Light up the Darkness

Experience breeds improvement.  A couple weeks ago, we hosted our fifth annual Family Fall Festival.  There were over 1,000 in attendance, enjoying all the trunk games, hot dogs, nachos, pickles, boiled peanuts, cake walk, bounce house, kickball, music, egg walk, and most important, CANDY!  This was the biggest festival we've ever had.  We made lots of connections with organizations, schools, parents, and churches.  Every volunteer had their role.  Restocking cars with candy, picking up trash, serving food, setting up tables, running games, making sure that the neighborhood felt loved and served.  Here are some pictures from the event.
http://www.2ndmile-jax.com/photos/family-fall-festival-2013/

We got to see many students again that attended our summer day camp, families were asking if the ministry did stuff throughout the school year that their kids could either volunteer for or be a part of.  As a result, quite a few people signed up for more information about Connect, our middle school program, and we even got another student signed up for the two:fiftytwo After School Program.  Thanks again for all the prayers about this recruiting.  It has been a challenge but God has been providing us with willing and grateful parents desiring to have their kids go to "camp" throughout the school year.  I mentioned last blog that we signed up a girl named Khamari who was at summer day camp.  About two weeks ago, Jashawn (jay-SHAUN) was signed up to be a part of our program.  He's in 4th grade and was also at the summer day camp.  Jashawn stutters when he talks.  The times that he can talk fluently, unfortunately, are when he's name-calling, and this boy has a large repertoire of options.  It's almost kind of like a tick, where even if he tries to control it, he can't.  He generally has good attitude and genuinely wants to follow directions, I feel, but it's difficult for him.  Please pray that the name-calling would stop, that he wouldn't be a bad influence on the other students but would cause them to help him be a leader rather than follow his example.


Tonight, we will be hosting a vision dinner here at North Pearl Baptist Church in the courtyard.  The dinner is to spread awareness of not only the ministry but more importantly, how the building next to church will be used as a community center once renovations are complete.  To prep this week, we've had to set up lights, since the event will be outside, we will be setting up tables, chairs, picture boards showing different aspects of the ministry.  It's hard to anticipate what the evening will exactly look like, unsure of exactly how many guests, unsure of weather (although it doesn't look like it'll rain, might just be a little chilly), (also, in Florida, the word "chilly" can be translated as below 60 degrees), and I don't exactly know what the table set-up will be.  Despite everything unknown to me, I know God will be present and He will be ultimately in control of it all.  He knows the exact day that all the funding for the building will be raised.  He knows who will show up, who will give, whose hearts the event will touch.  Much like the Family Fall Festival, everyone involved has their part to play in this event.  The members of North Pearl Baptist Church are stellar on their southern cooking.  I can smell the collard greens just in the other room right now as I type in our office.  Musicians, parking attendants, flashlight tour guides, speakers, a preacher, greeters, and food servers.  As we string Christmas lights throughout the old naked and leaky building, I can't help but think about the beauty that lights create.  Despite lots of water on the nasty dusty floor, the Christmas lights double in the reflection.  What would normally look like a scene from a haunted house movie will look like a warm and inviting place to walk around and drink hot chocolate.  The courtyard has strings of lights running across it, making a dead basketball court cement slab look like a classy outdoor dinner party.

The inner city closest to you may not be a place you'd actively go to hang out.  It might be scary to think about what bad thing might happen to you should you be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It is my hope, not only at this dinner, not only through writing these blogs, but also through the way my ministry family and I live that we'd be able to bring light out this darkness.  Wherever God is, His light is there also.  Just because a lot of very evil things occur in this neighborhood does not mean it's any darker than a place where not as much crime happens.  Sin is everywhere, but thank God that He is too.  "Urban" and "inner city" have so many negative connotations.  Hopefully, we can show you at some point and not just tell you about the many beautiful and bright things already in this community.  Please pray for this dinner to be memorable, as it's right in the building's courtyard, that the right people come, and that we'd be trusting in God's provision and timing for all of this to come together.