On March 8^th, Niccole, Ron, and Marsha spent the day in prayer and review of the applications and interviews for the Summer Staff positions. We felt tremendous responsibility and pressure to really seek the leading of God since all of the 22 applicants impressed us with may abilities and personality traits. Board member, Mike Bowling, had indicated some months earleir that it would be great to work with more than the 8 interns that we had in 2004. Ron echoed that sentiment, and as part of the day's work, we settled on selecting 10, rather than 8, Summer Staff. That increase helped the selection process only a little. On March 10^th letters were mailed to all the applicants indicating what we had decided about them in particular. Ten were given "acceptance" letters and to were given "alternate" letters, while the balance were encouraged to continue serving God in other places and perhaps reapply for MI in 2006. Each selected Summer Staff is asked to return a post card indicating whether they accept or decline the offer. In fact, two did decline the offer for various reasons and we selected the alternates in their places. So the field is complete now, and we also have an eleventh person who is serving an unpaid internship for credit for Florida Christian College. We are in the process of matching each one with both ministry positions and family host sites for the summer. Please pray that God will prepare each of them and us for the summer ahead!

Although interest is very high for the Summer Program, not very many groups have actually registered to date. That makes it very hard for us to plan and develop many of the things needed for the summer. April 1 was the published deadline; however, in this day and age, it is increasingly more difficult to get groups to honor that date to get their Registration and Deposit in to us. God is able to send groups to fill all four weeks but we ask you to join us in asking Him to move the groups into action!

On Minday, April 18^th seven students and Professor Phil Foster from Lincoln Christian College came to Indy to take a tour of urban ministries. Mission Indy served as the tour guide and introduced the group to a wide variety of ministries here in the city. We began with Shepherd Community. Miss Emilie told us all about the various programs for children, youth and families the church and community center operate to meet their goals. It was fun to peek in on the kindergarten class and to see Hispanic families signing up for soccer.

The next stop was Lighthouse Mission, where director Bob Goodrum explained the goals and strategy of Lighthouse's amazing success rates with helping men come out of homelessness and hopelessness.

The next stop was with Chris Provence of Rebuilding the Wall. Chris lives in the neighborhood. He talked a lot about living in the inner city and wanting neighbors to have good and safe housing. That desire led to buying old, run-down homes to then rehabilitate them to provide affordable homes for his very low income neighbors.

Tim Street, the interim Director of Jireh Sports gave us the history and plans of the sporting ministry happening at Jireh.

From there we moved to Englewood Community Development Corporation, a functional arm of Englewood Christian Church. Mike Bowling shared with the group a very condensed version of the 109 year varied history of Englewood CC, and how that led to the practical decision to set up the Community Development Corporation as a "tool" to do some of the work the church family wanted to do with and for each other. Mike explained that "businesses" such as bookkeeping and "efforts" such as house rehab are natural outcomes when people share their lives with each other. Churches don't need to create special "programs" or "processes" when these businesses and efforts develop naturally.

We finished with a brief outline of Mission Indy.

We begin each MI Work Day with a short devotional followed by some follow-up questions. The time is designed to encourage deep thinking about why and how we serve and about what the role of the church is (or should be) in our culture. Participants have said that the addition is a positive one. Participants are thinking and asking more questions as time goes on.

In March we had the privilege of working with groups from Ben Davis Christian Church, The Chruch at Mt. Gilead, and First Christian Church of Hessville (Hammond, IN). Groups have continued the rehab work at Neighborhood Fellowship Church.

Also in March, we began the demolition portion of a rehab at 2620 Brookway. The plan will be for a family from either Neighborhood Fellowship or Victory Misistries to become the home owners when the work is complete. The Indianapolis Urban Intitiative will do most of the rehab work over the summer.

In April, Grace Missionary Church joined us along with Mt. Gilead as we worked at North Liberty Christian Church on the grounds and parsonage. Rob Wilkes, who works with the church, led us as we built the largetst brush pile ever seen! The "Calebs" (Sr. Group) from the church served us a surprise pitch-in luncch that was great!