Happenings this week...

Aleisha has been splitting her time between Aim Right activities and Aim Right North events.  She organized a hike up North Mountain on Sunday afternoon, and it was a blend of both of those groups -- an Aim Right teen and some Aim Right North girls. 

 

 

Round #2 of our Kids Club Christmas field trip happened yesterday evening, with another outing to see the Christmas play. This time, we had a group of 39 children and staff. Most of the children were deep into enjoying their bags of snacks when these photos were taken. 

 

 



More Christmas events are still to come.  We're grateful for the generosity of churches and individuals who have invited "our" kids and families to parties and blessed them with gifts.

Christmas is not the merriest time of the year for many. This week, a young man was shot and killed at a nightclub; he is a brother of a young woman who came to Aim Right for many years. Also this week, I talked with a mom who shared that their family of nine has been living in a hotel room since being evicted from their home. How is God calling us to act and to move and to love in the midst of these difficult situations?

I believe that this blog post by Shannan Martin is worth mulling over.  Here is an excerpt:

"I hear people talking about slowing down to enjoy the season and honestly, I don't understand what that means. Life doesn't slow down for anything, and I'm not sure it's supposed to. We'll bake our cookies and wrap our gifts and do all of those things because we want to and we can, but arriving at a place where we avoid interruption or inconvenience because we're trying so hard to savor Christmas is not the Jesus way.
My heart this morning is heavy for my neighbors.

It's heavier still for you and me.

We can buy gifts for 'the needy,' hang mittens on the tree at church, pack a shoebox, choose an angel, write the check for an extra twenty bucks for our sponsored child across the ocean, but we resist opening our door to the heaviness of fractured lives. We avoid it year-round, but especially in December."