AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME….
Today we had 41 of our neighborhood kids participate in a ‘backyard bible club’ at
a local park a few hundred yards from our homes. After dropping some of the boys off, I
realized that two of our kids were missing so I le? to pick them up around 9 a.m. As I
approached my street a 13 year‐old boy came running towards my car. He jumped in and
looked terrified. He said, “Coach, I just almost got killed!”. He was coming out of his door to come to our event
and a car pulled up to his house and executed a ‘drive by’ shooting. 5 bullets whizzed by him as he came outside of
his door. His uncle apparently shot someone from a rival gang the previous night and the car came by this morning
to repay the act. They didn’t care that he wasn’t involved, or that he was just a kid. He took‐off running and turned
the corner where I was looking for him and another girl on my street. We pray constantly that God would put us in
the lives of boys like him ‘at just the right time'. It is a blessing to us to be postured to intercede in these boys and
girls lives. He does not know our Lord…yet.
According to Scripture, ‘at just the right time’, at our darkest
time in history, at the place of our greatest need, Jesus showed up on our behalf. He left the best ‘gated’ community in all
creation, and came down to our world to intervene in our lives. He was very intentional about it, and committed Himself to a
level of voluntary suffering on behalf of those he loves that, thankfully, has never been and doesn’t need to be reproduced. It was enough, or as He put it, “It is finished”. But, the apostle Paul said that he was “filling up what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ” through his ministry. What is wonderful is that
Christ continues to ‘show up’ at places of deep need through His ‘Body’, the people of God. Our joy is that we get to voluntarily and intentionally ‘show up’ this way in others’ lives by His power and through His leadership. We all have that opportunity for this kind of joy. Please pray for this young man and the others in our community
that face these type of attacks from the ‘one’ who wishes to steal from them, kill them, and destroy them. This young man has just come into our lives over the past few weeks and will be attending the boys’ camp in the mountains with us next week.
Please pray for him and for us as we share the Gospel of Christ with him and the other boys.
CAMP ARROWHEAD….
Please pray for our families and us over this next week. Kevin and I are taking 18 boys from the neighborhood to the mountains of North Carolina for a one‐week long camping trip. We are partnering with Desire Street Ministries in
New Orleans and 40 of their boys. This will be an extremely fun time with a strong Christ centered
emphasis. Please be praying for the boys, as it will be a good end to our 10‐week summer camp.
We have grown to love these boys deeply, and this extended time away with them will be very important to sum up our
summer and have a lot of one on one talks with them to clarify where they stand in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We
anticipate this to be a life changing time in light of all of the ‘planing and watering’ we have done in their
lives over the last few months.
PRAISE THE LORD FOR OUR NEW MINISTRY SPACE! ….
We now have the land secured to build our ministry facility right down the street from our homes. For
those of you that have been praying for us and following our plight in this, it has been a five‐month
process to get two lots side by side with a clear title! When 40% of the properties are vacant or
condemned you wouldn’t think this would be the case, but it is. We now have another month and a half
of rezoning requests and submidng building plans and then we can actually get started with the building.
We will be building a ministry facility that will include our offices, a large kitchen, a good size living‐room
style meeting area, a small computer lab, and a 2000 square foot open multi‐purpose ‘room’ for
assemblies, bible‐studies, tutoring, movie nights, dance and arts classes, job training, neighborhood
dinners, etc. The back yard will have a basketball court, a one‐tunnel badng cage, and some small
playground equipment. We will be able to start our long awaited and much needed after school tutoring
program once this building is finished as well.
Today we had 41 of our neighborhood kids participate in a ‘backyard bible club’ at
a local park a few hundred yards from our homes. After dropping some of the boys off, I
realized that two of our kids were missing so I le? to pick them up around 9 a.m. As I
approached my street a 13 year‐old boy came running towards my car. He jumped in and
looked terrified. He said, “Coach, I just almost got killed!”. He was coming out of his door to come to our event
and a car pulled up to his house and executed a ‘drive by’ shooting. 5 bullets whizzed by him as he came outside of
his door. His uncle apparently shot someone from a rival gang the previous night and the car came by this morning
to repay the act. They didn’t care that he wasn’t involved, or that he was just a kid. He took‐off running and turned
the corner where I was looking for him and another girl on my street. We pray constantly that God would put us in
the lives of boys like him ‘at just the right time'. It is a blessing to us to be postured to intercede in these boys and
girls lives. He does not know our Lord…yet.
According to Scripture, ‘at just the right time’, at our darkest
time in history, at the place of our greatest need, Jesus showed up on our behalf. He left the best ‘gated’ community in all
creation, and came down to our world to intervene in our lives. He was very intentional about it, and committed Himself to a
level of voluntary suffering on behalf of those he loves that, thankfully, has never been and doesn’t need to be reproduced. It was enough, or as He put it, “It is finished”. But, the apostle Paul said that he was “filling up what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ” through his ministry. What is wonderful is that
Christ continues to ‘show up’ at places of deep need through His ‘Body’, the people of God. Our joy is that we get to voluntarily and intentionally ‘show up’ this way in others’ lives by His power and through His leadership. We all have that opportunity for this kind of joy. Please pray for this young man and the others in our community
that face these type of attacks from the ‘one’ who wishes to steal from them, kill them, and destroy them. This young man has just come into our lives over the past few weeks and will be attending the boys’ camp in the mountains with us next week.
Please pray for him and for us as we share the Gospel of Christ with him and the other boys.
CAMP ARROWHEAD….
Please pray for our families and us over this next week. Kevin and I are taking 18 boys from the neighborhood to the mountains of North Carolina for a one‐week long camping trip. We are partnering with Desire Street Ministries in
New Orleans and 40 of their boys. This will be an extremely fun time with a strong Christ centered
emphasis. Please be praying for the boys, as it will be a good end to our 10‐week summer camp.
We have grown to love these boys deeply, and this extended time away with them will be very important to sum up our
summer and have a lot of one on one talks with them to clarify where they stand in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We
anticipate this to be a life changing time in light of all of the ‘planing and watering’ we have done in their
lives over the last few months.
PRAISE THE LORD FOR OUR NEW MINISTRY SPACE! ….
We now have the land secured to build our ministry facility right down the street from our homes. For
those of you that have been praying for us and following our plight in this, it has been a five‐month
process to get two lots side by side with a clear title! When 40% of the properties are vacant or
condemned you wouldn’t think this would be the case, but it is. We now have another month and a half
of rezoning requests and submidng building plans and then we can actually get started with the building.
We will be building a ministry facility that will include our offices, a large kitchen, a good size living‐room
style meeting area, a small computer lab, and a 2000 square foot open multi‐purpose ‘room’ for
assemblies, bible‐studies, tutoring, movie nights, dance and arts classes, job training, neighborhood
dinners, etc. The back yard will have a basketball court, a one‐tunnel badng cage, and some small
playground equipment. We will be able to start our long awaited and much needed after school tutoring
program once this building is finished as well.