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Neighborhood Ministries 

End of Summer Prayer Email and Fall Updates

September 1, 2005

 

            I went to jail today to see an eighteen year old that has done hard time since she was 13.  Just yesterday I held a picture of her little bitty girl face, one of the back-to-school-shoe photos long past where we captured everyone in their stringy hair days.  When I visit her, I just sit and listen as she goes from bitter pain to sweet reminiscing … she clocks hundreds of thoughts in our short time together.  I have loved this child a long time though I hate her childhood that was a robbery, loath the things she has had to endure as her legacy … I make a mental and spiritual leap past all that so I can embrace the opportunity I get to watch her grasp at hope.  Sitting with her is a privilege. 

           

I’m just reflecting … reflecting on today as whatever we are involved with somehow has to find it’s own space as fall ministries are starting up all over the place; the fall’s plate spinning causes September to feel like a party crasher, I’m already nostalgic for the summer …

 

Thank you for allowing me to keep you updated throughout the summer.  Thank you for telling me you read these updates and for standing with us in prayer.

 

Summer

           

Two Stories from the summer capture some of the essence of what God did among us …

 

Prayer walking in the hood  (chris, put picture of victor and luis here)

In the beginning of the summer the intern team gathers every morning for teaching.  There are multiple topics covered in one summer, from the social complexities of urban problems to the power of prayer.

            Victor Lopez, a Kids Club lifer and regular summer team member, has been gifted with an unusual ability to take a group of people around the hood, his own old backyard, and our current neighborhood, which is next door to that … and lead a prayer walk.

            Prayer walking is something lots of us do these days.  We take our praying out to the streets, out to the front doors of stores that sell paint (inhalants) to kids, out to drug and prostitution corners, out to the blocks where the gangs are warring.  It is the right place to pray.

            This hot morning the team of 27 took off, to walk and pray with Victor.  On the team this summer was Luis.  He represents the group of kids that grew up in the ministry a few years behind Victor, and he is following in his footsteps, learning from Victor’s experiences as a growing leader in the ministry.  This time, they were going to lead the prayer walk together.  This is something Luis hadn’t done before.  He wanted to learn.

            One interesting piece of information is that Victor and Luis represent rival gang affiliations from their pasts.  To be together, to love each other, to walk together in life, to lead a prayer walk in the old hood together … that’s an amazing example of the power of God’s redeeming love that leads to reconciliation.  And so leading, they model for this newly forming band of brothers, what God wants to do, in uniting hearts and souls in common mission.  These two foreshadow what is to come this summer.

            This summer’s team was unusually diverse.  Ages from 16-30, white, Native American, Hispanic, both immigrant and Chicano.  Some are highly educated, already in graduate school, some struggled to finish 7th grade.  This diverse team followed our two brothers to intercede for the neighborhoods that our multitudes would be coming from all summer for the many programs this team would serve within.

            Off they went, to cover some territory, to pray through the heat into the afternoon.  Not too far down Van Buren is the park where Victor grew up and where Kids Club began.  It is fenced now, but used to be the staging area for gangs, drugs, prostitution and all sorts of neighborhood pain.  Victor tells a lot of stories at this park; these stories tend to take him around the circumference of the park to its backside, a neighborhood controlled by a rival gang of his.  As the group stopped to pray, six of these gang members came out of the house, dogging the group, sending threatening stares, laughing and making fun of our pray ers.  Luis told Victor, “I got your back, dog”, letting Victor concentrate on our team.  Luis recognized some of these guys from the old days.  His gang used to “kick it” with this bunch.

            After about twenty minutes of uninterrupted praying they moved toward the liquor store, the kind that fronts as a mini grocery in our neighborhood.  Two really drunk men squatted in front, spewing all sorts of derogatory comments to our group in Spanish.  Luis was now the cover, intervening so that Victor could go on.  “Hey”, the guys said, again in Spanish, “Luis, what are doing with those people”.  Luis knew these men; they would often stay at his mom’s house.  He calmed them down, told them not to disrespect the church, and told them what we were doing.  As Frank, one of the other team members began praying with and for a third man, one of the gangsters from the house around the corner pulled up.  Luis walked to the car to control the situation.  “You’re in my neighborhood”, he said, interpret -- you’re not welcome here.  “Hey, man” Luis said “I’m from 12th ave.”, interpret -- this is my neighborhood, too, and I’m your homie.  The guy shook Luis’ hand, a significant gesture, and drove away.  Luis had Victor’s back, together they cared for our team, and the youngest novice was protected on that prayer-walking day.

            For me, it is a story that symbolizes the summer.  Leadership … ownership of the mission … responsibility for the work … maturity … transferring the principles and practices of what has been taught for years to one, watching as he passes it to the next  …

 More young indigenous leaders stepped up to carry the work this summer as summer staff than ever before.  Nine are still in high school, five are college age or young adults.  In addition, more than twenty more served in some type of leadership capacity in one of our summer programs.  Three represented us at a national youth summit in Washington D.C. where some of the best and brightest young people in the nation gathered for equipping and empowerment.   Five went to Albuquerque to help our dear friends with the first ever Kids Club in Albuquerque … on lookers said, “their confidence is extraordinary, they seem to know just what to do, after all for them, it’s just Kids Club”.  

            And do you know what people said of this team this summer?  Not, how hard they worked, though they did.  Not, how reconciled they were across all their diversity, though they were.  Not, how much they can handle at such a young age, though we certainly are blown away by all of this.  But … how they loved each other.  This team really loved one another!

 

            Victor and Luis are beginning their fund-raising to become two-year interns.  Please pray for them.

 

 The “Firsts” and The Play

 

It was a summer of firsts.  We dreamed big.  I say that because new things are risky and usually expensive.  But kids need Jesus, and summer is an important opportunity to reach kids and so … you just have to do it!  

We sent 20 tough kids, who struggle regularly with life to a camp we made just for them.  We called it “beach camp”, settled it in San Diego, and brought our dear friend Kevin, who works in the jails, to be the speaker.   And we sent teens to another camp.  In the past, a kid or two from our ministry would travel with our Young Life friends to a camp in California.  A first for us, this summer, was to send a large team of 20 to Arizona’s newly opened Y.L. camp called Lost Canyon.  We knew our kids would be loved and cared for there.  Firsts create important memories and pave the way for the future.  We hope to do both these camps again next summer.  We’ll be a little more prepared next go around. 

Octavio is new to us, pretty much.  He is a neighborhood teen who wandered into Wed. night youth night searching for “something”.  His brother had just been shot and he was lost.  The gang life created an emptiness he was hungry to fill.  All he knew was that he had to stop blaming God for what had happened.  Another first, was accepting Octavio who has had no ministry background with us really (in other words, he didn’t grow up here like the rest of our emerging leaders) as summer staff.

Octavio is an eager learner, aggressive to use his instincts honed in the barrio to good use.  His love for kids reminds me of his need for love, so much like those who have gone before him.  He is in the right place.  Octavio is an interpreter for others, a cultural guide.  He knows who put West Side Killas on the office door, knows where Eric is this summer, knows how it feels to be a suffering kid.  Octavio was enlisted to give the raw version of his testimony over and over again all summer … he told how limping in, he found his way to “church”, to love, to Jesus … a wannabe convert.

As summer staff, he lived and ate and breathed the same air with our 27 member team.  In this family a vision for a play about gang violence was birthed with Octavio, the author.  Even though the Kids Club work crew work untold hours in the heat, and get little rest at night; somehow these kids found the time to dream up a way to teach the Kids Club kids that gang violence means death.  And in the barrio, death comes too soon to kids who mess around with turf warfare.

The play was unveiled, and the word got out to all of Kids Club.  Performance two would be held for the older kids.  I was approached.  The play was raw, Jesus was missing from the last act, and the sound effects were kinda real.  I asked for help from the most initiated.  What do you think?  Can we sneak some hope into the play?  Let Victor handle it, was the solution.  Let him take the raw material of the play and breathe the message of the gospel into its painful finality, as actors from both gangs lay dead on the floor of the makeshift stage.  And he did … picking up the mike he stood in the middle of a circle of 100 plus kids.  He honored Octavio and the crew for a job well done, for a message needed … and then he challenged kids to consider eternal life, to consider a life with Jesus, to give up the fantasy of the street life, to confess the sins of the fathers.

All these beautiful firsts, grew out of a foundation of deep ministry.  Octavio made a clear decision for Christ at Young Life camp this summer.  Victor and Luis have taken him under their wings … and all three have signed up for ministry almost every night of the week as we all get ready to leave the summer behind and go forward into a new school year.

 

 Miraculously, in addition this summer, many, many people grew, loved, served, showed up, were ministered to, heard about Jesus in a relevant way, had fun, worshipped, traveled, got out of the heat, “got out of the boat”, learned, created, made friends, made decisions for good, asked Jesus to help them through life …

·        in Kids Club (500 kids) (80 work crew)

·        at Jr. High Kids Club (150 kids) (30 work crew)

·        in Mexico (N.M. teens and summer staff – 50)

·        at Kids Camp (5th and 6th graders and staff – 130)

·        on I Can Do It Trips (7 trips – 54 kids and staff)

 

 

Fall

 

So, as the plates are spinning, and September has seized the day, I wanted to catch you up on today’s gifts and challenges.

 

2 Corinthians 9

God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so

that you're ready for anything and everything,

more than just ready to do what needs to be done.

As one psalmist puts it,

He throws caution to the winds,

giving to the needy in reckless abandon.

His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.

 

·        We are so grateful to announce that Mark Baker has come on board as our Director of Volunteer Management.  We have estimated over the past few years that about 1100 volunteers serve here annually.  We are also so grateful for the partnerships we have with local churches.  Managing all this, our trainings, our partner relationships, the teachings that go out from here, are now lovingly being shared by our brother.  We are so grateful for this dear brother who is gifted in these matters.  Please pray for him.

 

Mark will tell his story at our Urban Workers in the Barrio training is Sept. 17

 

·        Andy Allen and Noel Barto have completed their fund-raising and are coming on board as new two-year interns.  Andy is a seasoned N.M. worker, completed his degree at Biola and is getting married in November.  Noel will give leadership to a long incubating vision called “The Arts Center”.  Pray for Andy and Noel. 

 

·        We have entered into a contract to purchase a 126-year-old Victorian house (in our neighborhood) with seven bedrooms for our first residential ministry called “Hope House”.  This dream has been on our hearts for a few years, discipleship houses for our homeless youth.  We are trusting God, ultimately for three houses, a guys house, a girls house and a teen mom house.  This house we are purchasing will be the FIRST.   Pray for who ultimately will staff “Hope House”.

 

·        A team of board members and others have finished the site visits of our strategic planning, just back from seeing some innovative jobs programs in San Francisco.  In just a few months, we will be prayerfully making some final decisions about the second phase of The Neighborhood Center, and pull all the research together.  Pray for God’s wisdom on the future pieces of the ministry design.

 

·        Ellen Antill is completing her master’s thesis designing a project around our Mom’s Place graduates and some of the older moms, called The Storytellers.  We have been seeking God for what is next for these young women in their journey.  This specific ministry, which is just for them, seems to be God’s answer to the next.  Please pray for these dear women in their journey toward truth this year.

 

·        ASU West students are on board for another semester of service learning with us.  Our dear friend, Doug Kelley, a professor at ASU West structures a class around inner city families and sends his students to work here.  We love it!  Pray for these students and their learning. 

 

·        In solidarity with Arizona’s immigrants many will be attending a faith event addressing the concerns and issues as they pertain to our own immigrant families.  We are joining what we hope to be thousands of believers  at Pilgrims Rest Baptist Church on Sept. 15.  

 

·        1000 Refugees from New Orleans may be located right down the street … are we supposed to help?  Praying for our role there.

 

Meanwhile, all our programs kick into high gear in the next two weeks:

 

Please pray with us and for us regarding the financial needs of this ministry.  We watch God faithfully meet our day-to-day needs … yet, our summer was expensive!  As gas prices go up, and our weekly ministry requires so much driving to pick kids up, pray for us, for wisdom regarding our vehicle use.

 

 Loving you,  Kit