Dear Friends and Family,
I never would have expected things to turn out the way they have turned out. The past year has been a rollercoaster for me. God disciplined me in a lot of ways and especially through going to Jacksonville with my team this year. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to go. I cannot thank you enough. I have grown in my faith and relationships with others in so many ways because of God and also how He used you to support me and my team. Laura and Dean Sylvies had told us to prepare for a trip that would be different from last year. I unfortunately did not have the opportunity last year to be a part of the trip, but hearing from my own brother and my friends, I heard nothing but amazing times with the kids at the summer day camp. I was a little disappointed to hear that we wouldn’t be working with the kids this year. I love kids! But God still had a plan for us. He used us. We were very fortunate this year in where we were staying for the week. We stayed at Andrae Robinson’s house along with his family instead of staying and sleeping on the floor with cockroaches at the Green House.
We worked with 2nd Mile Ministries’ interns to help prepare for the summer day camp. We helped make signs for the summer day camp and we passed out flyers during the week that we were there. The summer day camp was for 4 weeks, free, and they have lunch provided for the kids. These kids were so excited for this camp. I was with Eric Cole and an intern Jessie King during prayer walks and flyering. We started in the beginning of this one street and were planning to make our way down. As we walk down to the first house, we hear a woman from the end of the street shouting at us to go over to her. But we figured that we could get the first house and if she really wanted us to be down there, she’ll wait or come to us. A couple minutes later, she rides her bike over to us and said that she had been waiting for this summer day camp all year long. Her kids, her sister’s kids, her friends’ kids were so excited for summer day camp; they had been asking her when it would come. That really struck me. Most parents in these neighborhoods can’t afford summer day camp for these kids. There is nothing better for these kids but to hear God’s Word this summer and they would hear it through this camp. Being in Jacksonville, made me realize how we’re not open to talking to people we don’t know. We are not open to sharing the gospel to the neighbors around us. The people down in Jacksonville in their neighborhoods know what’s going on in each others lives. They know their neighbors names, they know if they have kids, and they know if there’s a house that nobody lives in. We don’t even know the neighbors down our street or a couple of streets down. I don’t even know my neighbor’s name; my neighbor that is next door to me.
Not only that, but the people down there are genuine people and they take the time out of their day to even greet you and ask how you’re doing whereas in California, we find it annoying or odd to greet someone you walk past on the street. We ignore them and think, “I don’t even know you, why are you talking to me?” We went to three church services, two at a church called Shiloh and one at a church called Temple of Glory Community Church. Both churches greeted us with love like we were family. We were greeted with hugs and kisses from men and women at church. I never thought strangers would come up to me and hug me and kiss me. But I thought about it and isn’t strange. It shouldn’t be strange. Christ would want churches to treat each other like family. This made me feel guilty of being partial to others especially when we have new people come visit our church. There was no partiality at those churches whatsoever. We were a group of white kids, a couple Hispanics, and two Asians in churches filled with black people. We stood out but they loved us; we were a part of God’s family. During the day, we would work at public schools that had built a relationship with 2nd Mile ministries and we did street work.
At North Shore, the public school I was working with was a K through 8th grade originally. But they were not continuing the middle school anymore. So the administrator had hundreds of books, maybe a thousand books to scan, sort, either package to sell or to store back into a closet to use for next year. The teachers there had to only do one thing; they had left a pile of the books they were using in front of their classrooms. After that, all of the teachers pretty much left. They didn’t help the administrator do anything. She was alone in all of this. But half our team and a couple of interns helped her throughout the week. We scanned books, we transported them out from classrooms, sorted them by grade and text book category, we packaged them to sell, and we stored them in a storage closet for next year. We completed the work finally on our last day in Jacksonville with our whole team and interns that could help. It was a good ministry to show the public schools that we care and also showed we are helping the community in Jacksonville through different ways. Street work was essentially a couple hours for 2 days working down Pearl Street. The concrete on the streets were crumbled, weeds were growing out of the concrete, glass bottles shattered, cigarettes, trash, and leaves were everywhere. We picked up trash. We mowed lawns. We shoveled and pulled weeds out of the concrete. We arrived in Jacksonville on June 11th. We had accomplished 80 hours of work in the morning alone by June 13th.
God is so good! Our last day in Jacksonville, we went on a trip to the beach to chill out with our team and along with 2nd Mile interns. While we were at the beach, Amelia and I went down to the shore and were talking about the trip and what God had shown us throughout the trip and how we were doing. We were approached by two girls from the Navigators which is a Christian ministry that preaches the gospel wherever they go; they were coming to evangelize to us. It was awesome to talk to them. We told them that we were Christians too on a mission’s trip and we talked to them for over an hour. We told them about 2nd Mile Ministries and what we were doing with them. This is what amazed me! These two girls told us that they were among 170 navigators. All 170 of them were living in Jacksonville for four months and getting jobs and witnessing to their coworkers. God is working in Jacksonville! I cannot be more excited. It is a joy to see God’s work and I am so thankful for all of you who supported me financially and even more importantly through prayers. I love you so much and I cannot wait to see how much Jacksonville is affected by all of this. I hope to be able to make a trip down there again next year. THANK YOU.
