Spring Semester
Wow this has been the busiest season of my life. I'm not sure what has made this season busier than past spring semesters, but honestly I've been enjoying it. I've gotten to help plan several different events, which is something that I really enjoy doing. A couple different events I have helped plan are:
Galentine's dinner- this was a small gathering of some ladies the day after Valentine's Day to just celebrate friendship.
H2O Conference- This was our first ever H2O Conference. All the H2O churches gathered together for a Friday and Saturday to connect and worship God. We got to celebrate all the amazing things He is doing in all our churches and students' lives. It was an amazing weekend and we look forward to doing it again sometime in the bearish future. I helped with the children's ministry and the giveaways for the weekend. (Pictures above are from the conference.)
Superbowl party- I think you all can guess what this is ;)
Spring Break Mission Trip to Buffalo- We had two different mission trips over spring break, one to Memphis TN and the other to Buffalo. I helped with the planning details of the Buffalo trip. We went back to Buffalo this year to help the new church we just planted there last fall. It was an evangelism focused trip where most days we went around just evangelizing and sharing the good news of the gospel with the students there. It was very encouraging to see the church plant and the staff who went to help. The church is growing and has several committed students who are members already! (The group from this trip is pictured below.)
Future Events I'm currently helping plan:
Baby Sprinkle- Cassi, our pastor's wife and one of my best friends, is pregnant with their second child. Baby Titus is due the end of May! We are so excited to have another baby in our church!
Well Closing Ceremonies- Our spring semester discipleship class called the Well ended a couple weeks ago but because of spring break we had to push the celebration ceremony until we got back. This Sunday we will be celebrating the group that just went through this discipleship class.
Pancake Outreach- Every fall we have a pancake outreach that is always very successful and some of our students have gotten involved in our church due to pancakes. We decided to try it this spring too as a way to do outreach. Ben, my husband, and I will be taking the lead on this event. Be praying on April 1st for this event and that God would us it to bless others and that we would have good gospel conversations.
Refined Retreat- Refined is our women's ministry and we will be having a retreat in the middle of April over the Lord's Prayer.
End of the year Softball and Picnic- At the end of every year we have an annual softball game and picnic that the whole church is invited to, to hang out and have fun with each other one last time before the semester ends and people go all over the country and world.
Life Forward Banquet- This is not something I am doing for H2O, but in my free time and it's something I am very excited about. Life Forward is a crisis pregnancy center in our area. Our church members, staff, and myself have volunteered with them inconsistently but I have always loved volunteering there. We have a current student leader who is doing an internship there and when the planning for the banquet came up she reached out to me an asked if I would be interested in helping. I have been helping with the silent auction portion of the banquet. It's the first event like this that I have planned and it's been stressful, exciting, fun, and challenging (in a good way). The Banquet is April 27th at 6:00 here in Cincinnati if it sounds like something you are interested in attending please reach out to me. We would love for you to attend, learn about Life Forward, and see if there are any ways that you can help.
Slice of Life from John Trapp who went on the Buffalo Spring Break:
(John is on the right).
Greetings All,
The H20 Buffalo Trip was a fantastic experience that I can confidently say I would do again. It was a great opportunity to partner with fellow believers to share our faith with the students at the University of Buffalo. I appreciated being able to evangelize with a partner which made these social and spiritual encounters easier to engage in. Lastly, I really enjoyed getting to share the good news of the gospel with others. Although I may not be the perfect evangelist, having the opportunity to plant seeds of faith and maybe even water them, was awesome. I will pray that H20 will continue to change lives, further the kingdom, draw people closer to God, and hopefully bring people to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Warm Regards,
John Trapp
This semester we have been going through a sermon series called Kingdom Culture. Through the series we have covered many topics that are contriversial in our current culture. On March 12th, my husband Ben had the privilege of preaching a sermon on the topic of abortion. I may be biased, but I think he did an amazing job covering the topic. If you would like to listen here is the link. His sermon is titled Light in a Culture of Darkness. https://h2ocincinnati.com/sermons