Where do we go from here?

It's not Friday, it can't be Friday, another week has happened, wow, God you are amazing!

I am afraid this week's note will be less than expected due to me being gone on Saturday and a couple of days during the week. The one thought about not being around, life goes on, God is still in charge, His Kingdom is growing. Thanks to all, who continue to live out your passions for Christ, every day, every week. Our community continues to be blessed by your hearts and Christ's lvoe.

Did everybody see the videos and pictures of Science week from our summer camp, priceless. With the making of bubbles, to making volcanoes of smoke, to exploding bubbles and a trip to Sci-Port, the children got to experience things they have never done before. The smiles, the laughter seen in the videos and pictures are what camp is all about. I saw the children last week and did not know half of the children. We have new children from the neighborhood, which I think is great. A big thank you goes out to all our interns and helpers for lvoing our children.

Tuesday evening, Mr Matt continued leading the men's group in sharing their thoughts about life and their journeys. As we were telling someone about the men's Bible fellowship, it is more of a healing circle of guys than a circle of men reading the Bible. No one is being forced to come, but they come to hear from others, to learn from others, to understand no one is greater and we are all going through the same challenges of life.

Wednesday evening, Ms Lisa held a Board meeting. I will admit, this is not my favorite thing to do, but after it is all over, it always is a blessing to attend. Some of the highlights of the evening. 

Financially we seem to be doing ok. Bills are being paid, grants we have applied for have been filled allowing us to move forward on several fronts.

Ms Abbey talked about having meetings with folks from other organizations about partnering in helping the Cedar Grove neighborhood. Creating jobs, improving educational opportunities, maybe housing these opportunities in the second story, very exciting.

Momma T talked about the great time everybody had at our first garage sale. Some money was made but visiting with the neighborhood, seeing some of regular Thursday evening folks, was more fun. They talked about, let's do this next weekend!

Ms Lisa talked about the summer feeding program doing well, more than just serving meals, but the ladies are teaching the children about Jesus, manners, how to dress, life skills, a blessing. Joey shared how much fun it is to sit down and visit with everybody as they come for the meals. We are serving around 50 meals at breakfast, 100 meals at lunch time.

Dr Phil talked about the conclusion of the building of the second JJ house. There are some tree issues in getting the electricity connected but other than that, it is completed. I was thinking, ho hum, we have completed a second house! But what an accomplishment by God to have two brand new houses in a neighborhood where there is nothing new, where there is no hope, where there is only struggles. God has now allowed us to have a yellow and blue house where the light Christ will begin to shine through and amazing things will begin to happen as that light moves from house to house.

It was voted on by the Board to hire Dave and Travis in helping us install new windows in the Bright House II. With our new roof on the house, the installed windows will allow us to work inside in the coming months.

Ms Abbey talked about a meeting she and Ms Lisa had with Travis White from Tyler. Travis has a ministry in Tyler similar to ours and he wants us to partner with him. He wants his community to come over and work at our center and help us in reaching out to the community. Exciting times ahead with the possibilities of the two of us working together.

A community hall meeting was discussed. Maybe start off with a suggestion box, allowing our neighbors to put in the box things they would like to see happen in the community. Then have a meeting with our neighbors to talk about them. The center is for the community, the community needs to have input, needs to feel a part of all of this and needs to play an active roll in making it all happen. We have always wanted their involvement, maybe now is the time to make that vision come true. We have identified several folks in the the neighborhood who will make good leaders, so we are contacting them to see if they will led the community hall meetings.

Ms Amanda has agreed to set up our center to host an open house on National Night Out in October. Very exciting, something we have wanted to do for years. We will have food and games for everybody, helping us meet our neighbors.

We had discussions about adopting an outdoor friends policy. Some of our actions with our outdoor friends has offended some organizations in the city. These organizations have spread their gossip and insults to others, causing others not to trust us. Our visits to our friends was started as a desire to reach out. We have been blessed to have known our friends for all these years. As God has opened doors to us and move in other directions, we will continue to support our friends for as long as there are camps to go to. A policy was adopted, one to follow Jesus and one to allow those who visit each week, to make decisions on whether the needs of our friends can be met.

Our final business matter of the evening was the election of new board members. It was with great gratitude we said good bye to Beth and John as board members. They have supported our community for many years and will continue to do so in other ways. We will not let them leave!  The two new members on the board will be Tim and Ardis. We will share their stories next week.

Thursday evening at chapel, we were treated by song and praise from Pastor Eddie and his wife Ms Jean. He talked about the storms we go through, needing Jesus to help us through them. Then we were treated to a meal prepared by our friends at the Rescue Mission. We had lots of food and lots of folks. Ms Abbey said, we had our largest crowd of the year. I sat down with a gentleman there for the first time and he said, how nice everything was. He will be back he said. Momma T and Ms Lisa had out over 75 bags of groceries, Ms Lisa opened up her legal clinic. A busy fun night.

Prayers for us all. Prayers for our community. Prayers for our country. Prayers for Christ's light to shine in and through us everyday, all day.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!! Isn't that what Gomer always said on Andy Griffith. We had originally had our board meeting scheduled for Thursday evening, but Ms Sarah asked us to move it to Wednesday because she wanted to come in early and surprise Scott! We did and she did!! Welcome back Ms Sarah!! We lvoe you and excited you are back with us again. Can't wait to see your smiling face and your big hugs!!

Wednesday evening, we were reminded again, our community is in a dark, hopeless place. One of our director's car's window was smashed out as were meeting inside. Many years ago, as I was first beginning to meet the community, I thought, if mr brian smiled enough, gave out enough snacks, handed out groceries, then miraculously everything would be alright. Well my truck was broken into, the center was broken into, the Bright House was broken into, the appliances of the JJ house was stolen, windows continue to be smashed at the center, candy was stolen, bikes were stolen. People in their right minds would have quit long ago, but we continue to come.

Our latest obstacle Wednesday night again reinforces why we are here and why Christ's light needs to shine in our neighborhood. Whoever did this damage does not know us, does not Christ. Our job in the coming months is to make sure everybody in our neighborhood knows us and knows Christ. Several years ago, we had one of our friends, who helped with our meals, have a window broken out in her car, that was the last time we saw her, Satan won that one. Satan will not win this one. God is greater, God will prevail. Amen!

Have a great weekend and a better week! Lvoe, lvoe, to all!!

God is in charge

Welcome to the first day of summer! Oh boy, temperatures around this part of the world has been in the 90's already! Hot and humid, just 3 more months to go!

Our week got started early, with the beginning of our orientation for our summer interns Friday morning. Momma T, in Momma T fashion had us sitting in a circle, sharing stories with each other, alter filled with flowers from the garden and an old wooden cross standing tall. They spent Friday getting to know each other, Momma T hosted a dinner for them Friday evening. We have some returning interns and some new young faces, a great group of young people. Please go by and meet them all, they will be a blessing to our children.

Also, Friday afternoon we had a special group join us. A friend of Matt's is ministering to a group of young boys from the inner city of Bossier. Billy owns a gym where he instructs them on lifting weights and their souls. A part of his ministry to show the young boys part of serving Christ is serving others. So he brought them to us and they started the process of scrapping and priming the Bright House II. Amazing to see to these young boys climb the ladders, laugh, joke with each other as they worked. Billy asked if they could come back and continue their work.

Saturday, we had our family breakfast, complete with French toast, bacon, hash browns, fruit and almost hot coffee! All our new interns made it! or most of them, Lomax was arriving late as we were leaving, early for him! Thanks Momma T, Tim and Sonotra for making it all happen, delicious.

Chiggers, chiggers where are the chiggers?! They are on our legs! This is the summer for chiggers! As we walk through the grasses to get to the camps, the red bugs have been getting on us. We are now spraying our legs and feet to help keep them off. We got to visit with Turner, I mean Bernard, Richard, Brad, Charles, Daniel, Smokey. Tim and Matt go out to Catfish, then back to the Macroni camps. With the hot, humid weather, cold water is desired by the guys. So we are asking again this summer for water jugs. When you finish your milk, please wash out the jugs, fill it with water and freeze it. Then bring it by the center and we will give them out to the guys on Saturday.

Monday was filled with excitement and some reservations, as our summer camp got started. You never know what to expect, but as usual God has it under control and the afternoon was a great one as the children were introduced to each other. Lots of activities kept everybody busy and the camp got off to a great start. Camp is going on, Monday through Thursday in the afternoons, come by and hang out, a cool bunch of people!

Our summer feeding program is going really well. Pastor Eddie called and said everything is going good. He is pleased with the turn out of the neighborhood and the workers. We have some special ladies working with the program. They are doing more than just handing out food, but sharing their lvoe of the Lord with the children.

Tuesday evening, Mr Matt led the men's Bible fellowship in reading from Second Corinthians, talking about Paul asking God to remove the thorn in his side. Jesus saying to Paul, my grace is sufficient. We know God's grace is sufficient, but we still continue to do it ourselves? Patience with us Lord as we try to become the people of God you want us to be!

Forgot to mention last week, Joey and Lomax hosted a group of young people from the Yellow House of Highland on Wednesday. The Yellow House was started by one of our first interns, Anna. Anna and her friends wanted to live together and share community with their neighbors. The Yellow House is now a member of Community Renewal family. A group of young people, some going to college, some working, have committed to live in the Yellow house for a year and learn what it is like to be a community and sharing that with their neighbors. Joey and Lomax shared with our new friends their journeys with common ground and how they live in community. They gave them a tour of the gardens, the JJ houses, and the center, showing them what God is doing here. They all promised to get together on a regular basis to reflect on their journeys.

Thursday morning, I happen to drive by the center and could barely get down the street with all the young people running around! It was great. We had a big group of youngsters from Grace, working in the garden under the direction of Ms Patty. Others were playing basketball, some were just hanging out, some were climbing the tree. The area seemed alive, full of God's lvoe.

Thursday afternoon, we had our first challenge of the summer. It is hot, nerves are on edge, tempers are high, but God is in charge. Joey and Abbey were able to use their skills, with the help of our policeman friend to help get everything under control. Life is hard, many, many challenges. We have opened up our doors and our hearts and we can expect to have these challenges to be a part of our gatherings. Just because you are at "church" doesn't mean the troubles stop at the door. We have to be a community where those struggles can be listened to and prayed for. Thank you God for being in charge.

No better way to get our Thursday evening started than to hear Ms Abbie and our common ground choir sing their songs, then to have Joey share the Word about lvoing others, chapel doesn't get any better than that. Mr Tom cooked our meal, many folks helped serve and clean up. Ms Lisa, Ms Abbie and Momma T handed out the groceries. Everybody got fed, good food for the soul and the stomachs!

The image that comes to mind this week is seeing Joey walking hand and hand with one of our younger campers down the street as Joey took her home. Here this young man, shoeless! a big smile on his face, talking and joking with the little one as they shared their lvoe with each other. You can talk all you want about reading what others think you should be doing for God. You can go to church every Sunday and not have a clue what it is to be a Christian. We have young people who are living life as Christ lived, for others. Not wanting anything in return only lvoing them unconditional. I can only imagine what this little one must be thinking  of this strange young man. Walking her home, caring for her, lvoing her like no one has ever lvoed her before. What an impression this single of act of kindness will make on this little girl. 

What a priviledge we have to be a part of such a community. A community that is concerned for others, not themselves. A community where praying is first. A community where God is in charge. A community where when one of our young people is struggling with life, our community opens up their hearts to them. A community where there is hope for those who have no hope. A community that can come together to help each other. All of you are awesome children of God.

Hope everybody has a great week, many blessings to you all! Amen!

People

The week has flown by on one respect, then the week has taken it's time! Where do you stand? Excitement, jubilation, dread, anxiety? Another month has come and gone, Wow!

We started our week Saturday on a sad note by saying goodbye to Ben. Ben was with us all week and did an outstanding job of working his heart out for our community. The biggest task he accomplished was the organization of the 2 story building in preparation of our garage sale. Don't know when he found time, but he built a wheel chair ramp for the chapel, attached shelves in our kitchen refrigerator, served our meal on Thursday, cleaned the tables, fixed the wind chimes at the Bright House and went with us on our visits! Words are not sufficient to say Thank You Ben, just know you have a special place in our hearts.

Everybody seemed to be doing fine as we went around on our visits .Turner, really Bernard, was fine, Richard had his story, Robert was not in his camp because he has gone to rehab, Brad and Charles were waiting in their camp for us and Smokey was full of stories and thoughts. Tim and Matt made their way out to Catfish, Daniel and the Macaroni camps.

While most of us was enjoying a holiday on Monday, Lisa and her family was putting up a chain link fence behind the JJ houses. It looks great and will help with the foot traffic not crossing through the houses. Great job guys.

Matt led the men's Bible fellowship Tuesday evening, reading from Luke 15, reading about the prodigal son. Can't we all identify with both of the sons? Some of us have been lost, some of us has shown jealousy and envy, but in the end our Father loves us and isn't that what is important!

Wednesday afternoon, Ms Lisa had a small informational meeting with some of the interns, talking about plans for the upcoming summer camp. Joey shared his thoughts about getting to know the children and where they are coming from. After the meeting was over, Joey took Ashley, one of our new interns and they walked down the street to meet the children and their guardians, very cool.

Also on Wednesday, we walked the neighborhood handing out flyers for our upcoming feeding program. We even had one of our neighbors offer to walk and hand out flyers in her block, very nice.

Wednesday evening for our family time, Lomax was apologizing profusely about putting the lasagna in late, so we worked in the 2 story for a couple of hours getting things all priced. Dr Phil accused Lomax of making us work for our supper, I think he was right! We had a nice group of folks helping us price things, then enjoyed the late, very late supper prepared by Lomax and Sinotra! Thank guys it was great.

Thursday was filled with more excitement as Ms Abbie and the ladies shared their gifts of music and Brother Brown shared his gifts of words as he shared his thoughts about God. Mr Tom, served up his meal, Ms Abbey and Ms Abbie gave out grocery bags, Ms Lisa conducted the Legal clinic and handed out garage sale coupons, Ms Ardis handed out the juice, Momma T and Ms Dawn washed dishes, a very busy night!

Prayers for the week include, William as he gets settled into his new home. Robert as he goes through his rehab. Ms Patty's daughter, Megan as she has surgery today. The folks from Haiti returning home. Lift up our summer feeding program that it will be a blessing to all who come and for those who will serve. Prayers for our interns as they are introduced to our community and share their hearts with our children. Prayers for our new group of youth arriving Thursday. Roger's former church, Luke Simpson in Lake Charles, is making a return trip to visit with us. Prayers for relationships. Relationships are hard, they need to be nurtured, lvoed on, listened to, spoken softly, prayed for. Prayers for mr brian as he and his wife travel to Dallas for a grandson visit. It has been 2 months, 6 days, 13 hours since we have been there, but who is counting!

Don't forget, our first raising the roof garage sale will be happening this Saturday, June 1st, from 7am to noon in the 2 story. Come by, visit, help, walk through the building, imagine rooms filled with laughter in the coming months, very exciting.

Starting Monday, June 3rd at 8:30 for breakfast and noon for lunch, our summer feeding program begins. Come by, encourage those that are working, sit down with those who are eating and let's get to know our neighbors.

The thing that over whelms me this week is  thinking about community. Often when someone say the church, you first think about the pretty buildings, the fancy sign, the big steeple, the manicured lawn. When I think about Common Ground, is not about the buildings, the clean restrooms, the good food, the clothes, the groceries, it is about people, it is about all of you. If all you do do not show up, open your hearts, allow the Spirit to flow through you, Common Ground would not exist.

Ben shows up from Lake Charles by himself. How easy it would have been to call and say, I am not coming because nobody else decided to come. We have folks taking time out of their busy schedules to buy food, pick it up and bring it to the center. We have folks who take it upon themselves, to build fences, mow weeds, make flyers, offer legal advise, over see the funding, supervise. Others, on Saturday mornings, instead of sleeping in, visit with our friends, offering hope, listening to their problems and lvoing them. We have people who hang clothes, hand out juice, water the gardens, plant seeds. We have people who open up their homes, open up their hearts to those who have no where else to go. We have people who allow the children of the neighborhood to come and find a safe place to stay for awhile. Our people, show up to help get things ready for a huge garage sale. Our people, play the piano, si ng, share the Word. Our people reach out to those who are hurting, through a circle of compassion or a visit in their homes.Our people share the lvoe they experience with others, allowing more to come. Our people are flexible, meeting the needs of others. Our people greet and meet our families from out of town.

All of you are special in the eyes of God. Continue to reach out in the name of Jesus. Blessings will follow and God's Kingdom will grow. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you all! 

Have a great week, see you Saturday at the sale and next week during the meals. Amen!

Neighbor, you are lvoed!

How is everybody doing this week? What challenges did God help you through? What joys did God bless you with this week? What an amazing God we have!

We got our week started off Saturday by checking in on all our friends living outside. Everybody seems to be fine, except for Robert, Dale's former camp mate. Robert had just gotten back to camp as we arrived, with tears in his eyes, sharing with us, he has stomach cancer. Ms Dawn, Mr Scott and I sat there listening to Robert talk about his life. He was heading to a rehab facility Monday and then to John's Hopkins hospital for treatment of his cancer. So much emotion was flowing from Robert, worrying about telling his mother of the news, wondering what God was up to in his life and what tomorrow may bring. Robert's mother is a preacher. Robert grew up in church, but as he shared with us Saturday morning, as we were sitting in broken down chairs, under tarps made to keep shade from the heat, swatting away mosquitoes, Robert told us, he never knew lvoe until he met the folks of Common Ground. God came alive for him, by us coming every week to visit with him and his friends, not judging him, but just talking and listening to him. Amazing visit.

Sunday afternoon, we met our friend, John Williams, our electrician. He again worked his miracles and got us light into the second story. God continues to bless us with special people who share their gifts with us. We walked through each room seeing things we had never seen before, what a blessing!

Monday afternoon, Ms Lisa and her newly graduated boys were weeding, mowing, and spraying the weeds around Ms Dawn's house. It will take awhile until the grass can take over but it will happen, so lots of work will be needed to keep the vines from growing back. If you have some time and want to help out, Ms Dawn can always use the help.

Tuesday morning, we had an old friend join us for the week. Ben, from McNeese Wesleyan community in Lake Charles arrived to share his gifts with us. Unfortunately, we did have others come but it was not time for them yet, so we have been blessed by Ben's presence. His main task, has been organizing the second story in preparation of our garage sale June 1st. Ben has worked tirelessly all week and now we have a building where you can walk through and see what is there. Thank you Ben for your heart.

Later on Tuesday, we had our first Summer Feeding Program training session. Under the direction of Pastor Eddie, he shared with the ladies on how to prepare the food, store the food and serve the food to our community. Our supervisor will be the daughter of one of our longtime friends Vonita. Cornisha is a brand new mother with a willingness to support her family. Our cook will be the sister of Ms Dorothy. Gerlien, has worked in the kitchen before and will be able to get everything all organized. Our server will be Gloria. Gloria and her family has been with us for many years. What a blessing to have a program where we can feed our children and give jobs to our community.

We had strong storms predicted for Tuesday evening, so we decided not to have our mens' Bible fellowship.

Wednesday afternoon, we met with the health inspector to get our kitchen certified for our summer feeding program and we passed with flying colors. Pastor Eddie had walked through with us several weeks ago, telling us things we needed to have. We got them all done and the inspector was very impressed. Thanks to all for making our new kitchen the best kitchen ever!

Also on Wednesday, Pastor Steve from Grace, brought supper from the New Room. He wanted to keep the food warm until his helpers could pick it up to serve to the homeless population downtown. Glad we were able to help them out and great that Steve called us when he needed the help.

Joey told us Wednesday, Robert Gibson has finally completed all his requirements and has passed his GED! Yea! Lomax had been working with him in areas he was struggling with and it paid off. Robert is still living at the Grace house on Southern. Robert is now wanting to continue his education and look into getting some college courses done! Wow, that is awesome.

Don't know if you all know, but early every Thursday, Ms Abbey and Ms Abbie and others gather at the community center and get our grocery bags ready, begin to prepare our meals, make sure the clothing room is ready, get our paperwork done, check the center in preparation for our neighbors. What an outstanding job they do behind the scenes, thank you ladies.

Without much rest from all their doings on Thursday, mr brian walks in and asks Ms Abbie and the ladies to bless our chapel time with their gifts of singing and playing. I think I heard Ms Abbie say, she is getting the locks changed to keep out mr brian! What a great way to start chapel, by hearing the ladies sing and Ms Abbie play the piano. Pastor Jackson filled in for us and shared the Word to all. Much of chapel is not planned, but what an experience of the Holy Spirit filling the room each and every week. It is awesome.

With a large crowd of folks, great to see everybody working together to make our supper, clothing room and grocery bag giveaways so smooth. Ms Abbey said we gave out 70 bags of groceries. Thank you all for making it happen.

Prayers concerns this week. William and Robert Harp. William continues to recover at the hospital and not knowing where he is going when he gets out. Continue to keep Cari Bollinger in your prayers. Cari is back home recovering from her stem cell treatment. Everything is looking good but still a long way in the recovery process. Momma T as she travels to see Georgette this weekend. Dr Phil as he returns from his trip. Prayers as we continue our journey that God has laid before us. Let those plans be of God and not ours. As we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, prayers for all of our military, the sacrifices they have made to make this the great land that it is and the liberties we enjoy.

As far as I know we are planning on opening the doors to the second story and having our garage sale Saturday June 1st. We will need help to monitor, answer questions and hopefully help load items into cars. Start time 7, going to noon. Come if you can and help us out.

Monday June 3rd, we will begin our summer feeding program. Breakfast will be served from 8:15 to 9:15, lunch will be from noon until 2. Come by and say hi, maybe enjoy some Cheerios and support our folks in this new adventure.

Lots going on, God is busy, He is up to something, preparing us for bigger and greater things to come. Won't you come. Won't you share in God's majesty. For those of you who are far away, please continue to pray for us. As Pastor Jackson said Thursday, together, all things are possible through Christ. A favorite saying at chapel time, holding hands with the person next to you saying to them, Neighbor, I lvoe you and there's not a thing you can do about it! Know you are lvoed by us and especially by God, doesn't get any better than that! Have a great Memorial Day weekend and a great week ahead. Amen!

God's Light

Where did the days go? So much going on in and around our community, God is busy. Hope your week was filled with joy and blessings.

This past Friday,we got a call from a friend of ours. Mr Scott went and picked up two big bags of bread and 25 frozen turkeys. The bread was put in our grocery bags this week. Momma T wants to cook some of the turkeys for one of our meals and we will give the others away, what a blessing.

We visited with our friends on Saturday. Didn't mention last week, but we got to talking about Turner, whether or not that is his first or last name. Ms Dawn asked him and come to find out, Turner is his last name! His first name is Bernard, pretty cool to know one more thing about Bernard! Lvoe listening to our morning prayers given by Richard and Robert. Always praying for those who are less fortunate! Isn't that amazing! Homeless guys praying for those who don't have good friends to come by and visit with them each week.

Following our visits, Mr Matt and our new friend Elbert visited with a couple of families in our community. Beginning to build relationships with our neighbors. Ms Dawn goes out every week, meeting new friends and neighbors. What a blessing these servants are, opening doors to new relationships, building common bonds and learning we are more alike than we are different.

The Ackermans were busy over the weekend selling their wares and posing for pictures at a downtown market! For those of you out of town, you can go to the Shreveport Times web page and find the link.

Monday afternoon, an unexpected meeting happened with a new friend of ours Ms Jean from Catholic Services. She is located at St. Catharines. Jean has developed a compassion of caring for our community. She wants to see if we can partner together with other groups and churches in the community to better serve our community.

Tuesday afternoon, Lomax, Joey and their group took the children to the duck pond for this week's field trip. Always a favorite trip for the children to play on the swing sets and feed the ducks.

Tuesday evening, the men of the community gathered for their Bible fellowship. Good food, good conversations and lots of thought provoking ideas. Matt read from Luke 11, talking about being the light of Christ. We talked about how the light of Christ is in each one of us and we should take that light to others. Gatherings on Thursday or Saturday nights or Sundays, should be a places where that light is rekindled, made stronger, then it is our tasks to share it with the world. Don't let the light die or fade out, the world needs it!

Wednesday at noon, some of us had the privilege to attend a function sponsored by the Shreveport Bar Association. Common Ground was the recipient of the highest award  given by the lawyers, The Liberty Award. The award is to recognize community service among other attributes. Normally it is given to an individual, but we were selected this year. Ms Lisa, accepted the award on our behave and did an outstanding job in her acceptance speech. Reading the back of the program, listing all the recipients since 1965, the recipients are a who's who of Shreveport. What an honor to be included with such distinguished people.

Wednesday evening, we gathered at Ardis' house for our family time. We enjoyed all the great food and especially the great discussions of Dr Phil's book. We discussed chapter 5, the bipolarity of creation. Learning that every emotion we have has an opposite emotion. The book says, we must hate what God hates and love what God loves. God hates sin, but loves the sinner. We  will discuss chapters 6 and 7 next time we gather.

Thursday morning, Ms Lisa and Ms Abbey attended a meeting of non profits to meet and greet and see if the different organizations can work together. Ms Abbey made some good contacts for us. Hopefully we can begin new relationships and begin to talk about ways we can better serve our community.

Thursday afternoon, the rain came, the wind got stronger and the temperatures began to drop as we gathered for chapel time. Heather and Derrick were singing their hearts out, so we opened up the doors to the chapel and folks began to come inside. Richard shared the Word, of never giving up, because the reward is so great. Another great chapel time.

We had a new friend, Cliff bring pizzas and brownies for our supper. A big hit with our community! Ms Abbie and others, filled our grocery bags to over flowing, with the bread and snacks bought by Mr Scott, another great evening. What a treat to see new people come and experience what God is doing in our community.

Continue to lift up Cari Bollinger as she is going through her three week ordeal of receiving stem cells in her treatment of cancer. So far everything is going as planned. Prayers for our friends who live outside. Life is hard in the best of circumstances, you add the rain, the cold weather, it takes a lot to keep going.

Got two emails a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to share with you all. This first email is from our new friends from Baton Rouge who visited with us back in April. Melissa, the youth director had sent me an email about a story she read from the newspaper about a homeless person. She was concerned it was one of the guys her youth group had met. I wrote her back to tell it wasn't and asked how things were going. This is her response: "Thank you! We are doing well! The kids were so on fire about the trip that  we will be doing weekly mission work with Open Air ministries- the BR homeless ministry, during the summer. Thanks again for the life changing experience!!"

The next email is from our friends from Crowley. This is part of the email from Julie, the youth director, "We are ready to move into the direction of starting a homeless walk ministry.  I finally have some interest from others in getting this started. "  I sent her some words of encouragement and she responded by saying, "WOW!!  I'm over-whelmed with...well, not sure - fear, excitement, etc.Thank you for your time & concern.  Tell everyone we said hello!!" LVOE, Julie.

You never know, what impact you are having on people, whether it be good or bad! What a blessing to hear from others about the positive impact you all are having on those who visit with us. God is creating some special in our community through all of you. More and more people are beginning to hear about what God is doing here. Organizations are wanting to be a part of our community. Churches are coming to see what it feels like to be a light into the world.

It is all because, you all are allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you and letting God's Light shine! You are letting go of your pride, your jealousy, your envy and allowing God to shine through. A common theme, God keeps reminding me, it is not about mr brian but about God. You are showing that in your daily walks. As long as we move out of the way, and let God's shine forward, the Kingdom God is creating will grow. How exciting to be a part of this magnificent creation! 

May you have a glorious weekend and a better week. May God's light shine through you this week like no other time in your life! Amen and amen!

Lvoe others

Was this a fast week for all of you? Never enough time it seems to get everything done! But God's work is never done, so we have next week to continue.

We got our week started off great with our breakfast on Saturday. Tim, Sinotra, Myley all helped in preparing biscuits, bacon, eggs and hot coffee. We had a small group but the food went fast. Not much left overs to give away. Join us next month, May 18th.

We had good visits with our friends following breakfast. We even found Richard and he had lots of stories for us! Turner is enjoying his new radio Mr Scott got him, listening to the weather reports every day. Matt and Tim brought several of the guys to the center to wash clothes. Keep Catfish in your prayers, he had a bad week and was not doing well Saturday.

Got a phone call from one of our original group from the Wesleyan community from McNeese College in Lake Charles Monday evening. They want to bring another group the end of May and join in our fun. Very exciting, we have developed great relationships with our first group . Our community will benefit from the new hearts and energy of our new friends. 

Tuesday afternoon, Lomax, Joey, Krysten, Logan and a few others, took the children to Dairy Queen for their field trip, yumm! What a delicious trip that was!

Tuesday evening, Mr Matt led our men's Bible fellowship. Ran out of food because there were so many guys there! More and more men are coming from the various camps. God is working through Tim and Matt as they share their stories with the guys. Very exciting.

Wednesday afternoon, we met a friend at the center to check on our air conditioner units. Our chapel unit was low on freon and we will get that recharged next week. The rest of the units looked ok. God continues to bring folks into our family who want to share their skills with us.

We have lined up our workers for our summer feeding program. All folks from our community, Cornisha, daughter of Vonita, our supervisor, James will be our cook and Jasmine will be our server. This is a great opportunity to give our folks a way to earn some money and provide meals for our community during the summer. Lots of activity will be happening in and around the center this summer.

We talked to our roofer and hopefully in the near future, a new roof will be provided to the Bright House II. The cool thing about our new roof, is we may not have matching shingles! Mr Woods, our roofer is getting the shingles donated and he asked if it was ok if the shingles did not match. We told him, the more color we could get will make our house fit right in!

Thursday afternoon got started off with Abbey and her ladies making grocery bags for the community. We have increased our budget for Mr Scott to purchase more items from the Food Bank. We get more bang for our buck there, so the bags this week was larger than usual, very exciting.

Ms Abbie, Ms Dorothy and a new friend Ms Eloise, led us in music to get our worship started in chapel. Pastor Eddie shared the Word, reading from Psalm 1. Talking about two ways to live. Do we listen to the wicked or do we follow the teachings of the Lord? Mr Tom shared his gifts of cooking and everything was gone by the nights end.

Continue your prayers for Joe and Abbie. Joe came home Monday but is still a long way from feeling his best. Great to have him home, hopefully his recovery will go quicker now. Continue to lift up the Bollingers. Prayers for Mr Scott as he travels to Haiti. Don't know why he continues to go back so many times?! Must be the food or the sunsets! Maybe it's the people? Prayers for the camps as they continue to struggle with the challenges of life. Prayers for us to think of new ways we can bring the Good News to our community.

Matt read from Luke 6 Tuesday evening, talking about loving your enemies and not judging others. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Don't judge others and you will not be judged. Don't see the dust in your friends eye, without looking at the log in your eye.Hard rules to live by. In fact impossible to follow without Christ in our hearts. 

Our human tendencies are to do the exact opposite. How can we love someone who has wronged us? How can we love someone who calls us names? We can't and I think that is the point. In a world where we live, the world says, do whatever it takes to get ahead. Step over our fellow man, go around our coworker to get to that next step in the corporate ladder. What ever it takes, go for it, no matter who you hurt in the process.

Jesus is telling us, no that is wrong in God's Kingdom. We must lvoe our enemies, we must do good to those who curse us. How do we do that? Because the Holy Spirit is inside of each one of us. It is not mr brian, Momma T, Tim, Abbey that is lvoing others, it is Christ within us. As we begin to allow the Spirit to grow, it will become easier and easier to lvoe others who don't love us. 

Another reminder to me, it is not about mr brian but it is about God. The more we take our selves out of the equation and put Christ in the front, then all things are possible! What a concept! What a way to live and share the lvoe of Christ with others! If we don't do it, then our community will not find it in the world.

Hope your week is full of God's blessings for you and your family. Enjoy every moment, they are special. Amen.

Have you found the Kingdom?

If you don't like the weather we are having, just wait! We hear that phrase a lot in this part of the world. This week was no exception. From beautiful sunshine weather in the 70's on Monday, to wet, cold rain in the 40's on Wednesday. Then back to sunshine and the 60's Thursday. What a ride, hope your week was full of adventures!

We got our week started off with lots of activities on Saturday. Bright and early we had a big group of men from Mr Matt's church, Airline Baptist, mowing, trimming, weeding, cutting the grounds. What a special group of men, having no clue who we are, spending the morning working for us, what a huge blessing they were.

While they were working, some of us made our visits to the camps. Turner is doing fine, talkative for Turner! Robert and his camp were full of humor and stories. Still no sign of Richard. Tim and Matt visited the other camps and concluded their visits with Catfish. Catfish seems to be on the right track and doing much better. Glad to have our relationship going again with Catfish.

Later on in the afternoon, we had our first concert. Two young students from Parkway, members of Brookwood, sang and played the afternoon away,  a blessing to all who attended. What a treat to see young people sharing their talents for Jesus.

Tuesday afternoon, Joey and Lomax took some of the children to a movie for this week's field trip. Everybody had a good time.

Tuesday evening, the men of the community gathered for Bible fellowship. Mr Matt read from Luke 17. We talked about forgiveness, faith, thankfulness and the Kingdom of God. If a follower says he is sorry, forgive him, do we? The disciples asked Jesus, increase our faith, how do we do that? Only one of the lepers came back to Jesus and praise God for healing him, don't we do the same thing, taking God for granted? The leaders of the Jewish nation asked Jesus, where is the Kingdom of God? Jesus said, it is not something you can see or a place where you will say, here it is. Jesus said, God's Kingdom is within you, among you. Each one of you are a part of the Kingdom, because it is in you.

Wednesday afternoon, in the driving rain, the cold weather, Joey, Lomax and I visited a new friend of ours. One of our first interns, Ms Anna had begun a friendship with Joshua at the Yellow house. Joshua has moved not too far from us, so she asked us if we could visit with him to let him know we are a community to help young students like him. Hopefully we will begin a relationship with this young man and help him in his journey.

What an afternoon we had Thursday. About 4:45 I get a phone call from Pastor Willie, saying he was at the doctors office with his wife and could not make it for chapel. Noel agreed to say a few words and as he was preparing, Ms Dorothy sitting down in the back of the chapel began to sing. Then others began to sing and before you knew it the chapel was filled with such sounds of gospel music, you could not believe. Wes came to play the piano, he started playing and more of the community started singing. Just as we were finishing our songs, in walks Pastor Willie. He had us open the doors to the chapel, and more folks from the outside came inside! Unbelievable, what a blessing!

We had a new friend come by Thursday. Ms Jean, who runs Catholic Services from St. Cathrines, came by to see Ms Dawn and visit with us. She wants to see if we can all sit down together and share what each of us do and work together to serve the community. Very exciting to see where this cooperation might lead.

Following our chapel time, we were treated to some new helpers from Grace. The confirmation class joined us and helped, serve, passed out plates, washed the dishes, handed out grocery bags and cleaned the tables. Have never seen so many young people running around helping out. What a great Thursday meal.

Prayers continue for Joe and Abbie. Joe is still in the hospital. His recovery is very slow, trying to gain strength in his legs. He fell just as Joey and I visited with him Wednesday afternoon. So far, no details from the doctors on what caused Joe's seizures. Continue to lift up William and James as they deal with life. Prayers for Ms Dawn as she was under the weather Thursday. 

Remember, next Saturday, the 20th at 8:30 will be our breakfast. Don't want to miss that.

We have been asked by Pastor Eddie, to be one of his sites for a summer feeding program this summer. We are in the process of asking the community to help us run the program. Can't wait to see how it all goes.

Keep thinking about what we read in Luke chapter 17, talking about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is not something you will find, or see, but it is inside of us, among us. The center is not a place where you open up a door and find lvoe. You go in this room and find peace. If you sit in this chair, you will experience joy. The Kingdom is not a thing or a place you can see. The Kingdom is you and me. The walls of the center cannot show joy, only you can. The floors cannot provide comfort, only you can. The ceilings cannot show lvoe, only you can.

Folks don't go to Grace for the nice carpet or the comfortable chairs, they go because they have found something special through the people of Grace. The same can be said for our community when they come on Thursdays or Saturdays or any day of the week. They don't come for the white sticky chairs, or the tables all marked up by our creations over the years, they come because they know they will be respected and not judged.

They come because of each one of you are allowing the Kingdom of God to flow through you and show God's special lvoe to all. Thank you for continued passion is serving others and showing all, the Kingdom of God is real and alive in Cedar Grove!

Hope you all have a great weekend and joyous week! Amen.