Young Life:)

A daily "crisis" exists in the hallways of high schools all around the world. It's called low self-worth, which leads to serious problems in high school teenagers, such as drugs and depression. Young Life is a program that gives caring adults the opportunity to love high school students for who they are and believe in who they can become.

I randomly went to a Young Life camp as a leader 2 summers ago, not knowing much about it, and it changed my life! I didn't like it as a high school student because it just wasn't my crowd or interest. Being on the other side of the fence, I can see the purpose of the program and how amazing it is. I have been a Young Life leader for over a year now and it has been the most rewarding and life-giving thing I've been a part of. Each day I choose to respond to this daily crisis in the lives of students I've grown to know and love.

The Young Life mission is to introduce high school students to Jesus Christ and walk with them as they grow in their faith. They accomplish this by establishing true relationships with students and inviting them to do adventurous, lively things together. This happens at weekly club meetings, bible study groups, summer camps and every day happenings.

Young Life is in over 50 countries and have several different types of programs including programs for disabled teens(Capernum Young Life), teen moms (Young Lives) and middle school students (Wyldlife).

For more info on the organization visit their site, http://www.younglife.org/. There is awesome pictures, testimonies and factual info on the organization itself.

If you are a Christian with a heart for high school students and you're looking to get involved with an amazing program to do ministry, let me know! There is most likely a Young Life program near you!

Riding for a Cause

This weekend is the BP MS 150, a 2-day bike ride from Houston to Austin. News reports just released that day one is canceled due to expected heavy rains. This extreme bike ride is in the efforts of raising money for research for the chronic disease, multiple sclerosis. Each rider needs to raise $500 in order to participate again next year. The bikers stop mid-way and camp out for a night of rest and finish the race on Sunday to Austin. Car rides bring the bikers back home after they finish.

I have several friends that are signed up for this big event and I'm excited they are riding for a good cause! What a fun, athletic way to do something extreme to support an important cause! I hope to ride next year in the event.

Walking for a Cause

This past Saturday was the Charity Of Your Choice Walk in Telfair (a neighborhood in Sugar Land). I work for TelfairLife, which is a non-profit that plans events and coordinates community in Telfair. For this annual event I had a huge part as the Volunteer Coordinator. The event was a success despite the morning rain. All were glad that the walkers were given ponchos in their goodie bags!

The unique element about this event is that your registration fee of $25 goes directly to one of the 14 different charities represented. People can form a team of walkers and raise additional money for the charity of their choice. This year charities involved were Brazos Bend Guardianship Services, Child Advocates of Fort Bend, Fort Bend Family Promise, Fort Bend Community Partners Rainbow Room, Arc of Fort Bend, Pregnancy Resource Center of Fort Bend, Fort Bend Regional Council of Substance Abuse, Asians Against Domestic Abuse, Fort Bend Education Foundation, Fort Bend Habitat for Humanity, National Alliance on Mental Illness Fort Bend, Second Mile Mission Center, East Fort Bend Human Needs Ministry and Shape Up Sugar Land.

Over 600 walkers showed up to walk the 5k trail around the lake in Telfair on Saturday and over $60,000 was given away to all the charities.

It was neat to be behind the scenes and help plan this event that gives to people beyond the day of the event.

Compassion

Compassion International exists as a Christian Child Advocacy organization that releases children from spiritual, physical, economic and social poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults. It was founded in 1952 by Rev. Everett Swanson to provide Korean War orphans food, shelter. education and health, as well as Christian training. Today Compassion helps more than 1 million children in 25 different countries. They are Christ-centered, child-focused and church-based.

The way they work is that people can sponsor a child and donate $38 a month which go towards providing for the child's daily needs, education and health care. You have the opportunity to send letters back and forth with the child you sponsor. You can send pictures and messages of love and encouragement.

This is such a neat organization. I have several friends that are child sponsors and love it. They also have a large staff based in Colorado Springs and have a summer internship for college students if you are interested!

See http://www.compassion.com/ for more details or if you are interested in sponsoring a child.

Wyclef Jean in Haiti

Wyclef Jean is a man that came from poverty himself who says used to ride a donkey to school as a kid. Wyclef is also a music artist who sings about his experiences and passions. His passion to change the lives of children and families in the poverty-stricken country of Haiti has birthed the foundation, yelehaiti.


Yelehaiti is not a charity, but a movement. They have provided aid, food and medical supplies to Haiti since the earthquake. They have partnered with several organizations to provide relief to suffering people in Haiti.

Click the link below to see their blog and find out more about their organization.




http://www.yele.org/

In the backyard of UH

The 3rd Ward of Houston is located just in the backyard of UH. Cross Scott street and you go from college community to poor community. There is a Christian organization called Generation One which has planted itself in the heart of the 3rd Ward community for the past 3 years. Generation One is committed to making to sure the next generation knows what their potential is and believes they can achieve it. Their mission is to physically and spiritually rebuild the 3rd Ward by coordinating volunteer skills, talents and resources. They focus most of their time on the youth of the area. The newly finished building located at 3306 Dennis, Houston, TX 77004. Tutoring, bible studies and various youth programs take place in this building. Each summer they take kids to camp and throughout the year they do various field trip outings.

Here is a picture of some of the neighborhood kids helping paint the mural in the new building. The mural is a beautiful picture of the story of Jesus Christ working in the 3rd ward. You can see part of the completed mural in the second picture below.

I have personally volunteered as a tutor and worked to clean up yards and paint houses in the past. Kids get off the school bus and instead of going home, they come to the Generation One building to hang out and get their homework done. It is so neat to watch the kids desire to learn and how they accept the love that the volunteers offer.

If you are interested in getting involved with this you can contact Kenzie Malkemas at kjackson@generationone.net or 281-900-1994. They are in need of after school tutors from 4-6 p.m. They also have a mentor program where you work more closely with one child. It is just around the corner!

Extreme responses to the Haiti crisis

There are some really extreme people out there. What is cool is that these guys' extreme efforts are going to help some people who are extremely in need.

Cort Gatliff and Christian Kauffman are two high school seniors who have decided to spend their last semester of high school coasting across America on their bikes to raise money for Haiti. They are starting in Santa Monica, California and cycling all the way to Savannah, Georgia in one month. This means they will have to travel around 700 miles a week and spend 7 hours a day on their bikes. They plan to do homework in hotels at night and have their parents following them by car the whole way. They have set our to raise $50,000 to go towards well building in Haiti, which would allow for 25 wells to be rehabilitated in Haiti. Wow- are you impressed, because I am!

I found this other guy named Chris Juhasz, from St. Louis, who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro this past January. He climbed in Living Water Internationals name to raise money for a well to be built in Tanzania (approximately $16,000).

Back from the Border

I'm back from the border mission trip and I can report that it was a true success! We had a kids program each day and a group worked to finish contructing the bathroom of the church in the colonia. I really enjoyed playing with the kids and planning the Wednesday night block party for the community. The party was my favorite part of the week. Families who showed up recieved donated clothes and shoes, hotdogs for dinner and attended a church service. My spanish skills were challenged most when I walked with others door to door to invite the community to the party.

Here is a picture of Miquel, me, Alfredo, Belen and Winnie during our kids program time :) I loved my group of 4 year olds!



It was so neat to be part of something that make such an impact. There was a beauty among the poor community. There was joy in the childrens faces as they just played together in the dirt yards- not needing the latest high tech video game to keep them occupied. The women gathered in the kitchen to make meals for their family- no fast food pick up or fend for yourself. No shopping mall or strip center at the front of the neighborhood- they survive with the neccessities and don't live in excess.


Children don't look at their neighbor as dirty or poor- just living to get by. No judgement or division of people. What if we lived with the mentality the poor have? What things that we currently worry about would leave our minds and what would really matter to us?

My personal response

With Spring Break just around the corner students have a week off from all school responsibilities and maybe even from work. The talk of today is "what are you doing for spring break?" Some are vacationing, some "doing nothing", some seeing family and friends and others are responding to a crisis.

There is a group of UH students heading down to the border to do some mission work next week which I will be part of. I'm really looking forward to this! I am very passionate about the Mexican culture and it is a dream of mine to do a long term mission in a spanish-speaking country. This trip is a stepping stone to getting there.

The particular place we are going is a colonia located in Mission, Texas. (we aren't actually crossing the border but could throw a stone and hit it!) Colonias are basically illegal subdivisions created by rural settlers and are founded near the U.S./Mexico border. Residents lack essential elements of infrastructure because they build their own homes and use what they can get. I had the opportunity to go down there this past December for a pre-visit and we saw how a family of 9 was living in a gutted out school bus! See pic below.. the house structure on the left was built by folks like us who went down to serve this community.

We will be working with Buckner International and have a kids program planned, construction projects and a block party for Wednesday night where we will give the community dinner, have a worship night at the little baptist church they built there and also give the families donated items that were collected from us.

Stay tuned and I'll post pics from the trip and give a report on how it went! Send us your prayers!

Welcome to my first blog!

Hello world,

I wanted to make this blog something meaningful to me. I'm a big journal writer, but not a "blogger"...so forgive me if this doesn't meet blog protocol ;) if you follow this please give me feedback on the topic and on my writing.



The reason I titled this blog, "Response to the Crisis" is because I am interested in what people are doing in this area, and even around the world, in response to different crises. The natural disasters in Haiti and now in Chilie are fresh on peoples minds as they hear the word "crisis". However, there are so many crises going on right here in Houston that people could be responding to.

I personally have loved lending a helping to people in need ever since I was young. I believe we aren't here to live for ourselves, but to serve God by serving others. A part of me is gained when I give, and seeing others passionate about serving others excites me! My hope is that if you are reading this you will be moved to give back to others as well.

Join me on my first blog and hear what people are doing to help change lives for the better around the world :)