The Greatest Gift

Group it is great to be able to report such a wonderful story, at such a wonderful time of the year. This past week end we got to participate in witnessing a child receive the greatest Christmas present of his life. At this time I would like to introduce you all to Eddy Ancrum a fifth grader (10 years old) from Burns Elementary School. Eddy is a wonderful kid often characterized as a gentle giant. He has a warm heart and has been participating in Take It To The Streets Family Field Day since the very beginning. Eddy lives about two blocks from the field and is always the first one there and the last one to leave. He is not hard to miss when he is at the field he is often found handing out drinks and filling cups full of ice for all the kids, he takes this job very seriously (don’t mess with Eddy).

Each weekend we take a van load of children to the North Charleston Dream Center for the Noon Church service. About a month ago Eddy who has never gone to church nor anyone in his family that I know of showed interest in attending. I told Eddy if he would like to join us to walk to two blocks to Alex’s Restaurant and if he was there at 10:30 then I would buy him pancakes. So somehow this message got mixed up and he arrived at 8:30 and he waited for two hours for us to arrive. He walked up to me and said “hey man where have you been”, at that moment I knew he was all in. So last week at Church Eddy told Kim Wiggins that he wanted to be Baptized! As you can image we were elated. As the week went on the leadership team talked about the logistics of Eddy being Baptized. On Saturday in true Eddy fashion he arrived at the Field early in 45 degree raining weather, however today he was going to step it up a notch. Instead of running the drink station Eddy wanted to be apart of bring his community an eternal supply of water. Eddy decided he wanted to join Matt Vegel and hand out food and pray for his neighbors in the community. Five teams set out for Neighborhood Fellowship and the last team to return, you guessed it Eddy and Matt. Eddy was so excited he did an interview (Travis Evens Videographer extraordinary) along with Matt he shared the days blessings.

The next morning Sunday it was raining and quite a miserable day. We pulled into the parking lot at Alex’s at 10:30 and at the first table as we walked in Eddy was sitting waiting for us. As I sat down I was reminded that I owed him a bible, so I went to the trunk of my car and had the glorious honor of signing his first bible. As I gave it to Eddy he asked me if he was going to get Baptized today (I love his persistence)? I didn’t even have time to answer the question as Eddy was so excited to share a dream he had the night before. Eddy said “I had a dream last night and Jesus was in it”! I said wow really what did he look like? Eddy said “he was a tall white man, with long white hair and a long white beard, and he was glowing”. I said what did he do? Eddy said “Jesus asked me to help him, he was chopping wood and I was to grab the logs and he would split them in half”. As you can image all the hairs stood up on my body and I as well as everyone else that was sitting with us was blown away. All of this coming from a ten year old WOW! At that moment I knew we had to figure out away for him to be Baptized TODAY!

As we got to Church we checked to see if the Baptism tank was full, it was not. So I went to Eddy and told him that we don’t have a place to perform the Baptism indoors so we are going to have to do it outside, where it was raining and cold. Eddy said “I don’t care”. So in typical Take It To The Streets style we packed up all the kids and a handful of volunteers and headed to my neighborhood pool (which was closed and crazy cold 50 degrees). While Eddy was changing into his bathing suit he was jumping up and down, there was an excitement on his face I have never seen before. All the kids lined up along the pool with the volunteers as Eddy, Jesse and I braved the ice cool water. At this point the pictures tell the rest of the story. I hope that this story warms your heart this holiday season. Know that there is hope being planted in North Charleston and children that from the outside may look and seem poor and deprived are some of the richest children of all! Welcome my Brother Eddy Ancrum a REAL M.O.G (Man Of God) to the family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pictures are in time order, Check out his eyes in the last photo – Look out Eddy is Coming!

Connor McIntyre

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The Door is Open

TI2TS has been using the Jeannine Batten community center every other week as a meeting place before Neighborhood Fellowship. We received word that hey have decided to let us use the building for the launch of our mentorship program on Wednesday nights. The mentorship program will begin by meeting the children's educational and social needs. Please consider how you might volunteer to help tutor or lead a small group discussion on these evenings. These children need the constant presence of people who care about them if we want to see them succeed and end the cycle of poverty. We will also be holding the Word On The Streets Education Center Resume classes there, possibly on Monday or Tuesday nights.

Now that we have transportation we will again be able to bring in woman from My Sister's House to continue helping them find jobs and build resumes.

God continues to show us that we are on the right path as we make preparations for this new and exciting transition and growth time. Just yesterday we received word from Knology that they have agreed to donate Internet for the building for these programs. We will be using laptops and the Internet to help children with school work as well as adult students in the resume class. The Internet is a key factor in student success in this day and age. Thank you Knology for supporting us as we Take It To The Streets! The door is open for us to do some amazing things...

Sarah Harrelson

Central Administrator

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Neighborhood Girl Makes Public Profession of Faith

This weekend marked a milestone for TI2Ts, not only did several kids get picked up for church in our new van but several of them made it out to the beach for The Seacoast Beach Baptism! Among them was a girl whom I have become very close with. Since we are looking in particular for kids we would specifically like to mentor in or new mentor program coming up I thought I would invest sometime with this girl Sunday after church. Since one of our TI2Ts volunteers was getting baptized, I asked her if she would like to come along. On the way to the beach another volunteer and I explained to her what it meant to get baptized. As soon as we got there, when she saw all the people lined up she said to me, "I want to get baptized." I explained to her that if she wanted to get in the water that was fine but being baptized is something serious, and that it showed a commitment to Christ. I told her about the sinners prayer and asked her if she had ever said it and she said never. Then I asked if she would like to do that and she said yes! Praise Jesus! So we ran down to the beach and she was baptized. Just like that there was a new sister
in the Kingdom. That's what it is all about guys. That is why we do Take It To The Streets. These kids are not only finding hope for their lives but they are finding hope in Jesus Christ!

Children's Ministry Coordinator - Martha Martin

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