Two Stories

1.  Read here about a young man's experience in Kenya, sharing the love of Christ with at-risk youth through baseball.  (P.S.  The article mentions Zach and Allyah Miller, who plan to join the work in Kenya soon.  Allyah served as an intern at Aim Right several years ago.)

2.  I want to read this book, but I haven't yet.  Part of the reason I want to read it is this excerpt from the book (below).  God bless Walt.

With the kind of start I had in life, I’m sure I could have soon died and gone to hell and nobody would have particularly cared. I was born into a broken home, my parents having separated before I was born. The only time I ever saw them together was eighteen years later when I was called to testify in a divorce court.


As a boy I lived in a neighborhood in north Philadelphia in which they said an evangelical church could never be planted. But God has a fantastic sense of humor whenever anyone decides what can’t be done. He led a small group of Christians to band together, buy a little house there, and start a church.

One man in the church was named Walt. He had only a sixth-grade education. One day Walt told the Sunday school superintendent he wanted to start a Sunday school class. “That’s great, Walt,” he was told, “but we don’t have an opening for you.” Walt insisted, however, so the superintendent said, “Good. Go out and get a class. Anybody you find is yours.”

Then Walt came into my community. The first time we met I was playing marbles out on the concrete. “Son,” he said, “how would you like to go to Sunday school?”

I wasn’t interested. Anything with school in it had to be bad news.

So he said, “How about a game of marbles?”

That was different. So we shot marbles and had a great time, though he whipped me in every single game. (Now you know: I lost my marbles early in life.) By then I would have followed him anywhere.

Walt picked up a total of thirteen boys in that community for his Sunday school class, of whom nine were from broken homes. Eleven of the thirteen are now in full-time vocational Christian work.

Actually, I can’t tell you much of what Walt said to us, but I can tell you everything about him…because he loved me for Christ’s sake. He loved me more than my parents did.

He used to take us hiking, and I’ll never forget those times. I’m sure we made his bad heart worse, but he’d run all over those woods with us because he cared.

He was not the most scintillating person in the world, but he was for real. I knew it, and so did everyone else in that class.

Teamwork

 "Alone we can do so little.  Together we can do so much."  - Helen Keller

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."  - Ecclesiastes 4:12

Plugging the holes....Objective -- use your team to cover enough holes so that the tube will be filled with water, causing a ping pong ball to float to the top.  Incidentally, it was a stiff challenge, folks were getting drenched, and mid-way, the tubes were cut in half to make the goal achievable!

Marshmallow challenge...Objective: build a structure with misc. supplies that will hold all of the marshmallows and keep them from touching the table. Oh -- and make sure they marshmallows don't tumble from their positions for at least one minute!

Balloon transportation....Objective:  Transport water balloons to the finish line and back by using only your waist / hips to hold them in place as you walk.  If they fall and burst, guess what?  You start over!

Ready to go back to school!

I have to confess that it seemed quite strange to be organizing a Back-2-School event in July!  Nevertheless, with local elementary schools starting on July 31 this year, that was when it needed to be.

We set the date for Saturday, July 20 and began asking for volunteers and donations.  As the 20th approached, we had a lot of backpacks, a lot of school supplies, a lot of socks and Bibles, 10 free pizza vouchers from Little Caesar's, and an adequate amount of volunteers.  When some of us went out in the community on Thursday and Friday (right before the event) to hand out flyers, it was hard to tell if families were interested or would even be available during the hours we had set for the event.

"Oh, Lord, send the kids and families," I prayed, perhaps a bit selfishly since this event seemed to be quite a lot of work for it to end up being a flop.

When the first few families arrived shortly after 10:00 a.m. (the event start time was 11:00 a.m.), and by 10:30 a.m., there was a steady stream of registrants, it appeared that our concern now was how to best manage a crowd in a very warm room.  The Lord had certainly sent the people!

Luis grew up in the neighborhood and used to attend Aim Right programs.  He is currently in barber school and volunteered to give free haircuts, even recruiting a friend to give haircuts as well.  I believe they gave close to 20 haircuts in around 3 hours.

We had 79 children and youth sign in at the event, and they were eligible for 3 different drawings -- backpacks, school supplies, and socks & misc.   Ro (pictured below with the microphone) did a great job of drawing names and announcing winners -- 1-2 per minute for close to 2 hours!

Darrell & Julie kept the food line organized and moving along. 

Nurses Rachel and Evie offered free vision screening.

As a final note...one child who came on Saturday has moved (or will be moving soon) to the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix.  That is where A.J. and Jewel serve, so they were able to get the child's address to connect with her and transport her to the kids church program in Sunnyslope.  How good of God to arrange those details and divinely arrange that interaction on Saturday!

Teen Bible Study

How do you keep the fire burning?

How do you keep your passion for Christ alive and not let your love grow cold?



 Over the next few weeks, that is what youth will be learning as they meet on Monday evenings.

Please keep this group in prayer!

Several Ways to Make Yourself Miserable

This comes from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart.  It's quite convicting.

1.  Count your troubles, name them one by one -- at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.

2.  Worry every day about something.  Don't let yourself get out of practice.  It won't add a cubit to your stature, but it might burn a few calories.

3.  Pity yourself.  If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.

4.  Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon.  After all, a man's gotta live.

5.  Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they're going.  Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.

6.  Stay away from absolutes.  It's what's right for you that matters.  Be your own person and don't allow yourself to get hung up on what others expect of you.

7.  Make sure you get your rights.  Never mind other people's.  You have your life to live, they have theirs.

8.  Don't fall into any compassion traps -- the sort of situation where people can walk all over you.  If you get too involved in other people's troubles, you may neglect your own.

9.  Don't let Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what's really relevant -- things like TV and newspapers.  Invisible things are eternal.  You want to stick with the visible ones -- they're where it's at now.

A few camp photos

Until I collect images from the various cameras that were in use at camp, here are few shots from the week.  We drove to beautiful Telluride one day, had a picnic, played some kick ball and mush ball, and rode the unique (and free) Telluride/Mountain Village gondola. 

Worship during chapel was a highlight for many campers.

Twin Day!



Darrell was the chapel speaker and spoke on "Living a God-Infused Life."  Campers really connected with the twice-a-day sessions and learned about truth, sin, forgiveness, living in the light, and more.  At the end of the week, campers shared what God had been teaching them; there was scarcely a dry eye in the room!

Team-building happened through the trust fall, ropes course, and some fun activities (cover a camper with duct tape, sticky side out, and then see how many balloons you can stick to his body).

The Bridge

It seemed that the bridge was chosen for the camp group picture because we knew the camera being used could capture the entire bridge in one frame.



Perhaps, though, it is symbolic of the bridge that many campers personally experienced last week.  They met Jesus, forgiver of their sins and the One who gave them access into God's family.  More camp photos and updates to come soon!

Happy 4th of July

Hobby Lobby's Independence Day message is worth a read.  Click on the image below.



Water fun with Marietta Community Chapel

Yesterday we were blessed with another visit from a youth group in town for the Mennonite convention.  Marietta Community Chapel (Marietta, PA) youth led an afternoon of water games, snacks, and crafts for around 30 children.  One member of the group expressed that she thought it was a "God thing" that they were assigned to serve at Aim Right because quite a few in the group were related to former interns and were already familiar with Aim Right.  There were around 40 different site locations for service projects, so it's pretty incredible that we were paired together!

It was hot enough that I don't think any of the children (and not very many youth or adults!) had qualms about getting completely soaked.  Children were divided into three groups, and each group got to spend time at the slip-n-slide station, the water games station, and the crafts / snack station.