A Beautiful Day

The youth at our church spent last Sunday afternoon (11/13/11) participating in beautiful day activities. If you are not familiar with a beautiful day, it's a day set aside for churches to bless their neighbors. And, on Sunday for three hours, the youth from our church did exactly that. After breaking up into groups, the Jr. Highers and High Schoolers walked around our neighborhood raking leaves and washing windows for free. It was an exhausting day, but many of the comments from our neighbors were that they were very appreciative of our efforts.

Mission accomplished.

Habitat for Humanity Walk Home

Several from PBCC participated in Habitat for Humanity’s Walk Home fundraiser on October 16. The kickoff event took place in the parking lot of Saint Joseph’s in Cupertino. Folks registered at 12:30, picked up their green or white t-shirts, and had lunch. Entertainment was provided by the band Random People. Then after a 15-minute ceremony with short speeches by various officials and a prayer by Gregory Kimm (pastor of St. Joseph’s), the walkers headed out through the green and blue balloon arch for the 4.2 mile round trip walk to the building site on Cleo Avenue. The Walk Home event was one of many fundraising events by local faith communities to raise funds for the materials needed to build one of the four Habitat homes to be built at the Cleo Avenue site. Construction will begin some time in December or early 2012, and PBCC will be recruiting work teams to participate in the construction of these homes.

Habitat Walk Home

Cupcake Fundraiser

Cotton candy, chocolate chip coffee, root beer float, and Oreo-frosted cupcakes in ice cream cones were a few varieties of the 572 gourmet cupcakes offered for sale at PBCC last Sunday.

Not every cupcake would make your teeth ache. Some were sugar and gluten-free. A list of ingredients accompanied each batch. All the cupcakes were home-made.

Kathy Leong organized the event to benefit Pat and Ziggy Lew, Wycliff Bible translators who work in Thailand. She had a small army of bakers and assistants.

One fellowship group got together to make and wildly decorate an especially creative batch (“Go Sharks,” smiling faces). Aproned helpers set up and decorate the tables and sold the goods.

The cupcakes sold out by the second service, bringing in $1,386. Kathy’s comment: “We should do this again next year, yes?”

Click here to see photos.

Celebration Sunday 2011

What an awesome time we all had this past Sunday with our Texas style BBQ and Celebration Sunday. Over 530 people showed up to enjoy the food, fun, and fellowship. The kids had a blast with bounce houses, obstacle course, and bungee run while adults and kids alike enjoyed dunking the likes of Joel Taylor, Brian Morgan, Ryan Hinn, and Shawn Reese in the dunk tank. Great times were had by all. Thank you to all who helped make this event possible! Some pictures from the event can be found "here."

VisionTrust Car Wash In Review

The Jr. Highers and High Schoolers were planning to spend most of 3+ hours on Sunday, June 26th, washing cars. What they ended up doing was washing cars for the ENTIRE 3+ hours because the line never ended! At the end, the driveway had to be blocked off so everyone could go home...

They all did an awesome job, with the best part being that they raised over $1300 for the 7 Liberian VisionTrust students that they support.

Thanks to all who supported the car wash and, of course, to all the students who helped wash the cars!

Jim Ross in Liberia Day 7-8

Hi everyone!

I haven’t been able to send video for almost a week but things have been going GREAT!!!

Here are a few highlights of so many. The kids are getting fed everyday, medical care (done by a medical team of 7), teaching done by a group of fantastic teachers, and we are almost doubling the size of the school (with an extremely hard working construction team). Click here to watch Liberia “60 seconds or less” Day 7-8!

Jim Ross' Report 4/9/11

The first part of the video is day 3. We went to the Liberian jungle far inland to meet the children of a tribe living in extreme poverty our country director has really been hoping to help. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen kids (and adults) more excited to see a "white man" in my life. It was a little overwhelming. The kids are singing in the video and as you notice the singing gets increasingly intense! (We were talking to the chief about helping them start a new school with hopefully food and medical care for the children as well.)
The second part of the video is actually day 2. Hot and sweaty... that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Have you ever read John 3:16 and 17 slowly? I think the "Good News" should actually be called the "most amazing, undeserved, incredible, fantastic news in the history of human kind!" Although my version might be a little too long?
Jim

Jim Ross in Liberia, Day #1

Hi everyone,
I arrived here in Liberia yesterday (without my bags :() but today was our first full day and it was FANTASTIC. I got to see the children I met last summer in a big burnt out cement building. The difference this time is that we have begun helping them in partnership with some fantastic locals... click the following link to see Liberia Day #1 in 60 seconds or less!
If you see me in the same clothes in every single video for the next week it's because I DON"T HAVE ANY!!!
I thank God for you ALL!
Jim

Jim Ross off to Liberia

Hi team!
I am off to Liberia, West Africa right now and I’m really excited for all of us to be praying about this trip. According to UNICEF around 1 out of every 8 children in Liberia die before the age of 5. Many were orphaned during their civil war and many are struggling now just to survive. The exciting thing is that we have some fantastic local Liberian Christians who are passionate about helping and loving these children. I would love your prayers for God’s wisdom and direction as I work with our country director to see where else we can help MORE of these precious children (we are helping almost 1000 currently). I would also love your prayers for the people/children that we are seeking to serve that live in and around a large abandoned cement building (see video attached for a 10 second snap shot). I will be with a great team of people that includes Pastors, Doctors, Construction workers, teachers and others with great talents and great hearts who are making significant sacrifices to come serve the 300+ children we are trying to help in this area. Finally, please pray for safety for all of us. There is major fighting/killing next door in Côte d'Ivoire and many people are fleeing to Liberia. Maybe God will lead us to help some of them? Will you stop and pray right now for one of these things?!?!?
I thank God for you all the privilege of serving these children in partnership with YOU!!!
Jim

JH Hume Lake Highlights

Thanks for your prayers for Hume Lake. We felt them as we watched God move throughout the weekend. It was a transformative and live-changing weekend for many of us. Decisions were made for Christ, and friendships were made in Christ as we played together, ate together, worshipped together and built the Box Sled together (we got 3rd place again this year!! Yay!). Everyone returned home safely and except for some bumps and bruises, returned in good condition. :) Our God is good!

Habitat for Humanity Build Day

On Saturday, March 26, six of us from PBCC went down to Gilroy to work at the Corey Drive build site. Six homes are in varying stages of completion. It rained off and on during the morning and then let up in the afternoon. But most of the work to be done was indoors, so the rain didn’t keep us from working. There was a lot of cleaning up to do in three houses that had recently been insulated via a “blown in” insulation process, in preparation for drywalling. Others painted and installed fiberglass insulation in spaces not covered by the other process. We are looking forward to getting involved with the Cupertino Habitat project that will start building toward the end of this summer. More information to come!

(More photos)

L to r: Ellen Walberg, Andrea Patton, Greg Schultz, Heidi Walberg, Roxanne Melinat, David Jones

Jim Ross back from Haiti

I’m back from Haiti and I wanted to thank all of you so much who stopped to pray for me. Here is how God answered your prayers:

1. Safety: I got home safe! Many of the places I’m looking to help children are in the “worst” areas where the kids are often suffering the most. These are often the most dangerous areas, but I am so thankful to God that I was never threatened and I was safe the whole time.

2. Partners: I was able to meet a few fantastic Haitians who have a sincere heart to love and help the suffering children around them. I truly feel like God is answering our prayers and is giving us the people and wisdom to begin a strong foundation for helping suffering/abandoned/orphaned children in Haiti.
Thank you for partnering with me in this, and I would love it if you stopped to praise our Lord with me!

Jim

Jim Ross in Haiti Day #4

Hi again family and friends!

I stayed at a differnt place yesterday so I wasn't able to send any video. Here is a "60 seconds or less" video for today with 3 parts. The 1st part is the view and sounds from where I am staying. The second is a "tent city" we went in today. We got to talk to children and learned a lot (there are THOUSANDS of children living in tents, many of whom have lost their parents and are just trying to survive). I felt like it would have been distasteful and harmful to take video and probably not safe either so unfortunatly the only video I have is when are leaving in the car. The 3rd clip is some sweet girls I met (see if you can tell what song they are singing) living with a very old but wonderful Christian lady who was taking care of at least 11 people in her little house! I bonded with the little girl with the rose in her hand. I'm pretty sure her monther recently died so the Christian woman was caring for her. Jim

Jim Ross in Haiti #2

Hi all, Here is a 60 seconds or less video of day 2. It's hard to choose what to put in a video when you only have 60 seconds! In contrast to the inner city life of a street child in Port-au-Prince, we went out to see about helping children in a rural village in the eastern part of the country. The children were very sweet but lack of food (when it is not harvest season) and lack of medical care (the closest clinic was a 2.5 hr walk away!) seemed to be major problems. Jim

Jim Ross in Haiti #1

Hi friends and family!

Here is my first "60 seconds or less" video in many months. I was not able to send videos on my last trip to Liberia. :(

I didn't have access to my camera most of the day so I had limited video, but it was a great day so click on the following link for Haiti day #1 in 60 seconds or less! - Jim