Take It To The Streets Christmas

First I want to say thank you to all of the wonderful people who helped make this moment happen. Last Sunday we had a number of people come together to give of themselves to put together shoe boxes full of toys for the kids. We had a good system of wrapping going on and got a good look at the wrapping skills of our friends. For those of you who were not able to be there to hand them out your generosity went miles in making this Christmas a happy one for a lot of children, many of whom would not have had any presents under the tree were it not for your gifts of love. Without Walls Ministry also lended a hand by donating extra shoe boxes they had to help us meet our need for the growing number of kids that are coming to Field Day now.

Yesterday we handed out presents to all the children at Field Day and the response was overwhelming joy. We did not announce that we would be doing this to the neighborhood but rather made it a surprise. Some of the kids tore into their gifts right away and were already playing with the toys that they were given. A lot of presents came with kids books that told different stories from the Bible and I saw children comparing which book they got to another "I got Daniel and the Lion what did you get?" There was a huge moment of love as they all sat and open their presents, in which all of their differences and squabbles were put aside and the worries of school and their home life were forgotten. A few of the kids did not open their presents, when I asked one little girl why she was not opening her gift she said, "Cuz I want to put it under my tree just like this." Though they all know the reason for Christmas with a resounding answer was "Jesus", there was joy they experienced in the physical manifestation of the love of Jesus Christ carried to them through the hearts of volunteers who helped make this happen.

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Garbage Day!

Garbage Day!

Group every once and a while you get to see a dream come true, this happened for me on Saturday. After the day and reflecting with Jesse we concluded that is was easily one of our top five Field Days of all time! So what did we do, well how about I tell you what we didn’t do first, we didn’t set up any chairs, we didn’t break out any games, we didn’t even prepare a lesson mainly because we didn’t know how the kids were going to respond. As the kids all arrived we gathered them in a circle and told them our plan. The plan for the day was to serve their community and pick up trash for one hour. We broke the kids up into teams of five with one volunteer per team. The teams left the field in multiple locations armed with bags, gloves and a determination that was unexpected.

I was leading the Ranger Rd team along with Jesse. Starting at the Watson’s house and heading North with Jaleal, Kateria and Katiasha we hit the ground running. What I hoped for happened, the kids were excited and even racing at times to pick up the garbage “that’s mine, he’s to fast”. Not only was it great to see the kids doing something for their neighborhood but to see the faces of their neighbors in disbelief was priceless. God opened so many doors for discipline on this day from being a good steward of one surroundings, to the poisoning effects of alcohol and cigarettes. At the end of the day I was so proud of the kids and better yet they were proud of themselves they looked, acted and were leaders in their community, leading from the front. God is good and no matter if I write this story 100 times it will never convey the beauty of this day.

Connor Mcintyre

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Special Halloween Field Day

This past Saturday we held a special Halloween Field Day for the kids. The goal of the event was to provide a safe environment for the kids to come out in their costumes and trick or treat. The event may have gone off too well. Imagine 40-50 kids on a sugar high and you get the idea. The volunteers and kids alike showed up in costume and had plenty of activities to take part in. We had fishing for prizes as well as the classic boxes marked brains, eyeballs, and guts, of coarse filled with jell-o and grapes. There was face painting and costumes provided for the kids who did not have one of their own. We had treats to go around from pumpkin cookies to Halloween style donuts and of coarse plenty of candy.

The kids were given a safety lesson and safe trick or treating practices like letting your parents look through your candy first and don't eat candy that is already open. Along with the safety lesson was a biblical lesson with jack-o-lanterns. All of the kids got their very own kid size pumpkin and were shown how like making a jack-o-lantern Jesus first removes all the ick or sin from inside of us, then carves us in his image, and finally places the Holy Spirit inside of us to be a light to the rest of the world.

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Outreach On 10-17

Today's outreach was packed full of good lessons and good time to fellowship. We had about 30 kids come out thanks to our street team who walked around and told the kids about our filed day. We had a mixture of new and old attendees and the new kids had to get used to who we were and had to adjust their behavior accordingly.

We learned some valuable lessons as volunteers. We have to step up to the plate and begin to mentor the kids who simply need the love of a father figure where one lacking. We ended the filed day early because of a decision by Martha, our field day coordinator. The kids were told to come back next week with better behavior and respect. With this we pose two questions: will you help mentor a kid 2. What ideas can we put together to create community with the adults and parents.

Any thoughts of current environment and possible improvement.

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Children Lifting Up Children

This past Saturday Take It To The Streets finished our teaching series at Field Day on character building words. This week we gave the kids TI2TS bucks (which they get for good behavior and Christ like actions, that can be redeemed for ice cream or other items at the end of each month) that they had to give to someone else. Each kid had to give away his bucks to someone else for being nice or helping out in some way. The response to this was overwhelming. The kids could not say enough good things about their friends. In some cases they got annoyed that we did not have enough time for them to continue praising one another. The looks on their friends faces as they would lift each other up in praise was priceless. It was an amazing thing to witness and see the impact that we are making in the lives of these kids.

The days activities were also a blast as you can see from the pictures. Kevin and Jan Herr organized a relay race for the kids Double Dare style. After the first race there was a resounding cry of "Can We Do It Again" Thanks to Kevin and Jan for organizing last weekends activity from the pictures it is obvious that the kids had a blast. The full set of pictures can be seen on our Facebook page and I will be uploading them to our website soon. This Saturday there will be no Field Day as TI2TS will be supporting Convoy of Hope. More information on that can also be found on our webpage as well as Facebook or by googleing Convoy of Hope Charleston. I look forward to posting multiple stories from this weekends event as well lots of pictures for those who won't be able to make it.

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HAPPY Birthday!

I think we all can remember our favorite birthday as a child. For me it was my seventh birthday and it was at a roller rink. This birthday was extra special not because of any of the gifts (I cant remember one of them) but who was there. All of my friends from the third grade especially my girlfriend Erica. It is the people that make birthdays special and memorable. This weekend Take It To The Streets had the awesome privilege of celebrating Zirons (aka CJ’s) seventh birthday. The “Praise Warriors” got a giant cupcake/football shaped birthday cake along with a card and a few small gifts. Ziron sat down on a folding chair in the middle of a huge circle of volunteers and kids as we all sung Happy Birthday, all he could do was blush. Immediately after that we opened the card and I got the opportunity to read it to the group (see expression in picture). In the picture you are not seeing a child’s expression of how cool his present is but how much he values the love of his family and friends “priceless”. This picture is incredibly important to me and let me tell you why. Earlier in the week, Thursday to be exact I got a chance to meet up with Ziron and his family. Thursday was Ziron’s official Birthday and his family was going through some really difficult financial problems. I knew that Ziron’s family was not able to throw a Birthday Party or even celebrate this glorious day, at that moment is when I remembered my seventh birthday party (the one at the roller rink). This picture is “priceless” and a testimony to Gods love poured out to his child through our “Praise Warriors”, I believe Jesus was smiling just as big at that moment.

Connor

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Kids stepping it up at Field Day

Today TI2TS saw a major rise in volunteers, all under the age of 16! A new tool was implemented today inform of the Take It To The Street Buck. This is reward system that we are hoping to use to encourage Christ-like behavior and it was a major success. The kids were in a frenzy about these new dollars. We had a trash pick up crew and a line leader (which helped out with line organization immensely.) One of the highlights of the day was watching a line of kids that looked more like worker ants carrying field day supplies back into the supply the closet. They were so into helping that at the end of it all we had to remind them that they were getting rewarded. They just enjoyed feeling like they were a big part of the ministry. God really showed up today in these kids. What was so amazing its that these kids were living out the lesson all day which was:
1 Corinthians 9:24

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."

Our field day activity was a ballon race which is in the above picture but the Spirit of God was in all that those kids did today! What a wonderful day that the Lord has made!

Martha Martin Childrens Ministry Coordinator

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Field Day 9/5/09

Today was an incredible field day, it is awesome to see the explosive growth that God has brought to this ministry. We had a lot of new faces today getting plugged in to volunteer and I want to thank all of the individuals who help make this ministry happen. It is amazing to see the the impact we are having in the lives of these children and community members. We must not grow weary of doing God's work. There is so much to be done yet he has brought us so far. It was mentioned today about how many teenagers live in this community and how they pretty much hang around and sell drugs and get in to trouble because they don't have much else to do. I would like to challenge our volunteers to think about ways that we can further engage the 13-18 crowd and impact their lives. Another need in the community has been presented to us, which is another opportunity to let God's light shine on these people.

One of the kids told me today at the end of field day that he was afraid of God because he was afraid of dieing. When I asked him why he thought he was going to die he said "Because I'm going to grow up and get shot because that's what happens here. You guys can't be here all the time to protect us." I tried to explain to him that the reason we were there was because God sent us and that he is with him even when we are not. It broke my heart to hear those words come from someone so young and yet it gave me hope. He already has more hope in his life because of the impact of Take It To The Streets. That hope is reflected over and over in the eyes of all the children who come out there, and now we have another opportunity to further foster that hope.

When I asked another kid if he was going to church tomorrow he said "yeah I'm going to your church". We have volunteer's who take time on Sunday morning to pick up family's and kids from this neighborhood and bring them to the Seacoast North Charleston campus. The campus however needs more help with Kidscoast and helping out with the kids. So we have some of the volunteers from TI2TS attending the 12:00 service to help out with Kidscoast and Nitro. If you would like to be a part of this just show up at the campus at 12 and we can get you plugged in. We have an opportunity to further enhance our witness to these children by letting them see us in church with them and being a part of their lives for another day of the week. Please feel free to post your comments about moments from today's outreach that really touched your heart to share with those who may not be volunteer's yet or to share with our other outreach partners.

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Field Day 08_29_09

Today's field day was great. We had it a little easy today compared to the last two weeks which was nice. It was a hot one out today so the slower pace was a nice reprieve from the two giant weekends in a row. The kids were given a nice treat today in the form of balloon animals. It was truly a blessing to watch as they lined up to receive their inflated versions of dogs or swords. Throughout the day we talked with kids about honesty and their definitions of truth with some very unique explanations of that term. The days bible verse was Proverbs 16:13 and the small groups played a game called two truths and a lie with the kids.

This week we walked around and handed out the family portraits that were taken last week. As I walked over to one of the houses with one of the kids he was beside himself to present this picture to his mom and dad. He parted with his balloon made sword so that he could carry his family's portrait home and give it to his parents. It was heart touching to the see the difference that a simple act of kindness in one person's life makes. The light that appeared in his eyes as well as his family's to receive this gift with no agenda other than sharing the love of Jesus of Christ was truly amazing to behold. I will let some of the others who were part of giving these gifts share their stories about the response they got as the dropped of the pictures to others and I still have a few left to give out and can not wait to share their responses.

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Family Field Day

Today was an incredible witness to the blessings that God has poured out on to this ministry. We had a record number of members from the community show up to field day today, topping the record number of people from last week. Who knows what next week will have in store for us. Today we had Alyona Semenov, who is a local photographer here in Charleston, take family portraits of the the people in the community. We will be getting these printed later in the week and giving out a free 8x10 to all those who came today. I will post up the images on our website as well as make another blog posting this week once we have the prints in.

We cooked out BBQ chicken and hot dogs today along with having lots of sides such as potato salad and cole slaw. We served up 20lbs of chicken and 80 hot dogs. Thanks to the city of North Charleston the members of the community were able to enjoy their food on two new picnic tables that were donated to the field by the city. They are currently building more tables for our use and hopefully after seeing the pictures from the day they will see that they will certainly go to good use.

Today was a special blessing as we had a member from the community step forward to lead the worship session for today's field day as well as another member from the community step forward to do some poetry. There were many different testimonies from the community today and thanks for our presence and loving hearts serving to better their neighborhood. I will leave some of those for our other volunteers to post. I would like to draw your attention to the photos on the blog and to the difference in them. One shows what field day looked like a little less then a year ago. The other shows what today looked liked. Through the power of God we are making an impact in this neighborhood in a mighty way.


More images from Family Field Day can be seen at http://photos.takeittothestreetsministry.org

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Field Day - God brought the Neighborhood out in force

This past Saturday was nothing more then witnessing first hand the sheer force of God's power. This was our largest turn out yet for field day and it was incredible. Under normal circumstances we would not have had enough food to feed as many people that showed up, however God knows our needs even before we do. Miss Cheryl who goes to the Dream Center in North Charleston has been praying about the ability to get plugged in and helping out with kids. After talking with Noah Williams she volunteered to come out and help with field day and what a blessing she was. She brought trays of food with her from homemade chicken wings to some of the best green beans I have ever tasted. Through her help we were able to have enough food to feed every adult and child who came out to the field.

I talked with one man who lives a block over from where we set up each week and he was very excited about what we are doing in the neighborhood. He said "This is a great thing you guys are doing feeding these kids both physically and spiritually and for them both are equally important."

We had a great game of wiffleball for the kids while some of our volunteers spent time talking and praying with the parents who showed up. After lunch we broke the kids into groups and had a lesson about Moses leading his people out of Egypt where the kids acted out different scenes from the story. One of the parts of the day I will remember for a long time -
Kid playing Moses - "let my people go"
Kid playing Pharoh - "no....i....will....not....let.....your.....people....go" (giving great emphasis to each word)
Kid playing Moses - "let my poeple go you are a a bad king"

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