From the Mecca of the Airbrushed T-shirt

Praises and Prayer Requests… > Praises for the UNCG students and alumni on mission with us in the Smoky Mountains.  L à R: Moriah (alumni on staff in Charlotte), Harrison, Pete, Micah (3), Carra, Zade (5), Jennifer, Stephanie, Faith (9) and Grace (12). > Praises for the ability to invest in their lives!  Though exhausting, living in the same building as the other ~60 people on this mission gave us access no normal semester allows (often late into the night!). > Pray for the students as they apply the ministry skills they developed over the summer – back to campus! > Pray for a full staff team for the Triad.  God continues to work mightily here and we need more laborers!   Pete and Carra Selent with Grace, Faith, Zade & Micah                                                         July 2016 From the Mecca of the Airbrushed T-shirt The smell of fudge, moonshine, kettlecorn.  Sidewalks filled with tourists, sleepy babies with ice cream mustaches. A sea of faces moving from eating to entertainment and around again. The smell of fudge, moonshine, kettlecorn.  Sidewalks filled with tourists, sleepy babies with ice cream mustaches. A sea of faces moving from eating to entertainment and around again.  What about the faces behind the counters?  Does anyone notice the server’s accent? This overflowing mountain town has captured our hearts!  Gatlinburg, TN would not be able to handle the influx of tourists without the J1’s.  The J1 visa allows students  from all over the world to come serve food, run amuse- ment rides, clean hotel rooms and offer samples of fudge to the American (mostly) tourists.  Over 1000 international students come work in Gatlinburg every summer.  Here they live in cheap hotel rooms with no kitchens, work two jobs and rarely experience much culturally “American” besides what they see and hear on the streets. Anastasia, one of the 100+ J1 students we met, lives near St. Petersburg, Russia and loves American movies.  She knows a ton about the Bible but the idea of a relationship with God who loves her is a foreign concept.  In the background of this photo with Anastasia, Cru students are interacting with international friends from Jamaica, Thailand, China, Moldova, Ukraine, and more.  On this outreach night Harrison (from UNC Greensboro) organized a series of short films to spark spiritual conversations. So far, Anastasia is intrigued but not certain about pursuing a relationship with Christ. Please pray that Anastasia from Russia, Hermonie from China and many others would choose life in Christ before  they return to their home countries. For the Nations, Smokey Mountain Summer Mission 2016 (Pete and Carra back row left, kids front row)