Lifeline Service Saturday: December.

Taking a break from our community garden initiative, our Lifeline students chipped in their small hands and able bodies to help load food bags for one of CWE's favorite annual events, the Community Christmas Dinner.  The first Saturday of December, these Lifeline students descended on the Jones Center building, swarming the CWE365 office and filling it with smiles, laughter, and energy.

Transporting bags to be inspected!

These youth have a vigor to serve!  They formed assembly lines and slowly packed canned goods and pastas, peanut butter and applesauce into reusable Walmart sacks.  They stocked supply lines and kept the packers moving.  Some double checked items and tied off bags, while others hauled packing materials to the recycling dumpster.  Each student played a small role, and yet their synergy and collaboration allowed this event to be a huge success!  What a picture of the body of Christ, humbly bringing what we've been given to make the body whole and allow Christ our head to be glorified.

Students were allowed the opportunity to process the morning, and these second through fifth grade students had some profound thoughts.  How quick our generation is to label these kids distracted and aimless.  One student even ventured to say that she serves because it "keeps people from staying mean to me."  Jesus' words to love your enemies ring true from the mouth of a youngster.

Lifeline Leader Taylor with his team!

When all 150 bags were packed, they were distributed to some of our favorite families, but that's for another blog!  Check back soon for an update on our 2012 Community Christmas Dinner!

To see more photos from the event, go to our CWE365 Facebook Fan Page!

Fayetteville Ozone Student Baptized

The following was written by long time CWE Camper and Fayetteville Ozone student, Baylea Cantrell, a senior at West Fork High School:

I’ve grown up in a great home with amazing parents who love God and me very dearly. However, we were never really involved in a church. I had been to churches before. I would go with friends, but I always felt like I was simply a visitor there and not like I belonged.

A few months ago, it seemed God was leading me to become involved in a church. “Ok God!...how?” I asked, having no idea how to start that process! So, as I do with many of my spiritual conundrums, I looked to Ozone. I asked Fayetteville Ozone Director, Alyssa if I could accompany her to church and she said that she would love to have me come! Going to New Heights, I was able to experience and learn so many things that I never had before. A complete stranger came and prayed with me. I was able to take communion for the first time. I had found a church to call home!

After about a month of attending New Heights, I was privileged to witness water baptisms every Sunday. As each person would come up out of the water, symbolically out of their sin, every single one of them would have a look of pure and utter joy on their faces. Just being able to watch that happen was a powerful experience for me. I had wanted to be baptized before, but I had never belonged to a church to be able to do so.  Now, however, I did have a church! I wanted to make this happen! But how? This sounded like a spiritual conundrum to me, so again I looked to Alyssa.  We talked and she said she would help me make it happen. This was actually going to happen! I was going to get baptized! I was beside myself all week waiting for the next Sunday to roll around. Then Alyssa told me I had to choose who was going to baptize me. If you don’t this know already, I am terrible at being decisive, especially for important situations. Needless to say, this was an important one. She had told me that I should pick someone that had a large impact on my walk with Christ. As with everything else, I went to Alyssa. I wanted her to baptize me.  She has been a mentor and a friend. She is a person in my life that I can go to with any spiritual questions, and I wanted to be baptized by no other.

The day finally arrived--September 23. That morning God woke me up to the most amazing rainbow I think I have ever seen.  It was like He was jumping up and down, waving at me and shouting to the world, “Baylea! Look at me! Look at how much I love you!” It was incredible. I watched that rainbow until it disappeared and then got ready for church. I was so excited, and it just seemed like the sermon was lasting forever. Then it was time. We walked up to the baptismal tub, me with my heart in my throat. I stepped in the water.  Everything that had happened, my struggles and my triumphs, my victories and failures, my sin and my salvation, everything had come down to this moment. As I went under the water, I felt my sins being broken away, being buried with Christ in death. I was raised from the water, out of my filth, into the light of Jesus. I stepped out of the baptismal into the arms of everyone who came as a witness to my public affirmation of my faith. God had used so many of those people to impact my walk with Him. That day, I walked out of that church cold and wet but obedient. I am thankful every day for that moment and I am so, so incredibly and undeniably blessed that on September 23, 2012, God chose an unworthy, messed up sinner to experience the cleansing power of His amazing love. Praise God for baptisms!

Take a Seat: Pride and Prejudice

As an organization, CWE365 has been tremendously blessed with opportunities to experience the arts in exciting and different contexts. In October, the Walton Arts Center’s Take a Seat program generously offered free tickets for “Pride and Prejudice” to several high school students and leaders from Bentonville and Fayetteville Summits, as well as other individuals in the CWE365 family. The unique performance of the almost 200-year-old novel told the classic tale, which although having been recently popularized through cinema, the majority of students in attendance were not familiar with it. It was a joy to see students ranging from the middle school aged boy with his bright eyed younger sister to the group of high school girls captivated by the pure romance of the story, begin to grow an interest in classic literature. The unfamiliar dialect of 19^th century England, although confusing at first to students, eventually washed over the auditorium and transported them to full enjoyment of classic theater. “I liked the accents,” Michell, a fifth grader from Rogers responded dreamily when asked what she truly enjoyed about the play.

Bentonville High Schoolers and Leaders at WAC

 Although the dress of actors fit with the time period, and their British accents were spot on, there was one largely unique and refreshing factor in the performance. The actors were few in comparison to parts, but it was not a problem in the slightest. The company performed in the fashion of a radio broadcast, where sets are replaced by strategically placed stand microphones, and actors switch from role to role with varied voice and slight change in attire and demeanor. A jacket or switch in position of an apron, along with the tone of one’s voice, brought a new character to the story.

Not only was the viewing an educational opportunity, but the conversations springing from it were a chance for leader to student connection as well. For high school girls from Bentonville, it came in the form of questions about what determined certain characters views of romance, their motives and virtues. They were able to identify with certain emotions or motivations in their own lives, and connect to characters drawn up centuries before. "I loved being able to experience this incredible performance with high schoolers! It was fantastic to see one of my own favorite tales open the eyes of another generation to processing how the arts apply to life," Bentonville Ozone Director Ellie Chase reported.

A fantastic evening of thought provoking, humorous, real theater! What could be better?