This past year has been the beginning of so many firsts and that is true as well of GSF. Go! Spread! Fire! is a community service, outreach, missions and humanitarian aid organization that we serve with for our outreach in the DC Metro area. We helped to start it 3 years ago and it has gone from a 5 person group going to feed the homeless and reach out to kids to a worldwide missions support organization. The Washington, DC Metro area is now one of about 7 hubs around the world that has teams “Doin’ the Stuff’ with churches and humanitarian organizations serving local communities through churches in their own communities.

This week in DC, we:
1. Gave away over 1200 bottles of water in: Rockville, Bethesda, Georgetown, and DC.
In Georgetown alone, we gave away about 300 in 11-15 minutes! People are so INTERESTED!
2. Planted tracts with $1 wrapped around them in Rockville, Bethesda and DC.
3. Did our ministry to the visitors of DC with the GSF DC Photo ministry called: Deeper than Dermis or the “DC Photo Group.”
4. Trained on Sharing our faith and developed our brand new business card tract that we LOVE! (We will put this up later in .pdf so you all can use it if you wish for your own ministries.
5. Handed out Bibles in Rockville and believe it or not, people WANTED them!!!!
6. Gave away our Tapestry Yellow, (evangelism) Bags with CD’s and such in Rockville, DC and Bethesda.
7. Made Animal Balloons for kids in DC.
8. Re-Landscaped an entire church yard for a struggling Baptist Church in Bethesda that we LOVE dearly and believe is going to become a force in our community with us!
9. Worked on flower beds, shrubs and landscaping on a church in Rockville that is trying to survive a transition in ministry. We also believe that they are going to GROW out the windows as they are affected by the love of GOD.

(Both of these churches are so important to us because they are such a part of the community and they have older members that we young folks hope to inspire! Our new belief is that NO MORE REAL ESTATE should go to the Devil!)

And much more!

On our highest one day, we had 8 outreaches! And the stories we have are unbelievable from a brother and sister reunited that met through MySpace and met just days before in DC, that we got to take their picture for to people thirsty at buss stops that were so encouraged by a simple bottle of water.

As GSF grows this year, we know that we are expanding to invite youth and college students from all over the US to join us for one week. We will be opening it up to 40 people. With that said, we know that again next year, there will be a lot of new things going on with multiple teams and multiple outreaches all over the metro area simultaneously. It’s a little daunting, however with the well-trained and 3 year seasoned team that has been going out monthly with us, we KNOW it will be AMAZING!

I want to encourage you to take part. Keep your eyes open in about November as we release the details. We already have it almost totally planned, so be inspired, ignited and encouraged! GSF!

Blessings!

Quietly they often go and no one really notices until they are gone. True legacy is never noticed or valued until greatness has passed.

Last night and this morning, greatness passed our way. She was a sojourner, a mother, a supporter, a traveler, an author, a rock and a contributor to one of the greatest ministries our world has known.

Ruth Bell Graham passed away last night. There’s nothing much more that I wish to say on it. I am sad today. I know that we need to keep Billy Graham in our prayers and recognize his loss and pain. One of my heroes of the faith is experiencing loss today. Let’s remember what they have all done for us.

Mrs. Graham, we will miss you. Billy, our prayers are with you. Lord, guide us on, Amen.

Please visit the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s website to see the entire Memorial. (CLICK HERE)

And today, church. Let us pray as greatness like angels’ footsteps have just passed through.

With condolences to the family,

dustin hedrick

Hi Everyone,

If you are like me, you want to keep up to date with all the cool stuff from our Tapestry Balloon Launch. Here’s what I have so far!

1. Frank G. said - “We found the card in our front yard on June 4 at about 10:30. The card number is 46. Have a blessed day.” (We think this is a local find).

2. Dustin H. (That’s me hahaha) - I found card number 142 locally here in Rockville! It was encouraging finding one of the balloons myself since I was having tough week. It also let me know that they were findable!

3. Nicole S. said - I’m relocating to the area and I’m looking for a new home church! (Found in Washington, DC)

4. Brian C. said - 87 (I think… close call between 87 and 81). - I found the tag alone (balloon popped of course) on the forest floor of Greenbrier State Park in Washington county, MD (near Frederick). It is a bit water damaged. I found it while hiking down into the park from the Appalachian Trail to do some Geocaching (see http://geocaching.com for more info… great group activity for a church if you guys don’t already know about it!). I live over in (Name of area removed for privacy), so I think it’s incredible to have found the tag from a balloon launched from Rockville, in Frederick!! What a trip that must have been. Happy 3rd Anniversary!

Thanks to all for your wonderful feedback already! This is so amazing and fun. We hope to meet you all in the future!

Also, I’m going to be putting up all the photos from our Anniversary and from our Beach refreshing in the next 48 hours on Flickr. So, you can go to our gallery and see them there.

And you can click here for Zuzana’s pictures.

Blessings!

Hello Everyone!

The Tapestry Anniversary Services and Annual Balloon Launch has been a great success! We have already had 4 responses for our balloons and we know there will be more as more are located and found!

Also, just for your information, THIS WEEKEND IS OUR Tapestry Annual BEACH REFRESHING! June 8-10.

With that said, there will be NO MORNING SERVICE, this Sunday, June 10, 2007 but the evening service will be at the regular time.

Also, Joyce Meyer is in town for the weekend, June 7-10 and is at College Park, MD. The event is free and is amazing. We went last night and I was totally BLESSED!

For more information on all of this an to read our latest THREAD Email, (CLICK HERE).

Blessings!
pd

LAUNCH!

It’s been another great year and the Tapestry is 3 YEARS OLD! We made it through our terrible twos! HAHAHA! If you received one of the balloons from our balloon launch, CLICK HERE to login and tell us your story. We will share your name and story here on the site, however, we promise not to share any of your personal information.

In past years we have had responses from all over including SCOTLAND!

So, let’s see what happens this year. And you celebrate with us how about it?!

Blessings!