Clear 2012 - Week 6

Week 6 - Shreveport, LA

Week 6 for us has been back home in the lovely state of Louisiana.  After being in Chicago for three weeks it has been good to be home for a short while before heading down to the Houston, TX area.  

All week we have been working with a ministry called The Hub Urban Ministries located in downtown Shreveport.  What we’ve been doing is working right alongside them in what they are already doing.  

The Hub works with homeless and low income people in the bottoms, a neighborhood located here around downtown Shreveport.  We’ve played bingo at the hospitality house, walked around to different places passing out flyers for events, hung out and talked with people in The Basement (one of The Hub’s locations), and helped with two different community meals in different places.  

Through all of this, I’ve once again seen God do some crazy things.  Before I go any further, I’ve had a hardened heart to this class of people for a while.  I don’t know if it was the what I was taught growing up in school or throughout life, but I haven’t really cared for or liked this social class.  (I only use “social class” because I know no other way to describe it.)  What I’ve learned is that not every homeless person is greedy and expects handouts from others.  Yes, there are those, but our team has had some great conversations with people who are very ambitious and want to work for what they’ve been given.  

Another great part of the week was when we held a water day at the park for neighborhood kids.  It was fun just to watch kids be kids.  I’ve learned that some of these don’t really have that opportunity in their home environments for whatever reason.  We also got to show kids a small portion of God’s love.  One of our guys held a small girl for a long while because she just wanted to be held.  I can only imagine that she doesn’t really experience that at home, and as I think about it now, it kinda breaks my heart.  

God has also shown me a lot about Spiritual Warfare this week.  I began asking God to show me what it looks like in my life, and the lives of others.  Well, I learned that God does answer prayers in a whole new way by showing me that very same day.  It didn’t click till later, but I got to see someone very close to me struggle through a good bit of troubles as we started off.  He showed me later in the week how I can easily let my flesh be a hindrance to the movement of His Spirit.  This was also one of those that clicked later on when I was discussing something with some of our team members.  So I’ve learned firsthand what Spiritual warfare looks like and it’s not pretty.  But our strength lies in the fact that in the end, Satan is defeated.  

Anyway, The Hub is an amazing ministry here in the Shreveport area. They have been working hard in this area to build a reputation as an organization that loves people and the community here sees that.  The Hub is solely supported by donations from individuals and local churches.  Since I can’t give you all the information about them check out The Hub website here.  

I look forward to sharing with you about H-Town next week!

David

Clear 2012 - Week 5

Week 5 - Chicago, IL


This week has been our last up here in the windy city.  Once again, we had a tremendous enjoying time in the city and learning about how people live in different parts of the world.  I’m not sure I will ever want to live in a city this large, but I do enjoy visiting one on occasion.  


Throughout the week God has been revealing tons of stuff to me.  He has shown me I can do great things even when I think I can’t, just by letting him work through me in unlikely situations.  


This week most of us changed form working with our work team to the camp team.  For me this meant going out of a place where I was extremely comfortable, to a place where I was immensely uncomfortable, working directly with kids.  Gladly I was with the oldest group but it was still challenging.  


One of the most amazing things I saw was one of my teammates spontaneously jump into teaching our group about the narrow and wide gates to Heaven and Hell from Matthew 7.  This was definitely a Spirit led moment and we learned that even though most of the kids have grown up in a Christian school, hardly any of them had a personal relationship Jesus.  We later learned that another one of our teammates did the same thing with her class.  


These two instances, along with a tremendous amount of prayer from our entire team, helped lead to many conversations with our students throughout the week, but everything seemed to come to fruition on Friday morning.  Maybe it was because we knew it was the last day, but just about every one of our team members were sharing the Gospel with the kids.  I’m happy to tell you that the Spirit of God moved in mighty ways on July 6 of 2012.  We believe that five students from the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, IL came to know Jesus as their personal Savior.  


This in itself made our three weeks in Chicago absolutely worthwhile.  Five kids came to know the Lord!  I get super excited just typing that. For many more kids, genuine seeds were planted for a future harvest and that excites me for whoever has the chance to see that harvest.  I personally had the chance to show one student that once he is in God’s hand, no one can take him out of it.  


So as a close to our three weeks in Chicago, we were able to see God do some amazing work in our lives and the students lives.  We are a little sad to say goodbye to the windy city, but we are thrilled to be headed back to Shreveport and spend some time working at home for a week.  


See you next week,
David

Clear 2012 - Week 4

Week 4 - Chicago, IL

Well, this is week 2 in good ole Chicago.  So far it’s been a mostly enjoyable experience.  This weekend we had the opportunity to go and spend some time in Millennium Park, right in downtown Chicago.  During this time, some of the team were playing a game we have yet name.  Anyway, it was really cool to watch a random game being played by our staff and have some locals come join in.  Afterwards we had the opportunity to talk with them about the Clear ministry and what we are doing in the city.  

Once Monday hit we were all excited to meet the kids we would be working with for the next two weeks.  Most of these kids attend school were we are working.  It’s a privately run organization that is backed by one of the churches in the Chicago area.  

Now as a Clear staff, we are used to doing things a certain way.  Working with this school has been a challenge for us all.  It feels more like a summer school than a summer camp.  The teachers or counselors act like regular school teachers with their method of doing things.  Our role as a staff is to work alongside them and maybe help equip them with some of the things Clear does.  

Now as challenging as this has been for us, we have experienced and seen God working in what we are doing.  We feel that the first week we have been here doing manual labor has helped us build some credibility with the school staff.  It has been tough for all, but we are taking Paul’s words from Ephesians 6:5-8 seriously. 

Here Paul says...

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.”

So we are doing our best to serve wholeheartedly.  As we are serving the Lord in everything we do, not man. And slowly, we have begun to see effects of our work.  Kids have begun to open up to us during the day.  Through conversations with the adult leaders we have learned that they are impressed with what we do as a ministry. We have even had conversations with some of the younger workers here at the school about how they could possibly be involved with Clear next summer.  

Personally, God has reminded me that I am a leader.  People are watching me from every angle.  And as a leader, I have to be careful about how I react in situations.  This week I hadn’t had the best of reactions every time, but I’ve decided to learn from those mistakes and make tomorrow better than today.  

David