Saturday Morning Update

Final pack up and loading at church. Extra props to Andy for all his organization helps. I've nicknamed him Andy “the Intern,” but he is truly Andy, “The Angel.” He has helped with the shopping, game building, and packing. Julie took care of the rest of the paperwork. Props!

We hit the road nearly on time, 8:30 and rolled to Sam's to pick up Kidz Klub snax. Honestly, it is lots of fun shopping with a group of high schoolers. Sadly no free snax were out yet.

Listening to Blind Melon's song “No Rain” on the 90's mix didn't help to keep from getting blasted four times on the drive down. Some mysterious traffic hold up we never really saw kept us in a state of crawling parking lot the majority of the length of the 294 through Chicago. All this said, we met my sister Julie near Joliet within 10 minutes of each other. This was a planned kid exchange. My daughter Alyssa was heading to MI to work at my sister's and parent's group home/farmette. Her son, Calvin came with us to St. Louis. We ate pizza at a lovely park in Channahon, IL.

We arrived by 9:30pm at the New City campus. Andrew, the project leader met us. For those who don't know, he was a middle schooler in my Wheaton Bible Church group when I was an intern in a galaxy far, far away. Jake Ziehr soon followed. We unloaded and headed to Steak and Shake. Amid the conversation, Calvin ate hot peppers, followed by a milk chaser. Jake is doing well and having a blast here, three weeks in the stories are piling up. Among others, he is teaching English to recent refugees from Burma.

The outgoing groups from SC and Iowa look like what we will a week from now.

Due to a baseball tourney, Chris and Nick Matula are driving down on Sunday night or Monday morning depending on the outcome of the game. We can't wait to have them join us, and thus conflicted on praying for a loss. Jarrel Davis has been planning to join us for many months but returned home from Chicago Thursday sick. We are praying health and that he can hitch a ride with the Matula boys.

Here's the team in brief – as that summer is here, grades will reflect fall.

Andy “The Intern” Spoehr – Junior at Wheaton College, IL – Christian Ed major

Calvin- 9^th grader from Parchment, MI

Chris Matula – Wise elder and children's ministry overseer

Hannah - 10^th grader from Hortonville

Julie Morrell (J-MO) – church office administrator and owner/operator of car #2

Lori McCarthy – a returner from spring work weekend

Luke - 10^th grader at Xavier

Mike Collison – blogster, driver, pastor, pirate, senior hamster trainer for the circus

Mike – (Flavian Davis) 11^th grader at Hortonville

Nick - 11^th grader at Kimberly

Rachel - 9^th grader at Neenah

Ruby - 9^th grader at Neenah

Ryan - 10^th grade home schooler

Sara – recent Neenah HS grad – headed for Vet Tech school in Fondy

Tate - 11^th grader at Neenah

Our trip book is Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers- Prayer for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. It is a nice thoughtful prayer-infused book about following Jesus in community with others and reaching out to serve. This prayer on page 59 seems a good one to pray and reflect on this week.

RADIATING CHRIST

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.

Flood our souls with spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.

Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus!

Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus, will be all from you, none of it will be ours. It will be you shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.

Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do.

The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.

Amen

Game building

Andy, Luke, Ryan, and I have begun building some games for our Kidz Klub. Yesterday we made two pair of bean bag tossers and 4 double dutch jump ropes. Neighbor Louie let us use his drill press to drill out the oak handles. Luke and Ryan had way too much fun melting (burning) the nylon rope ends.

Hannah shows Mike that words longer than two letters are harder to guess.

PRE-TRIP

We are one week out and starting to shop for supplies and materials to build some carnival style games for Kidz Klub. Andy "The Intern" Spoehr is a great to have along rollin' through the aisles of Home Depot and Toys R Us.

Thursday Wrap Up

The tutoring program runs Monday through Thursday each week during the summer. We did our final day. Darryl, who has been one of my charges has been challenging to corral and get focused. One of the regular helpers who has known him since he entered the program four years ago said that he had lead poisoning as a child. This caused some learning disabilities, but they have seen an amazing transformation in his reading and math. This is encouraging. JaJaun turned 10 yesterday and we celebrated his birthday. He wasn't sure what presents he might get, but his dad was going to take him to see a movie. I'm going to send him a Packer shirt.

Lunch was fatburgers from a local place. Two all beef patties, cheese, mayo and the works. Tasty. Though it did knock Sara out in the afternoon. Josh, Andrew's intern, and our work partner has agreed to ride back to Wisconsin with us. Just as St. Louis has been out of our comfort zone, this will be a trip out of his. He's going to share briefly in worship and is our featured speaker in The Circle. More on this later.

In the afternoon my group ended up moving scrap steel at a large old factory building. The folks there have set up a ministry that creates jobs for those with limited experience and education. They have set up a wood shop on the 1st floor and we helped load steel from the basement. It is a young ministry, but seems to have the potential to impact lives. You can check out their website: www.morethancarpentry.org

We had dinner at Andrew and Katy's place. We watched a movie called, The Road to Freedom, the story of Dr. Vernon Johns, the preacher who preceded Martin Luther King at Dexter Road Baptist Church in Birmingham. A glimpse into a godly man compelled to live out the Gospel and God's call for justice, at great personal risk.

In wrapping up, we wrestled with the question, who are we excluding from ACEFC? The close of the discussion revealed that if we are acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, nobody will be excluded. But we will be seen as a foolish church and youth group. (That's the group where girls who get pregnant go)

We closed the day at a local custard place and with some clean up. Its time for me to wrap this for now and start loading the trailer.

God has visibly answered many prayers and I pray he will sink this trip deep into us and multiply every effort. I am extremely proud of our group. It is a joy.

a bit a boot Thursday

We had a great day wrapping things up and will blog more later, but (for now) here is a link to the pictures we have uploaded at this point! "More better" ones coming soon!

pictures

Wednesday's Work

Today our tutoring has turned a corner, there is more connection, friendship, and understanding. It is amazing how quickly relational bridges can be built. I did some video taping and the kids had a ball doing flips and antics and then watching themselves. Jajuan is a relaxed and easy going guy, but Darryl is a high energy kid who who likes to buck the system and push the limits. I enjoy Jujaun, but I understand Darryl. The highlight from morning tutoring was when we where working on drawing a picture of what it might look like if the sun stopped working. All three of us were highly engaged in sketching ice cubes coming out of a faucet. It was a moment of high connection.

As the other days, about four people stayed back to do afternoon tutoring. Tom led another group in finishing up Miss Burn's garage with a second coat. It was a slightly cooler day and we were grateful for this.

I had a group that went back to Miss Smith's house. Alice was there, as well as another grandson, Jess. Alice, after her huge angry scene on Monday, appeared at Miss Smith's new apartment at 3am with a suitcase and an apology. As we worked on final cleanout, she was still angry, but was more accepting of the situation and less volatile. Andrew explained that since age 7, Alice had been in and out of group homes because here mother was in jail or gone often.


One of the newer air conditioners that had been fought over was gone. Most likely sold for drug money. Per Miss Smith's request, I loaded the other three in my trailer to take to the church's "Free Store."

Just as we were about to leave, Penny showed up and started yelling about the AC units. I was at the trailer and she demanded, "Are my air conditioners in there?" I said yes. "Open the door and take those out!" I said, "Talk to Andrew." While she stormed over to him, the rest of the group loaded up. She then called the police and was giving our make and plates as I pulled away. Whether there was a response or just my imagination, we saw no less than three cop cars pass us as we were working our way out of the neighborhood.

Our final kid's club was another big hit. We did more face painting. Caleb (Aka Leb, Lebby) Sharpied another shirt or two. It was a little smaller crowd than the night before with some new faces showing up. We did another ridiculous skit. I asked each kid to give me a short line and I put them all together in a song. There was a Playdough "craft" (We made idols) and a short Scripture story and then a squirt gun fight. We closed with giant Pixie sticks, a major hit. Except that I forgot the scissors. It was all delightfully, loud, chaotic, and fun. To children who live often without supervision and limited resources, this free time to be listened to, loved, played with, and treated, is gold. We were touched in the process by their openness and warmth to us.