July Update

Four-square!

Connect Middle School Program - Together, 2nd Mile's high school program, BLOCK (building leaders of Christ's kingdom) and the Connect Middle School program went to one of our volunteer's house last week to enjoy a cookout, video games, fellowship, and outdoor fun. It was the first time that these two age groups intentionally got together to just have fun with each other. Hot dogs, burgers, chips, fruit, water, soda, Sonic racing, four-square, football in the street, watching movies, it was a great time! No lesson plans, no agenda, just quality time together.

BLOCK - Although I am not as involved with the high school program, they have been doing some exciting things the past few months. The high school students started running our open courts. Open Court has been every Friday from 4-6pm this summer which has loud music, basketball, concessions, and indoor games for anybody who wants to come hang out. We've been seeing some new and familiar faces on Fridays and it's been encouraging to build these relationships.

In a couple of days, students in middle school and high school will be driving to New Orleans for a week to either help out a ministry with their summer day camp or, weather pending, helping with some storm relief projects. Pray that students would grow closer to God, each other, and would grow in character, even if just a little bit in this next week.

Chassidy playing basketball with 4th grader Jabarie

Summer Intern - I came to 2nd Mile back in 2010 as a summer intern, after I had graduated from the University of Wisconsin. There were nine other interns that summer, including my wife. Since that year, there has been a spattering of interns here and there throughout the years. This summer, we have Chassidy. She will be a sophomore in high school and she has been a part of 2nd Mile since she was six years old. I've talked about her in previous blogs, but just wanted to express my admiration for how far she's come in knowledge, maturity, and leadership qualities. If you search for 2nd Mile Ministries on facebook, you can see her in one of our Pray, Collect, Act videos. She's helped with field trips, some office organization, and has had weekly Bible studies and book readings to help her mind grow even more. She has also been shadowing the various staff members and their ministry roles to see how a non-profit Christian organization operates. I can't wait to see how God uses Chassidy in the years to come, in whatever He would have her do.

As summer vacation slowly approaches its end, our staff members prepare for the long school year ahead. Please pray for the right students to be in our programs (not in our eyes but in God's), for the planning period to be well-thought out, and for God to be moving in the hearts of the students, volunteers, staff, and even in your own hearts as August fast approaches.

Book Highlight - I don't read much, but I read a book (easy easy read) this summer called Kai'Ro: The Journey of an Urban Pilgrim. I've been told it is similar to Pilgrim's Progress but with more of an urban theme. If you are looking for new books to read, I'd recommend this book. It's target audience is more for people living in neighborhoods like Brentwood, but anyone can find deep conviction and meaning in Kai'Ro's difficult journey through life as a new believer in a fallen world.

Summer Time! (June)

"Dear God, thank you for this day. Thank you that we could eat this Taco Bell and have fun at the park learning how to play disc golf." What a beautiful prayer said by one of our elementary school students on one of our summer field trips. After School Program- Normally a very busy, fun, chaotic, and hype summer, 2nd Mile Ministries is a little quieter for this summer. Without our regular summer day camp (we'll be back at it next summer), we've had to adapt to planning new things for the students to enjoy. In hopes to continue relationships with our elementary students, we've taken them on field trips to different places around Jacksonville, experiencing new things they may not seen or done before. For the field trip that I got to plan, of course I was going to expose them to the wonderful sport of disc golf. Not being able to play this sport myself much anymore because of my health, it was great to see them focus on how to throw their discs as far as they could. It was a lot more walking than they had anticipated, but they enjoyed the time. We got to play on the playground and shoot some hoops afterwards. Then we voted on where to go to lunch. Taco Bell won out, which to my surprise, was even a new experience to one or two kids. On another field trip, the students went to Sweet Pete's, a huge candy shop in downtown Jacksonville where they learned how to make taffy.

Rummage Sale-Summer Trip

Interesting items sold at the sale!

Every year in early June, 2nd Mile Ministries collects items from churches and other individuals for a whole week and then sells them for six crazy hours on a Saturday in hopes to raise money for our Summer Day Camp. Because there is no camp this summer, whatever money that gets raised is going towards our summer missions trip to New Orleans where middle school and high school students will go and help Urban Impact with their summer day camp for a week. 2nd Mile Ministries has modeled and practiced their summer camp after this ministry in New Orleans so hopefully their format will not be completely new and foreign to our students. Please pray for the students to grow in their relationship with Christ, with each other, and with themselves as they spend their weeks serving and leading and growing.

Connect Middle School Program- The middle school program, of which I am responsible for leading, has continued to meet throughout the summer. For me, this summer is going to be a time where I hoping to bring in some more students, whether faces that we've known from the past or completely new students. Where our school-year schedule is very focused on personal development, Bible studies, and becoming leaders, I wanted this summer to have a more inclusive feel to it, one where we get to know new students and incorporate them into our every week rhythms. Our first meeting of the summer, we just played a bunch of indoor games (because of Florida thunderstorms preventing us from outside). The students introduced themselves, their schools, grade they were entering, and their dream jobs. We had four new students come that first week. The following week, rather than games, we went to our community garden a couple blocks from the church where we meet. I've had the privilege of spending more time in this garden lately and getting to understand nature a bit more. We learned valuable lessons on hard work, teamwork, nurturing living things, careful planning, and removing the "weeds" of our lives. We picked eggplants, green peppers, and even a watermelon (it wasn't ripe enough yet). We also weeded, pruned some plants, and collected some greens. Please pray that more students would not only start coming this summer, but as the school year approaches quickly, that students would make the middle school program a natural part of their every week schedules all year.

Family Update- So Max still isn't eating. We don't know why. Doctors don't know why. Developmentally speaking, all of the oral skills are there. At this point it may just be a mental thing for him, preventing anything from going down his throat. On top of the non-eating, he's been throwing up a bunch. We've been tossed around his pediatrician, nutritional doctors, GI, endocrinology, and surgery with little to no answers. My wife and I are hanging in there, but it gets very easy to feel like we can't do enough for Max to get him on the right track. We follow doctors' instructions with very little results of change. He's visited the hospital twice in the past month and a half for low blood sugar issues. We now know how to check his blood sugar at home and how to deal with it if it gets low again, so I guess that's a plus. He's talking more now, his facial expressions are hilarious and beautiful at the same time, and he's just a joy to be around. Please pray that God would intervene. In the gaps of our own understanding and in the evident gaps of the doctors' understanding, pray that God would help Max get off the feeding tube, that his blood sugars would even out, that his puking would decrease.

If you got any more prayers in you, pray for me. I'm having similarly frustrating issues with my own health and getting the run around from different doctors. I'm still not completely healed from a couple years ago and honestly I can't say with confidence that I'm even getting better. All I've learned about my body in the past few years is, "If you don't want any pain or discomfort and you want to be able to sleep more at night, do nothing. Don't pick up anything heavy, don't carry your son for more than a couple minutes, don't throw anything, don't shoot hoops for too long, don't exercise one bit. I've tried easing back into physical activities. I've tried stretching. I've had appointments with my doctor, with a bunch of his various specialist buddies, and no one can tell me what's going on. I have a great long list of things it isn't, so.....that's helpful. Sorry about the venting. I've just been so used to being able to play sports, run around, and using those things to develop relationships and now that that's put on hold (hopefully just for a period of time), it leaves me feeling helpless and hopeless.

I've been trying to understand in the fog of my own grumbling and lack of knowledge what God's plan is for all of this. What does he want me to do, to learn? I know that it's not beyond a shepherd to break his sheep's legs in order to keep it from running down a wrong path and getting hurt. Please pray for how I deal with Max's and my health. Feel free to pray specifically for our health, but for some reason God hasn't answered those prayers how I'd like them to be answered. Praying for my attitude, my faith, and my heart would probably be a better venture. I know God can work on my heart and my mind. Thank you for your time reading these updates. Have a great week!