracious and our evening team time is filled with stories of all that God is doing in and through each member of our team!

Thursday

Yesterday the VBS crew welcomed 140+ children once again and the team was blessed by getting to hear stories from the Pastor of the church where they've been holding the VBS.  The other crews were busy mixing cement and laying cinder block. We made significant progress on each of the homes we are building.  However, the progress that was made in connecting relationally with the families who we are building the home with was the truest blessing!

After our work day the team took a tour of downtown Sumpango and got to learn all about the ministry of Breaking Cycles.  God is truly using this ministry in the city of Sumpango in such amazing ways!  Each evening the students get to worship together with the interns that are serving us this week and we end our day with stories of what each crew experienced at their sites. Be sure to click on the Photos Link above.

Friday

Thursday was our final work day and the experience was unforgettable! The VBS crew had 160+ kiddos attend and the relationship with the pastor of the church and his family is such a blessing for them and us! The neighborhood crew hammered cinder blocks to be able to fit them perfectly into the wall. The relationships created with the neighborhood people made the work we did so much more meaningful. We dedicated the 4 houses that we built alongside our masons and Guatemala families. In the words of Matt Mukomela “I have never been a part of anything like this before! It was incredible!” Pictures do a much better job than my words do at capturing these experiences. Please take some time to look through our pictures and be praying for us as we do the hard work of saying our goodbyes