Perspectives from Venus and Mars

No, this isn't an astronomy lesson...

Today I'm linking to two posts on Flourish Phoenix, an online magazine of sorts that seeks to highlight the good that is going on in Phoenix.  These posts are excellent articles examining the perspectives of donors (partners) and non-profits. 

Donors are from Mars

Non-profits are from Venus

This weekend

Aim Right will have a booth at Open Door Fellowship's Harvest Festival this weekend.  If you are in the area or have some free time, please stop by to say hello and browse our booth.  With the purchase of Aim Right North, we also inherited a large supply of new candles in various scents and colors; those will be for sale, as well as a variety of antique / vintage items, from home décor to dishes to miscellaneous.  It truly is a conglomeration of "Something Old" and "Something New!"

 

Patience

Some photos of Aim Right North kiddos learning about patience:

 

 

And...since I was told, "You need to blog about the Canyon, Amy!" here's a photo of a few folks who exhibited some patience -- 10 hours and approximately 17 miles of it -- hiking down to the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  Coincidentally, in the Canyon, what goes down must come up, so part of that 10 hours was spent traversing switchback after switchback on our ascent.  Finally we spotted a man in flip flops on the trail and took heart that the end must be near.

 

There's nothing quite like hiking under a blanket of stars, then watching the sun rise and gradually recolor the Canyon, or noting the contrasts between the muddy Colorado and the clear creeks and waterfalls near the bottom, or hiking through red dirt, beach-like sand, and more red dirt, or experiencing the extremes of "This is way too cold," to "It's so very hot." 

 

This hiking team shared encouraging words and humor as readily as their snacks and band-aids, and I think we're all thankful that God gave us a safe, fun trip, with a bit (make that "a lot" for me) of physical exertion thrown in.  We truly have an amazing Creator, and were it not pretty imperative that we make it out of there in daylight, it would have been nice to spend more time exploring at the bottom.

 

Maybe next time?

Around these parts....

From Aim Right North Kids Club this week:

 

 

And downtown Kids Club (God was giving us a show in the sky right before we went inside!):

Classes learned about another Bible hero:  Daniel.  The youngest class entered as 1st and 2nd graders and left the building as a pack of lions.

Teen Night October 10th:

An Oldie but a Goodie

In the midst of devouring sundaes and banana splits and evaluating Sonic Drive-In's choice of music, this song came on:



"Now this is an oldie!" I confidently declared to the other passengers in the car, all of whom were born since Y2K.  The 7th grader giggled about the nursery rhyme words in the chorus as I listened -- really listened -- to the words. 

When the song ended and the giggling subsided, it was a good opportunity to explain the message of the song.  I'm not sure they "got it," though, whether due to the lightness of the moment or the fact that they've lived for years without a present father or mother.

"Wherever you are, be all there." - Jim Elliot

Dessert Theatre: Nov.14-15, 2014

Instead of a Fall Banquet, Aim Right is hosting a Dessert Theatre this year, on November 14 and 15.  More information is below, and you can purchase tickets online here or by calling our office at (602) 462-1987 or e-mailing amy@aimright.org.

 

Aim Right Ministries Dessert Theatre 2014

Of Fasting and Cake

As mentioned before, Teen Bible Study (Impact Group) has been learning about spiritual disciplines on Monday evening.  Colby shared about fasting yesterday.

 

 

In addition to fasting from food, Colby also challenged teens to consider fasting from technology.  He showed the following video:

 



Quite the opposite of fasting was this Girls Club activity Kari planned for after-school about a week ago:  cupcake baking!

 

 

Nothing beats in-office delivery of a freshly baked snack. Thanks, girls, for the tasty cupcake with the blue sprinkles!  After some other nearby deliveries, the girls took the rest of the cupcakes home for their families to enjoy.

Hope Women's Center

This is a great ministry organization with a location near Aim Right, and it's pretty neat that they were featured on the morning news today. I've met their director at MIF workshops, and Stephanie and I had the opportunity to tour the Center awhile ago.

Kids Club 10.01.14

Special thanks to Sunnyslope volunteer Krystal Anderson for these photos of Aim Right North's Kids Club in action yesterday evening:



 

 

On the south side of town, I snapped a few photos before Kids Club there began.

Any guesses which Bible story these props brought to life? 

 

 

You can visit our Facebook page for some photos Caleb took of the three Kids Club classes downtown. 

 

The lesson, the first in a series about Bible heroes, was about three guys with funny names -- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Powers in the Hood

If websites have cover stories, this was it yesterday on Christianity Today's website.  It's a letter from a pastor to a young urban youth worker.  He wanted her to be aware that "something that inevitably comes with urban ministry" is "intense spiritual warfare."

He notes:

"There are dark spirit powers in the world opposing God's work.  These dark powers seem especially active in troubled urban neighborhoods."

What does he tell her?  In a nutshell, live Ephesians 6 in the 'hood.

After I'd read the article mentioned above, another CT story caught my eye.  It was about an author whose book I'd read a little over 10 years ago.  The book was part of my orientation reading as I prepared to move Phoenix to serve as an intern at this place I'd never been to before called Aim Right Ministries.  I recall that it was one of my favorite books about urban ministry because it was filled with stories -- stories of other folks who'd chosen to move to the city, to love people, to show them Christ.

If you don't believe that spiritual warfare is especially active in urban neighborhoods, how do you explain that this author, Bart Campolo, who once appeared to have an active, vibrant faith, is now a humanist chaplain at USC and has been a speaker for the Secular Student Alliance?  He's still championing causes, but he's doing it only with the arm of flesh.

God, help us to depend upon You to stand firm!