We had a great Saturday last week. By the time I arrived at 8:30, John S and his crew had dust flying everywhere in the kitchen. The 3 - 17 foot beams were cut, hoisted and nailed to the ceiling in preparation of the installation of the exhaust fan and new a/c unit. John W, our electrician, was there, beginning the process of rewiring the entire kitchen. Lots of good work was done.
Ms Patty and Momma T was in the garden all morning, moving dirt, weeding and getting the garden ready for this weekend for U2 Saturday. A couple of the neighborhood girls came by and helped them out for a little while. Amazing what is going on in the garden.
Mr Scott led the way on our visits. No drama was reported which makes for a good weekend of visits. Mr Matt did get a call from Tim this week, a tree has fallen on the canopy of their camp and will need help getting the rest of the tree down. We will attempt to do that this Saturday.
Following our return from our outdoor friends, we gathered and prayed for our first official Community neighborhood walk. Ms Dawn, Mr Noel, Mr Matt, Mr Scott and myself left the center visiting Isidora first and then walked up and down 69th St. We got to meet old friends, made new friends, gave out hugs, Ms Dawn gave out lollipops to the children, Mr Matt talked to the men about bible fellowship, Mr Scott picked up trash and wrote down the names of our new friends, what a morning. It was great, very uplifting. We plan to meet every Saturday at 11:30. Can't wait to see our new friends again. Come and join in on the fun.
While all of this was going on around the center, we had two of our family members graduating from college. Macy and Mary walked across the stage without tripping and are now Centenary alumni! Congratulations ladies. Macy was one of our first interns over 4 years ago. She and her group came as much as they could for tutoring. Macy has also helped with our summer camps. Mary joined us last year during the summer as one of our interns. She has come every week this year helping with tutoring. Mary will again join us this summer for our camp. Mary is in India at the moment. Her blog is, http://
On Wednesdays of each week, there is another opportunity to serve. A ministry in West Shreveport called the New Room opens up their doors to serve a meal, hand out clothes and groceries. There is also a free medical clinic going on called the Pool of Siloam. Terry Strain and her crew of doctors and nurses treat many of our outdoor friends. Terry started the Pool at the center when the building was part of a congregation. Unfortunately they did not support Terry so Terry moved to her current location. Maybe one day we can a small satellite office of the Pool. Several years ago, with leftovers from the meal Sione and Catfish, took them to the camps. They also would make stops downtown in the alley ways and park benches serving the homeless. Michele and Pat still do that part of the ministry in a parking lot behind First Methodist Church. They are always looking for help. Last week they fed over 80 people. Remarkable group of servants.
We had a big group of men joining our Tuesday Bible fellowship. Mr Matt led our reading of First Peter. Peter was talking to the church, telling them they would have struggles in church. Pride, selfishness, greed would make things messy in the church. He told them there was a way to correct their mistakes and get on the right path. They needed to turn their thoughts, to Jesus Christ. Your faith with protect you. Your purity of faith will bring you praise and glory and honor. You will be filled with a joy that cannot be explained, a joy full of glory.
Thursday, we again had the opportunity to meet in the chapel and sing and hear about the word of God. Heather, Derrick and Richard shared their gifts with us. Following our chapel time, we made our way to our meal of spaghetti and salad, delicious. We had an old friend, Mark Williams, his wife and another from North Point Methodist church help us serve our meal. Following our meal, Ms Abbie and Ms Dorothy handed out groceries and clothes to the community. What a blessing these ladies are.
After our meal and clean up, we had our Board meeting. Ms Lisa walked us through the numbers and her agenda. Amazing to see on paper what we get to experience each week. Krysten gave us dates for summer camp. They are June 18th through August 2nd. Lots of planning and thoughts have been going on for the camp, amazing to hear it all.
We talked about and voted to go forth and explore the possibility of obtaining one lot next to the two lots we already own for the Building of common ground village. We also voted to have Ms Lisa move forward in acquiring the house and land next to the Bright House.
We approved the suggestion of Ms Patty to make a gate in the fence along Southern Avenue. Ms Patty feels with a gate there, it will make it more inviting for the community to come into the garden area, hopefully encouraging them to take an interest in the planting. Ms Patty suggested we have a community meal there, so next Thursday we will. Cooking hamburgers, chips and Kool-Aid, in the garden doesn't get any better than that!
We decided to take on the tasks of mowing the garden area ourselves. The cost of our yard crew to mow both the center and garden area was becoming too expensive. So if you are looking for something to do this summer and would like to help out, let Krysten know, so she can put you on the schedule.
We again will be blessed to have several churches and organizations coming this summer to help us around the center. More information will be coming on the specific dates and groups.
One of our last discussions was the topic of a fundraiser. As Ms Lisa has shared with us before, we can get funding for projects and events, but not for our expenses of operating the center. Paying the electric, water, gas bills. Internet expenses. The costs of doing business is not covered by grants. So we need to come up some sort of fundraiser to help with these costs. October 20th is the date at the top of the list right now. A couple of ideas that were expressed was to have a dinner and silent auction going on in the center. Another idea was to have a cook off with celebrity chefs. Be thinking of ideas, no one idea is too crazy. Email Ms Lisa with your thoughts. It was suggested we need to send out notes shortly allowing folks to put the fundraiser on their calendars, so now is the time to think and be creative!
We will have U2 Saturday this Saturday. Lots of special surprises will be happening for Mother's Day. Momma T and Ms Patty will gone due to a death of a family member at Grace, so we will have substitute helpers. Please come if you can to lend a hand.
Happy Mother's Day to all our moms and those of you who are not moms yet. You are very special to us and our community.
This past week one of the authors of the Common Prayer devotionals wrote this, I do not pray for success I asked for wonder. What a great way to think about God's amazing blessings in our life. We all too often want to put God in our box, asking for something we think we want or something we think we need. But thankfully God is bigger than all of that and we get to enjoy His wonder in our lives. he is more interested in our hearts, in our lvoe.
I saw "wonder" in our Board meeting last night. I am blown away by the thought of having young interns coming to our community and spending the summer with us. My heart is filled with joy when we have our older interns come back to us and spend time in our community. Seeing Ms Patty and Momma T talk about their hopes and dreams and their ideas for the garden. I am filled with awe at their amazing hearts. Listening to Ms Lisa talk about numbers, making phone calls, running down leads, working behind the scenes to make all of this stuff happen is truly an act of servant hood. Watching Ms Dawn plan a tea party with her new friends, listening to Mr Matt talk about his passion for Christ is "wonderful" and inspiring.
Reading the ministries God has blessed us with, summer day camp, garden, greenhouse, community meal, chapel time, food pantry, outdoor friends, tutoring, adult education, U2 Saturdays, building common ground, lawyer clinic, mens bible fellowship, community neighborhood walk, mission groups coming, kitchen remodeling going on, is hard to comprehend the magnitude of it all. It is so wonderful and so full of indescribable joy.
May we all have the opportunity this week and the weeks before us to live the life God has given us, to "wonder" in the awe of His majesty and grace. Amen and amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment