Thanksgiving



If you go back into history 151 years, it's the height of the Civil War.  Abraham Lincoln is President.  If a state wanted to observe a Thanksgiving holiday, the state scheduled a day to do that.  Lincoln's Proclamation in 1863, however, established one national holiday for all states to give thanks. 

 

From his Proclamation: 

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

 

Aren't much of his words applicable to our country today -- 151 years hence? 

 

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In light of this national holiday, much of our focus in recent Kids Club and Teen Night programs has been on thankfulness.

 



 

AJ led a lesson at Aim Right North encouraging kids not to just be "I" focused and selfish, but to be grateful and willing to help others.

 

Caleb shared the story of the 10 lepers with teens and challenged them with these questions:  Are we sincere when we give thanks?  Do we even show any thanks?  Do we go the extra mile?

Yesterday evening, teens gathered for a cookout and games and shared what they were thankful for.  I'm not sure I heard "my phone" or "Facebook" mentioned once, but overwhelmingly this one:  "my family and my friends."

Give Hope!

Here's an update on the Give Hope Campaign.

We praise God for the generous gifts that have come in already through the Campaign (see the Progress Report at the bottom). 

Thank you!  

As you can tell from the Progress Report, there's a ways to go in the Electronic Gifts category.  For that goal to be met, we still need 28 donors signing up to give an electronic monthly gift of $30 for one year.  That will enable us to reach the goal and secure a matching grant of $10,800 from Mission Increase Foundation.

If you'd consider being one of these donors, please follow this link to Network for Good (or the one below) and sign up today!

 



 

Volunteer!

Last week was quite a week around here!  Let's see...

Monday - Dessert Theatre clean-up, Staff Meeting, Visiting kids, Digging into the Word with teens at both Aim Right locations, Beginning yard sale preparations

Tuesday - Visiting kids, Prepping for Kids Club

Wednesday - Boys Club (having fun with animals and plants), Sharing God's love with kiddos at Kids Club at both locations (and making it through some transportation and volunteers-who-couldn't-come hiccups)

Thursday - Cleaning, Organizing yard sale items, Girls Club (baking)

Friday - Early morning yard sale (praise God for nearly $500 raised!), Yard sale clean-up, Evening Teen Night and Community Night

The list above is certainly a collaborative effort of several people, and we're especially grateful for our two interns (Kari and Colby) who help with so much.  They will be leaving in December and would be most relieved to know there are a few folks who want to replace them.  If that someone might be you, or if you know of someone who might be a good fit for the Intern Program, you can read more about the program here and also find an application to download. 

Last week we were also blessed by a visit from a young man who is associated with i6eight in Mexico.  He got a glimpse of the "intern life" as he considers ministry opportunities in the U.S. 

I recently came across a parody of the song that most American 4-year-old girls adore.  It's a church asking for VBS volunteers, but consider it applying to volunteering as an intern in our situation. 

You can fast forward to the 1:45 mark, where the song actually begins.



By the way, our kids are potty-trained!
(Well...mostly, but you wouldn't want to hear those stories from the past!)

Dessert Theatre: One more night!

On our Facebook page, you'll find some photos from this week (Kids Club) and weekend (Dessert Theatre).  There is still space for tomorrow evening's performance if you are interested in attending.  Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the 7:00 p.m. performance, and tickets are $25 per person.

Making Choices

This article tells the story of a Maricopa County public defender and offers a unique justice-and-grace-filled perspective. An excerpt from the article:

“My job is so much about just putting bandaids on what’s already broken. There’s so much prevention that should have been done but, instead, they’re here,” she says, citing specifically the need to help kids realize their actions have consequences.

“If we can teach kids impulse control, that’s huge for keeping them out of prison,” she says.

The clients she describes could be any number of youth who come to Aim Right on a weekly basis.  There are some significant cards stacked against them -- incarcerated family members, living in the "ghetto" (a teen's description, not mine), poverty, easy access to drugs, little accountability and stability.

It saddened me greatly when I heard a teen comment recently, "I don't think I will live very long.  I think I will die young."  When there's shootings on your street, and violence embedded deeply in your family tree, that's not just morbid thinking; it's a grim reality.  There was sad news this week, too, of a teen we know who is incarcerated -- again -- likely for a very serious offense this time. 

Caleb shared a great truth with youth at Friday's Teen Night.  It was this:

"You cannot stay where you are and go with God."

The two verbs are opposites; you can choose to stay or go, but you simply cannot stay and go at the same time.  Your direction in life is a choice.

C.S. Lewis said, "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."

Isn't it our oft-repeated human story that we aren't too good at distinguishing the mud pies from the holiday at the sea?  The this-is-temporal-rubbish from the this-has-eternal-value?

I've read that impoverished mothers in Haiti actually make "cookies" out of dirt for their children to eat; it alleviates some of their hunger pangs until they have enough money to buy real food and, I suppose, gives some of the sense of eating a meal.

Those children are malnourished, under-fed, starving, because the mud doesn't satisfy.

The public defender said that kids need to realize that their actions have consequences.  I'm thankful for a place like Aim Right where God has given us opportunities to speak to youth about their choices, to point out the difference between the mud pies and the holiday at the sea, and to tell them about the One who offers them hope and a future.

Fall Festival

I'm not quite sure when the Fall Festival tradition began at Aim Right, but we have been having one for a number of years; we invite our Kids Club children and their families, but teens and others from the community often come as well.  This year, Colby and Kari coordinated the event, and their hours of hard work paid off through a festival that was fun and well organized.

 

 

These gals arrived early and focused on caffeination before the festival officially started.

In addition to our local volunteers, we're also very thankful for the great help from Jewel's family, visiting from Iowa.  Thank you, Norman & Sandy, Darryl, and Myron & Alissa!
 

Chairs ready for the Cake Walk:

 

Great anticipation as the "brinca brinca" goes up!

 Face painting is always a favorite activity.

 

A Cake Walk winner!

 

 

Ring toss game:

Putt-putt game:

 

Baseball game:

 

 

Cotton candy!  Since our cotton candy machine was in a dark spot on the property, there aren't any good photos of the hard-working cotton candy crew, but they certainly stayed busy all evening.

 



One of the nice things about a festival like this is that it gives us opportunities to connect more with the children and their families, since we invite the whole family to come.  I know I was encouraged and blessed through visiting with a mom from the community.

Aim Right North Kids Club 10.29.14



Some photos from last week's Kids Club: