Wow, what a week. Not sure where to start and not sure I will get everything in this note that went on, but I will try. Hope your week was full of joy and blessings.
Our Second Saturdays, have become a morning full of activities and challenges. So much going on, people, activities, visits and adventures. It is amazing it all gets done. But as Joey said, it is because of community and all of you working together, that God's Kingdom continues to grow. Ms Lisa has put pictures up of the morning on our Face book page.
We had new visitors from Bossier City Community College come and work with us. We had friends from Brookwood come and helped us out with various projects around the center. The biggest challenge was the painting of our fellowship hall and hallway. Ms Lisa got it all organized and the floors look beautiful. We put wax on them earlier in the week and we were ready for Thursdays activities. We organized the outdoor friends room, so we can see what we have as our seasons change getting ready for the colder months ahead. We broke down two big bags of sugar and rice into smaller baggies. Ms Abbie put them in our grocery sacks this week. We also went over to the Bright House II and continued our work there.
While all of this was going on, Momma T and Ms Patty were getting the garden ready for U2 events. A big crowd of neighbors walked to the garden and shared in all the fun and activities. It was great to see new friends bring their children with them to participate in all the fun. A start in building of relationships in our community.
As this was going on, our faithful group of servants visited our friends who live outdoors. Mr Scott reported everybody seems to be doing ok. Richard called from the hospital for us to go by his gas station to pick up his belongings. Mr Matt did, and loaded up his one suitcase and brought it back to the center. Can we put all our belongings in one suitcase? That sounds like a sermon one day!
Concluding our morning, Joey hosted a welcome back party for Lomax of hotdogs and all the fixings. More neighbors came bringing their gifts of food to the table and everybody had a great time.
What a morning, what a testament to community, what an example of God's Kingdom in the midst of us. Thank you all for doing what you did, for being obedient to His calling, thinking of others before thinking of yourselves.
Monday was a day of joy and sadness. I had the opportunity to have lunch with Pastor Roger of Grace Community. He wanted to reaffirm his commitment to our community and the help of Grace and all it's resources as we travel along our way. It was good to hear his thoughts and to share our vision of the future.
Then several hours later, Mr Matt gets a call from our friend's sister in law, Rose, telling Matt of the passing of Curtis. Curtis, who has been a friend of ours for many years, going with us on our Saturday visits, helping us cook breakfasts, helping out on Thursdays, called Rose and said, it is time. We had been visiting Curtis on Saturdays. Curtis missed coming to our Thursdays, so he gathered up enough energy to come visit us last Thursday. I feel bad, I did not see him that day, but Joey and Momma T did and welcomed him with many hugs. Joey and Lomax had a lvoe offering Thursday to help with funeral expenses. Curtis' funeral will be this Saturday, October 20th at 11am.
Joey was not feeling well Monday, so Krysten closed our afternoon activities for the day. Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a full crew of kids. From my lunch with Roger, I had left overs. I brought them to Ms Lisa Tuesday. Ms Lisa said, that restaurant was one of her favorites. When I walked in, Ms Lisa being Ms Lisa heated up the leftovers and I found them all sitting on the floor of the newly painted fellowship hall floor enjoying Indian food. The children ran up to me and said mr brian, how did you make this, it sure is good! Thanks Pastor Roger, you made the afternoon! Krysten, Joey, Ms Lisa and Ms Dawn could use your help in the afternoons, come when you can.
Mr Matt again had us sharing our hearts as we discussed the reading of 1st John, chapter 4 in our mens Bible fellowship, we must love each other. In verse 18, we should love people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring. God is lvoe, we must be lvoe. For it is God's lvoe working through us that allows us to lvoe. Powerful testimonies that night.
Wednesday evening we had a treat as a youth group from Christ Methodist joined us and helped Ms Abbie in the clothing room, food pantry and other projects. Don't know if I have mentioned, but every week, we have a young lady, who has recently retired, join Ms Dorothy and Ms Abbie in the clothing room. Stephanie comes faithfully every week and works tirelessly. She asked Ms Abbie, if she could bring some of youth from church to help hang some winter clothing we had gotten in. So Ms Sarah, the youth pastor of Christ and Stephanie brought the youth and the hung the clothes up. Also, we had gotten a lot of can food items from Grace that needed to be sorted and put on the shelves, they did that. Then, I was stressing over, getting all the tables and chairs moved back into the fellowship hall and they helped with that. Amazing how God continues to provide! I shouldn't be amazed by now, but . . .
As I drove up Wednesday afternoon, a serious game of kick ball was happening. It was good to see everybody having a good time. I noticed we had a new person helping out and then looked again and it was Lomax. It was good to see Lomax back with us and in the environment he belongs.
Thursday was a special day for me and all of us. I was hoping to let me birthday day pass as quiet as possible but Momma T and Ms Sarah would have none of that. We started off our Thursday afternoon activities with our new piano and song leader, Gus leading us in praises for the Lord. Then we had a new treat, one of the youth pastors from Brookwood share the Word. Josh's message about God's Kingdom being near was awesome and got us all thinking about what we can do to make it happen.
Following chapel, Ms Sarah had a birthday cake full of candles ready as everybody sang. Very touching. The kids, shouted blow out all the candles mr brian. There were a lot of candles! I tried but couldn't get them to go out or some would light back up after I blew and blew and blew! Ms Sarah being Ms Sarah had put those "funny" candles on the cake! Everybody had a good laugh, I was exhausted!
Thank you all for the sweet notes on line and the cards everybody signed. You don't know how much I appreciate all of you.
Ms Sarah and Mr Scott and the young adults class provide supper of pancakes, bacon, fruit salad and dessert. One of my favorite suppers, it was delicious.
Ms Lisa and Momma T helped Ms Abbie with the handing out of food bags and everything went well for the most part.
We had some new visitors, friends of Dr Phil from Kings Highway Christian church. Tammy is the youth director and came to see how her youth can become involved with Common Ground. Very exciting to have them a part of our community.
We continue to struggle with the children and their challenges of behavior and excitement. Joey's challenge this week is to see if he can help.
After our meal and clean up, we gathered in the chapel for our Bible time. Joey and Lomax treated us to birthday ice cream and another birthday card, very, very nice. We hooked up the computer to the projector and we got to see some of Lomax's adventures in California! Exciting. Lomax is in the process of putting up all his pictures and writing about his adventures on a blog and will have it up soon for all of us to experience.
Prayer concerns continue for the Bollingers. Talked to Pete the other day, he and their son Nick are doing better, we need to keep Cari lifted up. Tests being run to see how the treatments are going for Cari. Keep our homeless camps in your prayers. Life is hard enough, but you add, homelessness, no job, no id, no justice, it is even more difficult. Keep our children of community in your prayers. We have no idea what our young people face everyday to survive. The challenges they face should not have to happen to these young people, so their struggles are manifested in anger and resentment. How can we help? James, mentioned a family friend, Mr Smith has terminal cancer.
God's Kingdom, where is it? Tuesday evening, the men talked about God's lvoe. What does it look like? The past several weeks on Thursdays, following our meals, there continues to be large groups of people hanging around the center? It's reminds me of our mens gatherings on Tuesday evenings, we close the doors of the chapel, but the guys still hang around talking, why?
You tell the children, don't come to the center when it is raining, or cold, or hot, but they continue to come, why?
Josh talk about God's Kingdom here on earth in chapel, where is it? Josh read the Lord's prayer from Matthew 6, saying in verse 10, May your kingdom come and what you want be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Josh pointed out, God's will is being done in heaven, isisisis God's will happening here on earth?
Over the years, we have seen, people come to us because something is different about our community. The children come because they do not experience God's lvoe in their lives. As Josh pointed out in chapel, following Jesus is hard work. Some folks try it for a Sunday or two and drop out. Some try it for a week or two and decide it's not worth it. Some come and try to fix the people, hoping to see changes and stop coming because things don't change. Did God give up on us? When we make the same mistakes or mess up time and time again, does Jesus say, I'm out of here? Of course He didn't, so why do we quite and run away?
Matt said something Tuesday evening that I have not heard in many years. When I had the opportunity to visit with Shane Claiborne in Philadelphia one year, we wore Shane's ear off asking so many questions, why do you do this, how can you make this happen, how can we fix this situation, how do we help the poor. Shane smiled, , listened and said think about why you are doing what you are doing and we will talk about all your questions later.
Matt came up with the answer we came up with talking to to Shane. In our relationships with our community, we are the ones being ministered to. We are the ones being blessed. God is calling us to lvoe one another, not fix one another. God is asking us to walk together to a life of lvoing each other. As we begin to walk hand and hand, we will begin to learn about each other and realize we both need Jesus in our lives. That's what the Kingdom of God looks like here on earth. Wouldn't our world be a better place if we all walked together, not one better than the other, but hand in hand.
Common Ground is unique because of each one of you deciding, it is not about me but about God. We as humans can not forgive or love, but we can if we allow the Holy Spirit to flow through us, you all are doing that. It is not easy, God never said it would be. I am thinking if it were easy, we might think, we can do this with out God and he not get any of the glory. Thank you all for your continued passion in learning to let go and let God in your lives. Thank you for realizing, we are in this journey together, all learning from each other, needing each other along the way. Very proud to be a part of such special servants.
Hope to see you around the center next week. Have a great weekend with your family and friends. Lvoe to all. Amen.
Our Second Saturdays, have become a morning full of activities and challenges. So much going on, people, activities, visits and adventures. It is amazing it all gets done. But as Joey said, it is because of community and all of you working together, that God's Kingdom continues to grow. Ms Lisa has put pictures up of the morning on our Face book page.
We had new visitors from Bossier City Community College come and work with us. We had friends from Brookwood come and helped us out with various projects around the center. The biggest challenge was the painting of our fellowship hall and hallway. Ms Lisa got it all organized and the floors look beautiful. We put wax on them earlier in the week and we were ready for Thursdays activities. We organized the outdoor friends room, so we can see what we have as our seasons change getting ready for the colder months ahead. We broke down two big bags of sugar and rice into smaller baggies. Ms Abbie put them in our grocery sacks this week. We also went over to the Bright House II and continued our work there.
While all of this was going on, Momma T and Ms Patty were getting the garden ready for U2 events. A big crowd of neighbors walked to the garden and shared in all the fun and activities. It was great to see new friends bring their children with them to participate in all the fun. A start in building of relationships in our community.
As this was going on, our faithful group of servants visited our friends who live outdoors. Mr Scott reported everybody seems to be doing ok. Richard called from the hospital for us to go by his gas station to pick up his belongings. Mr Matt did, and loaded up his one suitcase and brought it back to the center. Can we put all our belongings in one suitcase? That sounds like a sermon one day!
Concluding our morning, Joey hosted a welcome back party for Lomax of hotdogs and all the fixings. More neighbors came bringing their gifts of food to the table and everybody had a great time.
What a morning, what a testament to community, what an example of God's Kingdom in the midst of us. Thank you all for doing what you did, for being obedient to His calling, thinking of others before thinking of yourselves.
Monday was a day of joy and sadness. I had the opportunity to have lunch with Pastor Roger of Grace Community. He wanted to reaffirm his commitment to our community and the help of Grace and all it's resources as we travel along our way. It was good to hear his thoughts and to share our vision of the future.
Then several hours later, Mr Matt gets a call from our friend's sister in law, Rose, telling Matt of the passing of Curtis. Curtis, who has been a friend of ours for many years, going with us on our Saturday visits, helping us cook breakfasts, helping out on Thursdays, called Rose and said, it is time. We had been visiting Curtis on Saturdays. Curtis missed coming to our Thursdays, so he gathered up enough energy to come visit us last Thursday. I feel bad, I did not see him that day, but Joey and Momma T did and welcomed him with many hugs. Joey and Lomax had a lvoe offering Thursday to help with funeral expenses. Curtis' funeral will be this Saturday, October 20th at 11am.
Joey was not feeling well Monday, so Krysten closed our afternoon activities for the day. Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a full crew of kids. From my lunch with Roger, I had left overs. I brought them to Ms Lisa Tuesday. Ms Lisa said, that restaurant was one of her favorites. When I walked in, Ms Lisa being Ms Lisa heated up the leftovers and I found them all sitting on the floor of the newly painted fellowship hall floor enjoying Indian food. The children ran up to me and said mr brian, how did you make this, it sure is good! Thanks Pastor Roger, you made the afternoon! Krysten, Joey, Ms Lisa and Ms Dawn could use your help in the afternoons, come when you can.
Mr Matt again had us sharing our hearts as we discussed the reading of 1st John, chapter 4 in our mens Bible fellowship, we must love each other. In verse 18, we should love people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring. God is lvoe, we must be lvoe. For it is God's lvoe working through us that allows us to lvoe. Powerful testimonies that night.
Wednesday evening we had a treat as a youth group from Christ Methodist joined us and helped Ms Abbie in the clothing room, food pantry and other projects. Don't know if I have mentioned, but every week, we have a young lady, who has recently retired, join Ms Dorothy and Ms Abbie in the clothing room. Stephanie comes faithfully every week and works tirelessly. She asked Ms Abbie, if she could bring some of youth from church to help hang some winter clothing we had gotten in. So Ms Sarah, the youth pastor of Christ and Stephanie brought the youth and the hung the clothes up. Also, we had gotten a lot of can food items from Grace that needed to be sorted and put on the shelves, they did that. Then, I was stressing over, getting all the tables and chairs moved back into the fellowship hall and they helped with that. Amazing how God continues to provide! I shouldn't be amazed by now, but . . .
As I drove up Wednesday afternoon, a serious game of kick ball was happening. It was good to see everybody having a good time. I noticed we had a new person helping out and then looked again and it was Lomax. It was good to see Lomax back with us and in the environment he belongs.
Thursday was a special day for me and all of us. I was hoping to let me birthday day pass as quiet as possible but Momma T and Ms Sarah would have none of that. We started off our Thursday afternoon activities with our new piano and song leader, Gus leading us in praises for the Lord. Then we had a new treat, one of the youth pastors from Brookwood share the Word. Josh's message about God's Kingdom being near was awesome and got us all thinking about what we can do to make it happen.
Following chapel, Ms Sarah had a birthday cake full of candles ready as everybody sang. Very touching. The kids, shouted blow out all the candles mr brian. There were a lot of candles! I tried but couldn't get them to go out or some would light back up after I blew and blew and blew! Ms Sarah being Ms Sarah had put those "funny" candles on the cake! Everybody had a good laugh, I was exhausted!
Thank you all for the sweet notes on line and the cards everybody signed. You don't know how much I appreciate all of you.
Ms Sarah and Mr Scott and the young adults class provide supper of pancakes, bacon, fruit salad and dessert. One of my favorite suppers, it was delicious.
Ms Lisa and Momma T helped Ms Abbie with the handing out of food bags and everything went well for the most part.
We had some new visitors, friends of Dr Phil from Kings Highway Christian church. Tammy is the youth director and came to see how her youth can become involved with Common Ground. Very exciting to have them a part of our community.
We continue to struggle with the children and their challenges of behavior and excitement. Joey's challenge this week is to see if he can help.
After our meal and clean up, we gathered in the chapel for our Bible time. Joey and Lomax treated us to birthday ice cream and another birthday card, very, very nice. We hooked up the computer to the projector and we got to see some of Lomax's adventures in California! Exciting. Lomax is in the process of putting up all his pictures and writing about his adventures on a blog and will have it up soon for all of us to experience.
Prayer concerns continue for the Bollingers. Talked to Pete the other day, he and their son Nick are doing better, we need to keep Cari lifted up. Tests being run to see how the treatments are going for Cari. Keep our homeless camps in your prayers. Life is hard enough, but you add, homelessness, no job, no id, no justice, it is even more difficult. Keep our children of community in your prayers. We have no idea what our young people face everyday to survive. The challenges they face should not have to happen to these young people, so their struggles are manifested in anger and resentment. How can we help? James, mentioned a family friend, Mr Smith has terminal cancer.
God's Kingdom, where is it? Tuesday evening, the men talked about God's lvoe. What does it look like? The past several weeks on Thursdays, following our meals, there continues to be large groups of people hanging around the center? It's reminds me of our mens gatherings on Tuesday evenings, we close the doors of the chapel, but the guys still hang around talking, why?
You tell the children, don't come to the center when it is raining, or cold, or hot, but they continue to come, why?
Josh talk about God's Kingdom here on earth in chapel, where is it? Josh read the Lord's prayer from Matthew 6, saying in verse 10, May your kingdom come and what you want be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Josh pointed out, God's will is being done in heaven, isisisis God's will happening here on earth?
Over the years, we have seen, people come to us because something is different about our community. The children come because they do not experience God's lvoe in their lives. As Josh pointed out in chapel, following Jesus is hard work. Some folks try it for a Sunday or two and drop out. Some try it for a week or two and decide it's not worth it. Some come and try to fix the people, hoping to see changes and stop coming because things don't change. Did God give up on us? When we make the same mistakes or mess up time and time again, does Jesus say, I'm out of here? Of course He didn't, so why do we quite and run away?
Matt said something Tuesday evening that I have not heard in many years. When I had the opportunity to visit with Shane Claiborne in Philadelphia one year, we wore Shane's ear off asking so many questions, why do you do this, how can you make this happen, how can we fix this situation, how do we help the poor. Shane smiled, , listened and said think about why you are doing what you are doing and we will talk about all your questions later.
Matt came up with the answer we came up with talking to to Shane. In our relationships with our community, we are the ones being ministered to. We are the ones being blessed. God is calling us to lvoe one another, not fix one another. God is asking us to walk together to a life of lvoing each other. As we begin to walk hand and hand, we will begin to learn about each other and realize we both need Jesus in our lives. That's what the Kingdom of God looks like here on earth. Wouldn't our world be a better place if we all walked together, not one better than the other, but hand in hand.
Common Ground is unique because of each one of you deciding, it is not about me but about God. We as humans can not forgive or love, but we can if we allow the Holy Spirit to flow through us, you all are doing that. It is not easy, God never said it would be. I am thinking if it were easy, we might think, we can do this with out God and he not get any of the glory. Thank you all for your continued passion in learning to let go and let God in your lives. Thank you for realizing, we are in this journey together, all learning from each other, needing each other along the way. Very proud to be a part of such special servants.
Hope to see you around the center next week. Have a great weekend with your family and friends. Lvoe to all. Amen.
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