Oooh this is getting good!

Only one month ago: apple sauce, goldfish, cheetos, and apples.

In the past month: bananas, carrots, apple juice, yogurt, pears, blueberries, pancakes, pumpkin bars, potatoes, peas, broccoli, meatballs, and of course apple sauce, goldfish, cheetos, and apples.

These are the foods Max has been willing to eat or try. We are hoping this will translate to the beginnings of calorie-counting and slowly removing the amount of milk he needs via food pump. Keep him (and us) in prayer.

BLOCK Middle School Program - We've had a small number of kids coming so far this year but the connections and relationship building have flourished. Out of the kids, I'd say most are soft-spoken, shy, and introverted. However, after a few weeks of playing games, their friendships have been forming and growing. Who knew it would only take a little Wipeout on the Wii. In connecting with the Young Life coordinator, we were invited to attend a showing of Hamilton downtown at the Times Union Theatre. Despite being late on a Wednesday night and getting the students back home around 11pm, we had a blast. It was long, yes, but the kids couldn't stop talking about their favorite songs and characters. King George was a favorite for sure.

We have also started doing some Bible lessons while watching The Chosen. The free tv show takes a deeper dive into the disciples of Christ. Spoiler alert about the first episode. You can skip down below the picture of "Jesus" if you don't want to know. Episode one follows Mary from Magdala and how Jesus met her at her lowest point. We only see Jesus for maybe the last couple minutes of the episode, but with the music swelling and her life about to change, one of our students said, "Oooh this is getting good!" The show has been very powerful in my recent life. It is not a replacement for the gospels, but it does make the people from the Bible feel more accessible and relatable to us today.

Family Fall Festival - We were able to have our Family Fall Festival this year! Last year we cancelled it due to covid and we were debating whether to give it another year, but with covid cases trending downward in our area, we gave it a shot. With social distancing practices in place, we had about 20 trunk or treat games and 20 health/community vendors come out to hand out candy and connect the people with different resources in their community. At the end of the day, we had over 500 people attend! Although it was smaller than previous years, I saw so much joy from the first-time volunteers, from former students who came to help out, and from the families who came to dance to the music, collect some candy, and have a great time. The Jacksonville Free Press even wrote an article about the event! You can click the link below to check it out.

https://jacksonvillefreepress.com/fall-festival-reignites-community-transformation-and-empowerment/

Unfortunately I was very busy the day of the festival and did not take many pictures of the event. If you want to see pictures of the event, you can either go to the 2nd Mile Ministries page on facebook, or you can follow 2nd Mile Ministries on instagram.

Follow block_brentwood on instagram to see this cup stacking competition play out.

Here We Go!

two:fiftytwo After School Program - New kids, new director, new safety protocols, and of course, new challenges. We hired a brand new After School Program director who is new to 2nd Mile. His name is Holden and he has previous experience as a middle school teacher. It seems that each new week of school, he has more students signed up to participate in the after school activities. As we get to know and learn about the new students, there are already some good signs as far as the value of this program. Each day, the students journal about their feelings, energy level, and a gratitude for their day. Some of the students ask for the spelling of the adults' names that help out to put down as their gratitude, others write down "being here" as their gratitude. There's no doubt that having safe spaces where students receive extra attention and love is highly valued by kids and their families. Pictured below is an activity where students made paper rockets that would be launched off of a straw with their breath. Pray for Holden as he adjusts to 2nd Mile, adjusts to more and more students, and prepares for a long but fun-filled year of smiles, tears, and laughter.

BLOCK Middle School Program - Back in the building in person, I'm excited to invest a lot of time in these kids, growing them into leaders and giving them a greater understanding of who they are and who God has made them to be. So far we have a solid five students and the years they've been a part of 2nd Mile are 7 years, 5 years, 4 years, 3 years, and 2 years. It's been great to see the kids in person. Our current project has been constructing a new ping pong table we got for the program. The kids learned about different tools, tool safety, and working as a team. One of the kids who is obsessed with Legos has really taken to working extra time on it. Hopefully, when it gets finished, the kids will have much more appreciation of it knowing they had a hand in building it. In a few weeks, three of these students and I will be going to see the musical Hamilton as a part of a potential new partnership with an organization that I'll share more about below. This past month I had the privilege of celebrating Jabarie's birthday at Top Golf. Jabarie has been with 2nd Mile since he was in 2nd grade. He is now in 7th grade. He is a perfect picture of resilience and has got a good heart. I'll just say he's been through a lot more than any kid his age should have to go through. It's good to see him still smiling.

Young Life - Pray for this to be a good partnership for 2nd Mile. Because of our small staff, the number of events involving high school students is down. Doing virtual programs during the pandemic and having nothing in person was a major blow to being in touch with those students. Thankfully, we had a meeting with someone in charge of the Northwest Jacksonville region of Young Life. I know Young Life is a Christian organization all over the country. As of right now, they have students, staff, the program, just no physical space to operate due to restrictions with extra curricular activities in the public schools. Rather than 2nd Mile reinventing the wheel, we are hoping to help be a part of something God is already doing with this organization, hopefully being able to provide the space for high schoolers to have fun, grow, and be safe.

Exciting things coming up - We are having our Family Fall Festival October 23rd! We missed last year due to COVID, but we're hoping to bring back the excitement in community with lots of trunk games, candy, food, music, and raffles. One thing we definitely could use help with is candy. If you would like to donate candy to 2nd Mile, you can ship it to:

1650 Margaret St. Suite 302, #339, Jacksonville, FL 32204

Or, you could make a donation on our website at 2ndmilejax.com and in the comments write, "candy for Fall Festival".

Other ways to get involved or even see more of what's going on with 2nd Mile.

-Check out our facebook page (2nd Mile Ministries)

-Follow 2ndmileministries on instagram

-Follow block_brentwood on instragram (our middle school program)

Unexpected fruit

Last night (this morning) at 3am, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I had gone to bed at 7pm with a big headache and I guess my body had had enough rest. Having recently watched some gardening videos on youtube, I perused the home page and a video on dragon fruit was suggested to me. "Why not? Maybe this will help me sleep." From seed to fruit, dragon fruit can take as long as 7 years! Even if dragon fruit was someone's favorite food in the world, why would they spend all those days, weeks, months, years watering, pruning, tying up, protecting, watching, pruning, protecting, watching, etc.? Going down the youtube rabbit hole, as one does, I eventually happened upon a video of a huge dragon fruit farm in Vietnam where they had so many of this fruit growing. It was incredible! In case you want to join the rabbit hole with me, here's the vid.

To have those first few years of work with slow growth but no fruit, I can imagine the discouragement and countless times a grower may want to throw in the towel. Imagine if that plant gets a disease, dries out, or stops growing just before the fruit was about to come. The gardener can only do so much to ensure fruit comes. This reality is probably why it is suggested to plant many seeds of dragon fruit or to replant the mature cactus stems so that you don't put all your hope in one seed, one stem.

In this last decade of ministry, there have been months, years of amazing fruit, growth in individuals, in relationships and then all of a sudden, some of those people for one reason or another, are gone from our lives. In many cases, this is due to those students and families moving away. The past 18 months of the pandemic have really tried to throw a wrench in the spokes of how we've done ministry in the past. With new variants to the virus popping up, it's uncertain when things will go back to some sort of normal. 

However, one of my favorite occurrences in ministry has been when students return after a long time gone to either rejoin our programs or just come back and say hi. Last week, I walked in through the doors of the church and saw a somewhat familiar face walking out. This face had a mask on but I could see his eyes smiling. Honestly, at first glance I thought he was someone else that I worked with at camp a few years prior. This young man had facial hair, was about my height, but had the same boyish charm he had had when he was in our after school program as a 4th grader. He is now 19. That day I had a lot of work to get done, but he challenge me to one on one, and whenever someone challenges me to one on one, I will almost always accept that invitation to connect via a game. He was in our program in 2011, the first year of the after school program. He even came to our middle school program for some months but has since been off the map. We reminisced about that first year. "That was the best year of my childhood," said this barely-adult adult. After our game, he video-called his younger sister and brother, who were also both in the program that first year. I was surprised at how quickly they recognized who I was and how joyfully the memories flooded back to their eyes.

As we start this school year, we hope to be able to build into whoever walks through our doors. We pray they experience the love of God for years to come. It was a tremendous encouragement to me to see this family again.

Prayer request: With the two:fiftytwo After School Program starting next week (with a program director new to 2nd Mile and students new to 2nd Mile), and the BLOCK Middle School Program also beginning next week, pray that God would bring exactly the right people and the right number through our doors in order to do his work. 

Another prayer request: Max has started Pre-K! (I know, right?). The bus systems all across the country are out of whack with shortages in drivers. Two of Max's drivers already quit, making transportation and balancing mine and Missi's work schedules a difficult road to navigate and make routine. He goes to a school about 15 minutes away (the closest school with a qualified nurse to administer his tube feedings), so travel gets annoying with all the miscommunications going on between buses, schools, and us. I blame no one, it's just an unfortunate circumstance. Pray that God would provide reliability in the bus system enough to allow both of us to continue our jobs without disruptions.

First day! Pre-K!

Work Hard. Play Hard.

 

I’m sorry. This blog will be about sports. You have been warned.

Take a moment to remember a time when you worked so physically hard that afterwards you were so worn out that you were dripping sweat, sucking air, and could barely move. What was the activity that caused this reaction? What was the reason behind throwing your body into such self-destruction? Say your answer out loud to yourself.

I used to run track and cross country in high school, and continued to play basketball recreationally in college. However, since college, I’ve lost most, if not, all of my physical endurance. I’m still active, but for much shorter periods of time. I guess that’s somewhat to be expected with age. This past February, wanting to do something different, I went out for a run. I went to a park that had about a two mile loop bordering the edges. I could barely “run” a couple minutes before being out of breath and stopping to walk. Thoughts of “Well, I guess running’s not for me” ran through my head, and at a much more convincing pace than I was I might add. The more I forced myself to run, the more I could see the progress. I’ve been able to play with Max longer, able to do more work, able to play more 1v1 basketball games at the church.

This past month has been an amazing month for viewing sports for me. First off, the Milwaukee Bucks. Wow! Regardless of your own team allegiances, this was huge for the city, local small businesses, the franchise, and in my opinion, the NBA. One thought that crossed my mind was that it was 50 years since there first championship. 50 years! That’s ten years longer than the Israelites wandered the desert before making it to the promised land. If that victory can arouse an entire city to celebrate something as trivial as being the best in the world at a child’s game, imagine the joy and jubilation from the anticipation and eventual coming of the Messiah for God’s people back in the day! I’ve dwelled on the word “hope” a lot in regards to the Bucks. “Calm down Andrew, it’s just a team.” No, YOU calm down! Just kidding. In my life, I’ve gotten used to the Bucks being just good enough to get kicked out of the first round of the playoffs each year. Them winning a championship in my lifetime, especially them being a small-market team where any all-stars tend to leave Milwaukee to join bigger teams with bigger money, seems unlikely, seemed improbable. What I love about this team is just how hard they play…on every possession. I understand why Giannis takes so long at the free throw line, to gain just a few more seconds of rest.

I might get some flack for this, but I have enjoy watching the CrossFit Games way more than the Olympic Games this year. I’ve never done CrossFit, never plan on doing CrossFit, but I have a tremendous respect for the athletes that do it on a professional level. If you’re unfamiliar, the point of the CrossFit Games is to crown the fittest man/woman in the world, not the strongest, the fittest. Athletes from all around basically compete in exercising. Sounds silly, but when you watch an athlete just absolutely crush weightlifting just as easily as handstand walking, jump roping, swimming, biking, running, you tend to wonder what they can’t do. They compete in about three or four workouts/competitions each day and gain points based on their results. Each event ends the same way, athletes race to cross the finish line and then lay flat on their backs gasping for air, hands on heads, trying to recover as quickly as possible before the next competition. Why? Why do this to yourself? In many interviews, these athletes will talk about the desire to push the limits of what humans are capable of.

This year's CrossFit Games winner

There is something beautiful, even spiritual, in how struggles produce strength. The longer a tree withstands the elements, the stronger the trunk gets, being able to take on more. The more pressure and work your put on your muscles, the more they are able to withstand in the future. A vinedresser cuts away the branches that don’t produce fruit and casts them into the fire, while the ones that do, he prunes to become more fruitful. Those that have gone through a tragedy in their lives tend to be the most capable of comforting those who will go through the same thing. I can only hope and pray that when this pandemic is over (and it will eventually be over) that we come out of it stronger than we were before. I feel the stages in the life cycle of brokenness and struggle is:

1.      1. Breaking

2.      2. Broken

3.      3. Healing

4.      4. Healed

5.      5. Strengthened

6.      6. Strength to heal others

I feel many are still in stages 1-3 of this pandemic. The difference between this pandemic and a successful athlete is that one of them happened to us unexpectedly and the other was a taken-on struggle. Both hurts will produce strength. One reaps mourning; the other, glory.

Are you letting life happen to you or are you making life happen? In what ways has God equipped you in your life to help strengthen others? Who do you have the capacity to encourage, love, and acknowledge today? Spread the love. Do you yourself feel empty, alone, broken, in need of encouragement, love, and acknowledgement? Tell God about it, ask him for healing. It will not fall on deaf ears.

Romans 5:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Thanks for reading! I promise there will be a more update-like blog next month.

Summer Day Camp and Open Court

Who knew screaming at kids is what I needed to make me feel more alive?

Although other programs including Tapestry Talks and As We Gather have been going on, what has consumed my work life this past month has been Summer Day Camp and Open Court.

Notable facts about Summer Day Camp:

-This is 2nd Mile's 12th year of camp (started way back in 2009)

-This is the 2nd year where a former student has been the director (shout out to Ahmad!)

-My role at camp is leading Challenge Circle (teaching kids different cheers, games, and chants, hence all the screaming and yelling)

-Camp is six weeks long

-This year's theme is the different continents

-Almost 100% of the campers are new to 2nd Mile, allowing for developing relationships with families in the future.

-Kids love water day!

Fun facts about Open Court:

-It rains almost every day in Florida, at least a little bit, which means that the first 3 open court Fridays have had lots of rain, forcing a lot of game time indoors.

-Kids don't care if it's raining outside. They will keep playing unless told otherwise.

-Despite the rain, we've still had a good turnout.

-Music, concessions, basketball, football, dancing, Connect 4, chess, and Uno are all favorites at Open Court.

-Hopefully, we will get to have a dry (please pray) Friday with lots of hoopin'.

Ministry in the summer is a lot different than during the school year. It's a sprint vs. a marathon. It's strength vs. endurance. It's an energy drink vs. coffee.

Please pray for energy and endurance.

More to come in the future.

 

May - We presume the past is virtually behind us

Try to match the quote to the person:

1. "I got back on zoom all by myself without any help!"

2. "I don't go to church but I've been more interested in God since quarantine."

3. "I'm scared of the halfpipe but I'm going to be brave."

4. "Can you please leave?"

 

A.  A high school student who designed and helped paint our Nutritional Garden fence

B.  Max, my 4 year old

C.  One of our elderly participants in the As We Gather Program

D.  A middle school student in our BLOCK program.

Answers are at the bottom of this blog.

BLOCK Middle and High School Program - Looking back, the relationships that have been built for many years with our older students definitely took a hit when the pandemic forced things to be more virtual. What was brought evermore to light as the months passed on was that teens just want to be around each other in person. As I took over the already unraveling program in January, an overall goal I had was to be more fun and interactive in the virtual meetings, but also create a safe in person activity or event each month to get us back together and out of our isolation funk. And although the quantity of the program was less than ideal, I believe, looking back, that the quality of what we were given to work with made for an enriching and welcoming program for those who attended. The silver lining was that we got to know a few kids very well and give them more attention than they would've otherwise had with a big group. For an end of the year celebration, we brought 3 students to Adventure Landing in Jacksonville, FL. It reminded me like if Wisconsin Dells water parks had a little brother. We enjoyed the water park with a wave pool, lazy river, and some awesome water slides (one including a huge halfpipe), some go-karts, batting cages, and some much needed slushies and pizza on the hot day. Seeing these kids up close rather than behind the screens of their computers and phones was a welcome change to the day as well. Adventure Landing, a great exclamation point ending to a book I never want to pick up again.

Brayden attempting to hit 70mph fastballs

This summer, BLOCK will take a break from weekly formal meetings. Instead, the church will be back open. Fridays will commence with Open Court again. For two hours each Friday, anyone is welcome to play basketball, some cornhole (beanbags), or a variety of indoor games. Please pray that lots of people show up and enjoy a few hours of fun and competition in a safe space.

Other random snapshots from ministry and life last month - The As We Gather program, which is a virtual community of isolated elderly folks learning technology, socializing, and growing together has been a real hit. Although it has taken a lot of handholding to get participants comfortable with the process of logging in on zoom, from what I've been told, they are loving this program and what they are learning. I believe they do daily devotionals, daily exercise, and a daily activity, whether it's art, cooking, or having a guest speaker. Pray for continued growth and interest in this program. This is a need in our community on which we've just begun to take notice and action.

Summer Day Camp starts next week. We will be in person. It will be small, but I believe very impactful in the life of the students and ministry. I'm sure you have your own experiences recently where being in person with either friends or family has been a welcome breath of fresh air. I'm excited to reprise my role of leading Challenge Circle a couple times each week. I'm not sure if there's a way to word search "Challenge Circle" in my previous blogs, but if there is, I know I've expressed my love and excitement of the very existence of this outdoor camp activity.

One Saturday in May, a kid named Tyler came to the garden to help me help him execute his design for our garden fence. What started out as a fun "Design our garden fence" activity on a piece of paper to keep participants in our Garden Day from getting bored turned into a kid taking an idea and running with it. Interested in graphic design and just finishing his sophomore year in high school, Tyler sent me this in April:

In May, we painted this:

Not bad if I do say so myself. It's not completely finished yet, but every time I go to the garden, seeing the fence just makes the experience of the garden just a bit brighter and happier.

Speaking earlier of silver linings, I'll start off by saying it has been a stressful month health-wise. After traveling to North Carolina for a wedding weekend, Max came down with a fever. A routine Monday morning doctor's appointment eventually turned into a 6 night stay at the hospital. With strep and a blood infection, Max was not looking his best energetic, always happy, always goofy self. There were moments where it was unbearable to hear his raspy achy voice and lethargic demeanor. Missi stayed with him in the hospital and I stayed at home with my own leg infection, bad reactions to antibiotics, and painful attempts at walking. This picture of Max might be the most silverest of silvery linings, for this indicated the turning point in the hospital where he was able to stand, smile, and begin again to goof.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you'd like to help out the ministry in any way, here are some simple ways how:

-Pray, like actual pray to God for us.

-Donate for our Open Court (we could always use new basketballs, ball pumps, and new games)

-Follow 2nd Mile Ministries on facebook and instagram

-Follow block_brentwood on instagram to see my fumbled attempts at social media in real time for the BLOCK program.

-Give a donation at 2ndmilejax.com

-If you shop on amazon.com, shop at smile.amazon.com instead and choose 2nd Mile Ministries as your organization of choice. Amazon donates a percentage of your purchases to us.

Love y'all. Hope this will be a great summer for you! (Answers below)

Answers to the above quotes: 1C, 2A, 3D, 4B (he would say to the nurses if they stayed too long in his hospital room)

April - 3, 2, 1, Action!

This past week it got up to 99 degrees. I was just starting to get back into running again. Guess I have to stop and wait for the fall.

Just kidding.

BLOCK - In April, we had a guest speaker from the Mayo Clinic talk about tobacco and e-cigarettes to our students. Probably the most memorable thing from the talk was a picture of a table covered in school supplies. It turns out that there were multiple e-cigarettes shaped like school supplies in the photo, showing that they are marketing them to kids. A stat was given that 13% of high school students use e-cigarettes. For some reason I thought this was a high number, but when I asked one of our high schoolers, she thought it was too low. E-cig companies market them as "healthier" than regular cigarettes, show a diverse array of flavors, and obviously try to package them to look like pens (some even function as pens), flash drives, and pencil sharpeners. Scary stuff.

Action Day - One of my favorite parts of the ministry is when we actually go out and do something to show love for the neighborhood. I do often talk about our garden that is accessible to the community, but when we go out and pick up trash (often near corner stores, abandoned lots, and streets without many residents), it is a great feeling of visibly seeing positive change within a few hours of work. A couple weeks ago, we had about 25 people come out to help take action. A week leading up to Action Day, we handed out flyers to the neighbors to invite them to come help pick up trash for an hour on surrounding streets. Although we didn't get a huge response, there were multiple neighbors that came outside to clean up their yards. One group of volunteers did trash clean up, while another group headed to the garden to begin painting our new fence.

Quick flashback. At our garden day in March, I had papers with a picture of the blank fence along with markers for people to "Design our Fence" while they were taking a break from planting and weeding. I didn't really think anyone really took the time to do it. A couple weeks later, I get an email from one of their teachers with a design idea from a student that came to the garden day. He is interested in graphic design and put together the following picture. With a few tweeks, we are in the process of making this design happen.

Back to April. The base color of the fence got painted. Hopefully at the end of May, we'll have the final product. It will be so cool to see a student's vision come to life and us be able to facilitate that leadership. This is just a small picture of what we are about at 2nd Mile-helping people realize their own leadership abilities and be a support for that.

Every couple years or so, we get a huge supply of free mulch for the grounds of the garden. This particular batch had pine needles scattered throughout and it has made the garden smell so good. There was so much mulch that we are still slowly scattering it in the remaining parts of the garden.

Things coming up - We will have an in person summer day camp this summer! This will be our first exclusively in person program since March 2020. We are keeping it to a 20 kids maximum to allow for proper social distancing, but please pray for the health and safety of the camp, for the right kids and families to participate, as well as a fun time for the kids. It feels like forever since we've been in our sweet spot of ministry.

I'm also looking forward to the prospect of doing something different in the summer in regards to BLOCK. I'm still planning what to do and how to do it, but I'm hoping for something more casual, something more in person, and something more fun. Please pray that God would reveal what this is, how he wants to show his love to this neighborhood, and pray for my own strength and endurance in the process.

Enjoy some before and after pictures from Action Day!

Adding some more color to the garden

Big ol' pile o' mulch

Hunting for trash

Trash bagged. Road sign and tire finds.

Sweet sweet smell of pine