Diving in with a little bit of ketchup:

OK, well the summer is over and so much has gone on. This summer was the diving off board to a whole new adventure! Throughout this whole experience there has been one thought that was really stuck with me:

I feel like I have been living at the intersection of two different worlds. Sometimes we
just see the differences on the outside, but on the inside we have so much in common.

Here is a highlight Video:

Summer 08 from Merrick on Vimeo.

OK, so here is a lot of Ketchup :

The News:

I could not just walk away from what God has shown me. My heart could not
just say that it was just only a summer because it was more then I ever thought
it would be. So I am excited to say that I am going to go on staff with Mission Adelante

Here is what I am diving into:

"LIT " Leaders In Training:

I have jumped in with a new program we launched this fall called LIT "Leaders In Training".

It meets Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday afternoons for tutoring and character development. There are 13 kids that are involved some of these kids have great leadership skills that will be used in their own community.

I help out with recreation on Tuesday and Wednesday and do what I can help it run smoothly. I love seeing what these kids are getting out of it and how it is showing them that they can be leaders in their own neighborhood.(The LIT Kids)

The Resource Center:

The other thing I jumped into is the Resource center. This Ministry provides

material for the families by securing donations of new and lightly used

items to demonstrate the love of Christ through relationship and generous

giving to meet specific physical and material needs.

I have moved down to the neighborhood of Mission Adelante:

I am living with the Sears family: Seth and Andrea and their three kids.

There is one more roommate named Guadalupe.

(Alden-8 Annabel-10, and Jude-5
and their dog Scarlet)

I love living with this house hold it's a lot of fun.

Highlights:

There are a lot of highlights that I would love to share with you but for right now I

will just share two. The first one is the first night I got all moved into the house,

I had my window open and I heard outside people talking and laughing on

their porch and kids playing in the yard. I thought it was cool to hear because

I am sad to say we don't hear that a lot anymore.

The second highlight was

when I went trick or treating with some of the Kids Adelante neighborhood kids.

It was a lot of fun: On one street they block it all off and go all out on decorating

the houses. Everyone knows that's the street to be on - there are kids everywhere

all dressed up and ready for candy.

• Pray:

• For the neighborhood with the hard times that families are facing.
• For my heart: the more I get to know the kids down here,

It just really shows me that even though they still look

like they are kids, I have to say they are more like adults

in kids bodies . Just to hear some of the stuff that they go

through and how much they know about responsibilities

of adults really makes my heart sad for all the quick growing up they do.