Why We Have a Summer Kids Program

As many of you know we at WAM have a summer kids program.  Every day, Monday through Friday, about 50 kids show up at 10 am and stay until 6 pm. It’s crazy, chaotic, fun and challenging to the 10 or so volunteers and workers who have agreed to take this task on. ( I question their sanity!)  The kids get to do fun things like....make silly hats...

.....float homemade boats...

...sing in the microphone....

....and play with sidewalk chalk....

As you can imagine , summer in the inner city can be a challenging time. It’s hot, it’s boring. There are no neighborhood pools, mom often does not have transportation to take kids to do fun things, most often mom is caught up in trying to survive and keep housing, food, utilities, etc stable. Notice I say Mom , mostly because Dad is long gone or not involved much.  I am not aware of one park with playground equipment in our neighborhood, not that it would be safe to let your kids go play there if there was one.  Here is a picture of our nearest park. Hot sun and grass, fun, fun, fun.....NOT!

Summer camp, vacations, sports camps, music lessons, enrichment activities…. things that kids in the burbs do all summer cost money. Not a priority in the city. Survival is the utmost priority for our families.

But the main reason that we have a summer kids program is because of one little girl that I will call Christina.  A couple of years ago, Christina was a regular fixture at WAM. She was about 10 years old then and showed up everytime the doors were open often by herself and especially if we were having a meal. She would  hang out most of the day at the local soup kitchen, where the creepy single guys hung out too, because she had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Christina was told that she had to leave her house every day around 9 am and was not allowed to come home until 9 pm because her parents were involved in questionable activities during that time.  So there she was, a 10 year old, roaming the neighborhood all day, begging to stay at friends houses, eating at the soup kitchen, fending for herself. Eventually people caught on and she did receive help. I am told she is doing well in foster care with a family in Sylvania.  But her story kind of stuck with us. There are a lot more Christinas out there. Maybe not in such dire straights but struggling none the less.

So, with the help of the YMCA, the Sophia Quintero Center and the Northwest Ohio Baptist Association, we have a summer kids program. Most weeks we are blessed to have mission groups from all over the country coming to do VBS with the kids in the afternoons. Here is the one that was here last week. They were awesome!

This week our mission group cancelled. They wanted to help out closer to home since they are from the tornado ravaged south.  Understandable.  But that has made this week difficult and hectic for our workers and volunteers.

In spite of the chaos, they have been patient. They have worked long hours and have come home exhausted. ( I know this because two of them are my kids!)  They have...

 put up with wild kids...

 cleaned up throw up...

 made numerous runs to the dollar store...

 gone without lunch.... tried to track down absent parents who did not show up to get their kids...

 put numerous bandaids on numerous kids...

 put up with big needs and little resources...

 had to be very creative...

  hugged...dried tears...

 shown love...

 shown mercy ...

shown patience...

 shown perseverance...

shown self control...

gotten messy...

 gotten wet….

All in the name of Jesus...

 All because they know what the alternative is for these kids.

All because they get the big picture. 

 I think that’s pretty amazing! 

Feel led to help? There are still two weeks empty, without a mission group. Do you know any groups that are looking for a place to serve? Let us know!  Want to volunteer for a day, a half day, a half hour? (are you crazy?) Come on down! Most of all help us out by praying for peace, safety and fun for the workers and children, and that they would “get it” that Jesus loves them and we do to.

Latoya

In doing what we do , we meet the most interesting, wonderful people….

people who somehow make your life richer for having been in it.

Sometimes you don’t even realize that they have niggled their way into your heart until they are firmly established there.

 Many of the Baby U parents in our last graduating class were just like that. Each class has had a different personality and this class seemed to have a wonderful thirst for knowledge. There are always some who are just there for the freebies. That is to be expected in doing what we do. Our job is to figure out which ones are willing to learn and run with it.

 This class however…was different.

 First of all we had a record number of dads attending, do you know how rare that is in our neighborhood?! A dad who is present in their child’s life …. and not only present but participating in a parenting class? That’s pretty cool. There were two teen dads , both with teen moms expecting their first child. There was a teen dad that after our class on reading to your child, read to his unborn child every week.  There was a single, older dad who fought CSB for custody of his 3 year old twin boys and won, even though he was older than most parents of toddlers and even though he can’t read. Those boys are his life. Everything he does is for them.

 Here’s our class…..

And then there was Lotoya… at first she really wasn’t too sure about us, but quickly established herself in our class.

 She was a single mom of two little girls, Miracle, 7 and Madison 3. Latoya was a talker. She called Monica , her outreach worker, every single day, sometimes more than once, just to check in and see what was going on. She interrupted me constantly in class, always talking about her kids and her family. She was one of these people who always smiled while she was talking, so it was impossible to be irritated with her interrupting.  She talked about her struggles with her kids and the funny things they would say when she was trying to discipline them. She talked a lot about her grandparents who had passed away in the last couple of years and how much she really missed them. It was clear that she had had some significant losses in her life.  She joked and teased constantly. She threatened to quit Baby U every week if she didn’t win the weekly gift card drawing. She teased the big burly teen dads who rarely spoke even though she was about half their height. She came to every single class and each week told me how much money she had saved up with the Toy R Us gift cards she had received for attending. At our next to last class she proudly told me that she had $80 in gift cards saved up and couldn’t wait to go shopping for Miracle’s Birthday coming up. That was the last time we saw her.

On a Friday morning, just before our Saturday Baby U graduation and picnic, we got a phone call informing us that the young mom and three year old girl who had passed away in a fire that morning were our Latoya and Madison.  We were stunned and devastated. We had really come to love her.

The next day, at our graduation we took time to remember her and pray for her family. There were a lot of tears. There was a big hole in our class where Latoya should have been. We made our picnic a celebration of the lives of Latoya and Madison.

I like to think that Latoya knew Jesus. I am told that she attended a church that preaches the gospel. She definitely heard the gospel every week at Baby U. I like to think that she had a happy reunion with her grandparents and most of all is enjoying the presence of our Lord.

She will definitely not be forgotten and if there is anything we have learned, it is to hug people a little tighter, tell them often how much you love  and appreciate them and be faithful with the Word because you really never know when you will never see someone again….

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage --- with great patience and careful instruction.

   

The Least of These

This blog is a result of a conversation that I had recently with someone who encouraged me to share the ups and downs of working in an inner city ministry. Since I have only managed to get two newsletters out in the last almost four years a blog seemed more appropriate.  We meet amazing people and are able to witness God working in amazing ways. Due to time constraints we often don't get to share the big and little victories that we have the privelege of seeing on a day to day basis.  We often don't get to share the struggles either. Hopefully this will be a forum for both of those things to happen and a chance to those who are unfamiliar with inner city minsitry to get a taste of what life is like for those stuck in generational poverty and those of us who try to help them. So here is the first post.....Baby University is a parenting program for low income parents in Toledo's Old South End....




She sat at the table and just cried.  “Why are you people so nice to me?”  This single mom of three and one on the way had been scraping by so much that she had recently lost the use of her car. She couldn’t make the payment so a family member offered to make the payment for her, only he took the car for the month in exchange.  This left her struggling to get to the store, GED classes, etc. Any time she wanted to go anywhere she had three little ones in tow and she herself very pregnant. No matter the weather or time of day, whenever they needed to go somewhere, they all walked. Do you remember how cold and rainy the month of April was in Toledo? No fun, but not uncommon in WAM’s neck of the woods. Once Baby U became aware of her struggle, we were able to buy her a bus pass for the month, hence the tears. “ This really is a special program, and you are a one of a kind person” she remarked….”you give us hope.” At that moment we were able to share with her that it really isn’t just Baby U caring for her, someone else is really looking out for her too and that someone else is her Heavenly Father. She smiled and said, “Yes, I can see that.” The bus pass seemed like such a small thing but to her it was an affirmation that God cares for a struggling single mom and that maybe, just maybe there is something to all of this. To all of you who have donated your time , money and resources this year to Baby U we thank you. Tomorrow we will graduate our third class of parents and none of it would have been possible without the Body of Christ working together in the beautiful way that you have. Whatever thing you have done for us be it small or big, it was HUGE in the eyes of our parents and in God’s eyes as well .  ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine ( or sisters), you did for me.’  Matthew 25:40.