Summer Prayers

Hey Everyone!  It’s been awhile since our last blog post, but we wanted to keep you updated on the latest happenings at Compass.  We got started with our Summer LEAP program on June 3rd, with 23 students enrolled.  We continue to see more students register and we’ve had some super-fun moments.  However, from time to time at Compass we go through seasons that are more challenging than others, and this summer we have found ourselves facing some difficult circumstances.  We’ve faced a lot more conflicts than normal between our students, as well as issues of respect for authority, and our kiddos have been struggling to be life-lifting towards their peers.  This week our staff, and a group of high school volunteers from CCC have bathed our students in prayer, asking that God would let this week be characterized by joy and laughter.  We are SO blessed to be able to report that this week we have seen a DRASTIC improvement in the attitudes and behavior of our students, and that God has answered our prayers!  Joy and Laughter have been incredibly prevalent, and I am beyond blessed to see how God is faithful to answer the prayers of his people.  I’d like to ask for your continued prayer for our students and staff as we still have three weeks to go before our summer is over.  I believe that we are constantly engaged in a battle for these little souls, and they need US to go to bat for them!  So would you please take some time over the next 6 weeks to pray for our kids in the following ways?  We cannot thank you enough for supporting us in this way!

 

Pray that God would allow joy and laughter to continue to characterize our program this summer

Pray that God would help our students to be life-lifting towards their peers

Pray for wisdom and patience for our staff and volunteers

Pray that God would be at work on our students hearts even in times of discipline.

Pray for students who come to us with tremendous hurts and pain

Pray against the work of the enemy in the lives of our children outside the walls of Compass

Pray that they would be able to tangibly experience God’s love for them

 

Thank you for your investment in this ministry….your support makes more of a difference than you could know!

 

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Ready for Liftoff!

A couple weeks ago a science experiment had it’s beginnings.  Students were given instructions on how to create their own rockets, with the promise that in the near future they would have the opportunity to launch them in the air.  Unfortunately the launch date had to be postponed due to rain, however last Wednesday and Thursday the skies cleared and we all headed outside to enjoy this exciting event.  I cannot begin to tell you how fun it was to see the kids reactions as rockets went flying in all kinds of directions.  Enjoy the pictures below as evidence of the fun we had!

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Family Fun

On Friday, April 12^th, Compass hosted a family game night with over 30 people in attendance.  It was such a great opportunity to connect more deeply with the families of our kids, and have some good conversations with their parents.   The kids especially had a great time and enjoyed some tasty root beer floats. Check out these photos to see highlights of this fun evening!

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Faces

Faces.  To you, these faces may just be a picture on a page.  To me, these are the beautiful little souls that my heart holds dear.  Sometimes these faces are happy, sometimes they’re sad.  Sometimes they’re silly, sometimes they’re tired.  Sometime they’re mad or afraid or confused or frustrated.  But they are always loved.  Each one has a name; each one has a story.  Each and EVERY one is precious in His sight.  These are the faces I love, and these are the faces that He loves too.  When you see these dear faces, I pray that you would see more than a picture on a page.  I pray that you would see the Kingdom of Heaven, right here on earth, and that your hearts would burn for them to know and experience the Love of Christ.

“But Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me.  Don’t stop them!  For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.’” Matthew 19:14

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His Love

By the end of next week I will have been officially at Compass for 16 months. Considering how many years others have invested in the ministry that seems like a short time, but it is a long enough time for me to have been challenged and changed. Before I moved to Omaha to work at Compass I had never lived in a town. Much less a city. Much less North O. The first few months I caught myself driving until the city ends and on random country roads just so I could look for miles and not see buildings or hear cars and feel like I was home again. But I quickly grew to love things about my neighborhood and living in the city, such as being able to walk to the store and bike to work. As I learned more about city life and living/working in North Omaha I discovered many things that I loved. But I was also faced with many I did not. Before I moved to North Omaha I thought I knew about troubled kids and hard situations. I am from a broken family myself and was a freshly graduated Education major. I mean, they tell you what you are going to face, right? Before I came to Compass I had some knowledge about statistics, but when I started working here, those statistics grew faces. For the first time I knew children who didn’t have enough to eat at home. Children whose parents left them home alone all night. Children afraid to walk home 2 blocks in the dark because of gang violence. And these were not just children on the news or in someone’s mission letter, these were MY kids. The ones I saw every week, who I prayed for, whose teachers I had conferences with, who I laughed with and cried over and who I loved. These were not just situations I heard about, these were MY kids. A few weeks ago I was ina  school meeting with one of my 1^st graders in a class I help mentor. We have a few minutes to chat one-on-one with the kids and I was asking him about his school attendance. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I wasn’t here because my Daddy got shot. I was at his funeral.”

Brandon Heath wrote a Christian song entitled Your Love which talks about how God’s love is all that matters. In one line he says, “Though my innocence was taken, not everything is lost.” Before I came to Compass I was innocent in a way. I had never personally known children whose parents were druggies. Or whose siblings or cousins or parents had been killed by an act of violence. I came from a sleepy little town where no one answered their front door with a gun strapped to their hip. Being at Compass changed all that. My innocence was taken. I saw with my own eyes homeless families, children being drug from one home to another because no one can pay the bills, drug abuse, 10 year olds raising their siblings. But not everything was lost. God gave me a verse this week that greatly encouraged me. 1 John 4:11-12 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, so we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” We love because He first loved us. We don’t conjure up love and fix the worlds’ problems, we simply allow ourselves to be vessels through which God gives His love to the world. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle. How can I make a difference? My love never can, but God’s love flowing through me is always enough.

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On Sunday afternoons we have Kid’s Church. For an hour or so the kids get to come and learn about Jesus and living for Him. This year we have a student who is a foster child. I don’t know her story, but she has mentioned living in more than one home. In recent months one of our volunteers decided to start coming every week instead of once a month. This little girl has latched on to the more frequent visits and attached herself to this volunteer like glue. Last Sunday as we were lining up to go home she said to me, “I really like Miss——. She is my favorite person. I love her. I really want her to be in my life.” With tears welling up in the back of my eyes I responded, “She is a part of your life Sweetie, because you can see her every Sunday at Kids Church.” “Oh… yeah!!” and with a smile she was gone.

My innocence is lost, but not everything is. In fact, much is gained. In the last 16 months I have been given a rare chance to see how little my own efforts can accomplish, and how far God’s love can go when we allow Him to love through us. Even if it is just an hour on Sunday afternoons, when we focus on Him and let Him use us to love, it is always enough.

Darkness and Light

This Christmas, the joy of the season came to a screeching halt when Newtown Connecticut suddenly found its name splashed across the news screens of our nation.  My heart just ached for their pain.  I thought of all the poor mothers and fathers whose precious children didn’t make it home from school that day.  I thought of the presents under the tree that would never be unwrapped by little hands.  I thought of innocent eyes that witnessed horrific things, forever seared in their memories.  I remember being shocked to learn that the shooting was at an ELEMENTARY school, and not a high school or college.  I felt deep anger that someone would choose to target young children with such a despicable act of violence.

Yet as the week wore on, a thought occurred to me that was even more sobering than this “sensational” tragedy.  The children I work with, day in and day out, experience violence like this on a regular basis.  It’s not sensational or unusual for them in any way.  I see it on their faces, I hear it from their lips, and I’ve gotten a taste of it firsthand.  For two years I lived in an apartment complex near Compass where gunshots were the background noise to my daily activities.  My upstairs neighbors would keep me up til 4 and 5 in the morning on a regular basis with their domestic disputes.  The smell of pot lingered in the hallways and my downstairs neighbors were eventually arrested for dealing.  One night, one of the little neighbor boys knocked on my door at one in the morning sobbing, asking to use my phone because someone had just stabbed his dad.  Turns out his mother had been strung out on drugs and was the culprit.  My heart was broken over and over again as I lived through these experiences.  It killed me to think that as a grown woman, I could choose to leave this difficult and dysfunctional environment whenever I wanted, but these children were helpless.  Who could possibly rescue them all?

In the last four years at Compass, I have personally experienced the loss of 3 students ranging from 7-13 years of age.  It is a rare thing to encounter a student who hasn’t had at least one family member or close friend who was shot and killed in an act of violence.  The grief is overwhelming, and I could go on and on with the depressing and sad realities of life for the children of North Omaha and communities like it.  The darkness is just SO dark.

As followers of Jesus we have a choice as to how we can respond.  We can sit on our couches, watch the news and say, “that’s so sad”, then move on with our lives because while this may be a reality in our city, it’s not a reality in our own back yard, so it’s easy to dismiss.  OR, we can truly have a desire to make a difference, but not know what we could possibly do to help in the face of such darkness.  I have been involved in this community for almost 10 years now, trying to let the love and hope of Jesus shine through me as brightly as possible.  Yet I can tell you that more times than I care to count I have felt so alone.  I’ve believed that one little light in a city overpowered by the darkness of sin, can’t possibly make a difference.  But I have been wrong.  That light is the light of Jesus Christ, which overcame the grave….overcame the darkest of sin.  And when that flame is shining brightly…..darkness HAS to flee….it is IMPOSSIBLE for it to stay.  No matter how small the flame, the effect is the same.  Last week as I stood before a room filled with volunteers who have devoted themselves to serving in North Omaha, God gave me a vision.  All of those little lights shining together were becoming a blazing flame…and slowly but surely driving out the darkness!!!!

I KNOW that sin and sadness will always be our reality as long as we walk this earth.  BUT, I also know that Jesus has overcome it all, and if I can make a difference in the life of even ONE person, it is completely worth it.  So as the lines of the familiar Sunday school song go, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!”  Let your light shine my friends…together, we are driving out the darkness…one little light at a time!!!!

 

Carols of Hope

Last night, I had the opportunity to join with people from all over the city to wander the streets of North Omaha at night.  Our mission?  To bring the hope of Christmas by singing Christmas carols, handing out fruit baskets, inviting people to Bridge Church, and praying with people.  We may not have always known the right words, or sang the right notes, but there was something about it all that just exuded joy.  And what a blessing to have the opportunity to pray for several families dealing with difficult  and heartbreaking situations, and bring smiles to peoples faces.  As I walked along with a Bridge youth on my right and a Compass kiddo on my left, I couldn’t help smiling at their enthusiasm despite the cold.  I have said it before, and I’ll say it again.  It’s in these little moments that I get a glimpse of the extravagant love of God, and I am overwhelmed.

The Bible tells us that there were a whole host of seemingly insignificant events, humble people and places that God chose to take part in the birth of his Son.  Why he chose this way, I don’t understand, but the beauty of it fills my heart to overflowing.  As I continued to wander the cold streets, singing loudly words of hope and joy, I thought of what Mary must have thought on a similarly cold night.  Luke 2:19 says, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  How deeply I resonate with that sentence.  Sometimes all that you can do with what God gives you is treasure it up, and ponder the greatness, the beauty, the mystery of it all.  Praying your hearts overflow with his simple blessings this Christmas season!

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