dreams

Hope everybody had a great week. How did God work in your life? What surprises did He dream up for you?

We started off our week by having a family help us out around the center last Saturday. Heather and her husband TJ brought their 3 daughters and grandmother to work in the center. They are a family from Brookwood who has fallen in lvoe with us and want to help us out. Two of the girls along with their grandmother started making 2 signs for us. They had so much fun they ended up making 10. You can see them all around the center, so precious. TJ will be cooking one of our meals in February and he will be going with us on our visits this Saturday. Grandma will be helping Momma T and Ms Patty with U 2 Saturdays. What a blessing this family has become to us.

Mr Scott reported all went well on our visits last week. Again, it was discussed how much nicer it is to be going back to the camps and visiting with our friends. Hearing their stories of the week and what drama is going on around their camps. Makes for an interesting morning and very enjoyable.

The Friendship room was full of activities Saturday afternoon. Joey and Lomax were hosting the guys and everybody was having a great time. What a pleasure it is to see some outside visiting, while others are inside watching TV, one is washing their clothes and some beginning to prepare lunch. What a joy to see community in action.

Monday, we had the opportunity to sit in a meeting with Dr Phil and the building contractor as they discussed the plans of Dr Phil's dream of "building" community. We walked over to the lots, dreamed about where the houses will be built and how it will look. In a few short months, we will begin to see the dream come true.

If you invite them they will come or something like that? We have been asking for help for our after school activities and we had it Tuesday and Wednesday. No doubt about it, when you have tutors there to work with the children, it is totally different. Ms Lisa met with the new coordinator of Centenary's Christian Leadership Center. She is a resident of the Yellow House. She is all about relationships, so hopefully she will be a good resource for us. Jeremy has made it back and we hope others will come and join in on the fun.

Tuesday evening, we gathered again for our men's Bible fellowship. Our circle in the chapel began to fill up and before the evening was over, we had to get more chairs! Matt does an outstanding job in getting us started and the Holy Spirit runs the rest of the discussions from there. As Matt said in closing, what an evening, when ever man joins in the conversations. Thanks Matt for allowing the Spirit to flow through you and blessing in our community.

Thursday meals continue to be full of activities. Noel sings a song. Old friends come by for visits. New friends show up to help. We have missed our Ms Sarah and Mr Scott. They came by and sat down and visited with the children. Icee Joe, walked in! Did you get that, Icee Joe walked in with their two little ones and joined us for supper. Julianne and Joey also helped serve, what a blessing. Mr Pete has lined up some musicians for next Thursday, so we will meet in the chapel before our meal and worship. Noel will share a few words and then we will have our meal. We will meet with Pete in the coming weeks to line up other folks for our chapel times. Ms Abbie will ask her pastor if he will speak next month. We have been dreaming of the chapel coming alive and it is happening.

Following our meal, we gathered in the chapel and had another circle. It was talked about having a circle every other week or something along those lines. Be thinking about what you would like to see happen.

Prayer concerns expressed: Travel mercies for Momma T as she goes to visit with Georgette, Dr Phil as he travels for work related responsibilities and mr brian as he goes to Dallas to play with his grandson. Continued prayers for Ms Abbie's Mr Joe as he struggles with his recovery. He is coughing a lot lately and taking blood thinners. Prayers for Edward for upcoming foot surgeries. Prayers for community and family relationships, that they may become stronger and more viable. Charley asked for prayers as they begin the process of preparing for the upcoming Kairos weekend at Wade. Prayers for William to stabilize his blood sugar. Prayers for Krysten as she begins to mentor some of the young ladies at Grace in their small group.

There will be no breakfast this Saturday. We have a large group coming from South Louisiana coming next Saturday the 28th, so we will be serving breakfast then.

As we begin a new year, we have the opportunity to again go to God and dream. I think God likes people who dream. Dreams come from your passions. Then that brings about your faith. Followed by your lvoe of others. We dreamed many years ago about an old church building, being restored to a community center. It is happening today right before our eyes. We dream about others becoming involved and it is happening by new families and new friends becoming a part of our community. We dreamed many years ago, as we were restoring a house on Southern avenue, about building a new community. In a few months that will begin to happen. We dreamed about having a kitchen where we can train our young people in becoming chefs and waiters. Maybe having a cafe, a catering service, a bakery. Our kitchen plans are drawn up and the money is in place to make it happen. One day, the two story building will be full of activities. In time, the Sanctuary will be full of people praising and worshiping. The concrete areas on Southern will be full of cars, with people lining up to get inside the Sanctuary. Children will be playing on the playground equipment in the green areas. People from the neighborhood will be walking to the center to join in all the activities. The garden area will be full of plants, trees providing food for our kitchen and the neighborhood. Our greenhouse will be a place where our community can come and learn how to grow plants year round. In the near future, we will have teams walking the streets getting to know our neighbors. Dreams.

What are your dreams? Where is God leading you? No dream is too small or too big. You can see what God can do when He wants it to happen. Dream. Let us hear from you about your dreams.

Have a great week. Enjoy life. Enjoy God's blessings all around you. Amen.