Every Saturday we have a Children’s Church service at CAC starting at 1 pm for the kids of the Gulfton area where we live. We pick them up at 12:30pm from different apartments around the area; there is one particular small apartment complex were we pick up about five kids, it’s called La Plaza. This past Saturday when we stopped to picked them up a kid named Junior comes up to me and the first thing he tells me is that they need prayer because something bad happened. I sat him and his brother Jovani and ask them what about, Junior tells me that his mom is in jail and they are home alone.

It was a beautiful day at Villa Americana, one of our inner city sites we minister to; and it was time for the altar call. We welcomed the kids to come up for individual prayer and this little girl name Rheanna came up to me for prayer. She wanted prayer for her parents, she didn’t say what specifically for but I know what a lot of these kids go through so I had an idea on what to pray about.

Two years ago I was in my last year of college. The summer before the year started, I was researching social work graduate school options. I had found one at the University of Michigan where along with classes and work toward a master’s degree which would allow me to spend two years overseas working with the Peace Corps. I was so excited, because during my spring break trip to Haiti the semester before, I was very interested in working overseas, at least for a time. This combined this interest and getting my master’s degree. So I applied the following February and waited to hear. 

“Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”             
- Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything? For me that is a daily struggle as I struggle with anxiety disorder diagnosed a few years ago.

Whenever things aren’t going right in our lives we don’t want to stay committed or faithful; actually we just don’t want to do good anymore. Have you had that feeling? I understand, but we must live beyond our feelings and keep doing what is right, staying committed to this journey because God has a purpose.

During visitations Mandy, Nurr and I were walking along the apartments in Azalea Place and noticed a group of children so we took some time to talk to them. We invited them to the Children’s Activity Center and out of nowhere this young man comes out of his apartment screaming in excitement and walked toward us, he asked us what the fliers were all about we explained to him about what we do here at the CAC and he became even more excited! “I’m going to come!!” He yelled out in excitement…

This past week we were teaching the kids on the Cat Truck about allowing God to transform our minds. Our verse was Philippians 4:8.  “Finally brothers whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  We need to allow God to control our thoughts.  Often, it is easy for us to wander off into things that are not of God.

God is in us each and every day, he is perfect in us and he wants us to follow him. I got a chance to experience a little bit of that when I talked with the kids that we ministered on Thursday, what struck me is when we first went the site on Irvington it was horrible, there was anger, fighting and just lashing out. Once we started our meeting, it got dead quiet, it was like God was in the midst putting these kids into place. Even though these kids were here I know that there are others in this world who don’t know God or who don’t want to.

During my first CAC (Indoor Sunday School) meeting, there was a little girl, named Guillie (pronounced like Julie) who immediately caught my eye. She was a girl who had a lot of energy and would do some crazy things. She was sometimes hard to deal with. For a couple months though I would let the other interns deal with her, but she would come up and give me a hug every week. There was one meeting in October she came up for prayer and came to me as I was the one who was free. She came up crying saying she missed her dad.

While I was on my visitation route with the team heading towards one of the last apartment doors in Palomino place, we noticed a loud discussion was going on between a man and his father-in-law about politics, I did not wanted to be part of it, neither did I want Nurr or Miranda to get involved but the more time I took talking to a girl I was inviting for our Thursday CAT meeting the more the Nurr and Miranda got involved in the conversation, I thought oh no!  I noticed that the argument was getting heated. Miranda and Nurr were talking with the man’s wife, I thought to my self “Let’s go!”