Week One

As you can tell just by watching this video, the first official week of Street Reach's 2011 summer program was AWESOME.
Pastor Tim challenged us to pray that God would let us what HE sees. It's amazing. These are the most beautiful children. It breaks my heart to go pick them up and never see a father figure, to see them wearing the same clothes days in a row, and to realize that they have not been taught basic manners or habits. But they are so smart! I am teaching them things, and they're teaching me. I'm really learning how to handle these kids. I can't wait for our relationships to grow over this summer. Tomorrow they will realize that the mission team from last week is gone and that they'll meet new ones every week, but that I am here for them. I feel so attached to them! I'm going to just share a few stories as I think of them:

• We are supposed to stop letting kids over 12 years old come to club. Jason, my boss, decided that it can be our call, but that we have to trust them completely! The older kids can cause more problems at site. So, we decided to cut two brothers, Ralph and Alfonso (13 and 15), who had been coming all week. On Friday, they actually walked to club before we picked them up! So Kacie told them about the decision, and I ran into them coming home while I was picking up kids. They were bummed out, but they understood. I'm still really upset that we cut them, because they're great boys. But God is still doing really cool things in their lives! For instance, we kept encouraging them to go to MAM. I even told their mom about it! The other day I went over to open gym and the boys were there! They were having a really good time. After club on Friday, one of the men on our teams and I went back to their house because he had promised Ralph a Bible. At first I thought it was just really sweet of this man, Joe, to make sure it happened. But what was AWESOME was Ralph's reaction! He was genuinely excited to get his Bible.
• I've been asking kids if they're reading their Bibles and praying, and they really are! Even some of the youngest ones. Even when I think Bible Club isn't doing enough, I realize that those kids are truly affected by it, and they take it home with them. We have a family of five kids whose mom was saved through Bible Club.
• Finally, speaking of that family, it was pretty sad when we took them home on Friday. It's not hard for me, but the teams get really attached. They loved these particular kids, and it's no surprise why! They're a Hispanic family, and these kids are probably the sweetest I have literally EVER met. They never cause trouble and they're always kind, even the oldest two. We took a long time to drop them off because we were giving them hugs and whatnot. The kids had finally gone inside and we were walking away when Jessie, a five year old boy, opened up the door again and yelled, "I love you!". I choked on my tears, and I wasn't even leaving!
  

I am SO pumped to take on this next week! I wasn't exactly nervous last week, but I didn't know my kids. Now I do and I have a week of experience. I'm ready to help out the mission teams and influence the kids at club even more than I did last week.

Sorry if some of this is worded in a way that makes no sense, I'm pretty tired right now. I think I'm going to take a nap! We're just having some down time until teams arrive.

Discipline

This is Jermaine, we call him "J" or "J.J.". He's six years old and comes from a house where we get about seven or so kids every day. He came on Monday, and although he was fun and sweet, he would NOT listen or follow the rules. He just wanted to play. Kacie and I got really close to taking him home or suspending him for the next day. We told him that he better change his behavior for tomorrow (Tuesday) or he WOULD be suspended. But come Tuesday, he was still acting up. So Kacie took him home before we even circled up. He cried and cried. Kacie explained to him and his mom that she loved him and wanted him to come back, but he needed to behave better. On Wednesday, I went to pick up kids on his street, including his house. He stood at the door the whole time his siblings/cousins were coming out. He was quiet and respectful, and he let me know how many more were coming. I told him I couldn't wait to see him tomorrow! Today, Thursday, he was allowed to come back. Let me tell you, that boy was sweet as can be! He helped me lead songs and played with me like he did on Monday, but he stayed attentive in his group and caused literally NO problems. This is the perfect example of discipline. Teams often don't like it when we send them home or suspend them. But they don't understand; they only have to be here five days and WE have to be here all summer. They think it's mean, but the things is, these kids WANT to be at Bible Club. It's where there friends are, but more importantly, it's where they're getting appropriate love and attention. I don't think J will cause us another problem all summer.

Beautiful Feet

Disclaimer: If you have not read my first post, please go down. I'm posting this right after posting my initial blog post, and that has more information.
Another Disclaimer: Don't listen to this if you don't like rap (even though it's CHRISTIAN rap!)

This song, along with Romans 10: 14-15 (where a lot of the inspiration for this song came from), was the inspiration for the theme of my blog, and my mission for this summer. It's a rap by a Christian artist who grew up as an inner city kid. It consists of true stories about inner city kids he knows, and then goes on to quote scripture and explain that these communities need Christ, and they need people to preach it to them. He says that the feet ARE beautiful, if only they will go.
If you don't like rap and just want to read the lyrics, they're below the video.




Carlos was born in killa Cali,
Was walking down an alley and caught a bullet in his head that left him bleeding badly.
He lost everything at that moment except his life
He lost his hearing lost his movement and he lost his sight
He laid there in a coma
But man, nobody cared
The Gospel preached in his neighborhood? Nobody dared
But 'los got up out the coma got and was able to hear
A missionary shared the gospel to his open ears
He got saved, got trained, got discipled
Back to hood
You could find him preaching the bible
He led a homie to Christ from his same hood
Part of Church plant
Come on now ain't his name good
This is blessing but I'm stressing that this is not the norm'
We need leaders and believers to help carry it on
But who would minister in a sinister part of town
I pray if Jesus is calling you that you would be found

Eric used to go to Bible study as a kid
He got older and started doing what the hood did
A rival gang caught him slippin' tried to take his life
But the gun jammed up so them beat him nice
He woke up in the hospital singing Bible songs
Praise God he had a place to learn the Bible from
But then he gets saved and wanna preach Christ they make him change his whole culture and way of life
He gotta get him a bachelors wear a suit and tie
Go to seminary
By then all of his boys will die
Jesus came to invade culture outta Nazareth and used a couple fisherman who people saw as hazardous
The feet are beautiful if only they'd go
If ain't nobody in hood preaching how will they know?
Eric is better used taught trues in his context
Somebody please plant a church in his projects.

In Luke 4:16 on down to 21 Jesus says he's messiah says he's the chosen one
But more than that he quotes Isaiah
That shows our savior targets oppressed, captive, blind, and the broke I'm saying
Had a heart for the poor, had a heart for the low
And 1st John 2:6 is the way we should go
In Deuteronomy even though they under the law
The tithes every third year, the poor got 'em all
I ain't sayin' you wrong if you live in 'burbs
I'm sayin' turn your attention to the hood 'cause we hurting
Man' if you ain't burdened please pick up your word and
Though this world is going down while we here we can serve Him
We bring this to the streets because we knew the streets
I pray that more would be burdened to have beautiful feet
You never knew the streets but truth is what you preach
I pray to God you'd be burdened for beautiful feet.
Go, go, go (run with those beautiful feet)
Go, go, go
You hold the truth that saves so run and shout it to the world
They can't believe in something they ain't never heard
Go, go, go and run with those beautiful feet

Walking in Memphis

Hello all! I'm sorry I didn't immediately start blogging once I got to Memphis. But we were doing training. I had free time, but I didn't necessarily have things to talk about. I do now!

So, if any of you don't know exactly what I'm doing, let me give you the 411 as simply as possible; I'm working as a missionary for Street Reach Ministries this summer. Staff is broken up into Junior Staff (high school students AKA me) and Senior Staff (college students). There are 8 girls and 7 guys. On Monday through Friday mornings we run Bible Club, a variety of fun activities and a free lunch for children up to the age of 12. There are 8 different sites around North Memphis, with two staff members at each site (some have only one senior staff member). Teams on summer mission trips from churches around the country rotate in on Sundays to assist us with Bible Club for the week and to do other projects. In the afternoons, different staff members head up different projects. We also work to serve breakfast and some dinners to the teams, and we represent the cleaning crew. This is all housed in Brinkley Heights Urban Academy. Street Reach was born through Brinkley Heights Baptist Church, and the Urban Academy is a result of Street Reach. Church is held in the gym right next to the school, which is also used by MAM (Memphis Athletic Ministries).

Did you get all that? Good! Now let me tell you about my leadership assignments. I'm at a site called Kendrick (all the sites' names are based off of a street they're on, except one that is a trailer park). The reason I requested to work at Kendrick, besides the fact that I worked it when I was here last year on a mission trip, is that it's one of the smaller sites. It is the second newest sites and it used to be on the chopping block. But the two staff assigned there last year did an awesome job with canvasing for kids and making relationships with them and their guardians. So Kendrick has a LOT of potential! That's why God put it on my heart. I want to continue the good work that happened last year and extend Bible Club out even more!
I work with Kacie. She is one of my roommates and I LOVE her! She is extremely sweet, funny, and passionate. This is her first year on staff, but she has been coming with a mission team for a few years now! She is 27 years old and in seminary right now.
My afternoon project is volunteering at a community center. Although Bible Club is going on THIS week, the kids' program will start at the community center NEXT week. But basically, I take teams there and we play games and hang out with the kids. There is a staff there, but apparently they just kind of give it up to Street Reach when they come over. So we will probably split them up into age groups and play games and do relay races with them. Since it's a community center, we can't do devotionals with them or stop talking about Jesus. If they ask questions though, we can answer them. Some people have a problem with that aspect of the ministry, but I think it's awesome. This community center is in a really bad area, so getting the kids off the streets and to a safe place to hang out with good role models is essential.
As a junior staff member, I also have kitchen duties. On Monday mornings I have the second breakfast shift (8:00-9:00), which involves serving, and on Friday mornings I have the early breakfast shift (7:30-8:30). Jason (the program director and my boss) didn't want girls having the early shift, because that involves loading all the food into the oven and whatnot. So I got the early shift on Friday, which is when Jason makes pancakes! I'm also helping to cook, set up the kitchen, and serve food for dinner on Monday nights, along with two other junior staffers.

And that's about it! Except it's ten times more amazing. So this is what I'm planning on for this blog. Every week, either on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, I will do a post about the week in general, highlighting the special moments. But I'll also be posting scripture, stories, songs, etc. that I think about during the week. I'm learning a LOT right now, and I want to share it with as many as possible.