So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

No matter how much we try and plan for the future, none of us can know the twists and turns of “what’s next.” The truth of this principle has recently been reinforced to me. I have resigned from CCC, effective by the end of February. How this came about is a bit of a long story, but I think it’s a good one, so please bear with me.

My 88-year-old dad has been battling a crippling neuro-muscular disease for about 10 years. (Some of you may recall that I wrote a post about him back in the fall of 2016.) This disease has left him unable to walk, confined to a wheelchair, and essentially homebound. He lives in Orange County, Texas, between Orange and Beaumont, in the same house where I was raised, and on the same piece of land where he was born and raised. Recent events, including a visit last month to help care for him, have convinced my brothers and me that dad is simply no longer able to stay by himself.

My brothers and I have discussed this at length, and considered all the various options available – hiring an outside caregiver, relocating dad to live with one of us, moving him into a nursing home. For various reasons, none of these options can work for him, or for us. We have decided that the best course of action would be for me to move in with dad and serve as his full-time caregiver.

While I am looking forward to spending more time with my dad and serving him, I am overwhelmingly sad about leaving Abilene and the non-profit I work for, Connecting Caring Communities. In the nearly nine years since I joined CCC, I have been blessed to make some wonderful friends and see amazing things done, working with neighbors and others to better our community.

(I’m also going to really, REALLY miss our church, Beltway Park, and so many friends from our Sunday School class and our Bible Study life group. The folks in my Sunday class gave me a great send-off yesterday, with lots of prayers, hugs, tears, kind notes & cards, and even gifts of cash and more. Our Sunday night group had a farewell dinner for us last night. It was a very rich, full day of love and friendship, and one more thing I will miss about Abilene. But right now I’m talking about work…)

I have learned so much during my time with CCC – especially about what it really means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” The opportunity to meet some great people, to get to know neighbors from different backgrounds, different cultures, different religions, and to host them in our home – these have been priceless blessings that I will always cherish.

I think of friends I made who have passed away: people like sweet Sandy, a tattooed elderly lady that I met through Meals on Wheels. Sandy, you must have lived an interesting life in your younger days; I’m sorry I never got to hear the stories I’ll bet you could have told. People like David, confined to a wheelchair, yet always with a smile on his face. Rhonda; Jimmy; Paul; all of you blessed me with your friendship, and I thank you. I will continue to miss you, and remember you fondly.

I think of the kids who spent part of their afternoons with me and our volunteers at “Kids’ Club,” and the parents who trusted me to watch their little ones for a while. It was my honor, and my pleasure. We had a good time doing homework, drawing on the sidewalks, climbing trees, doing crafts, and more. And I remember the Bible stories we told – “they say stories like that make a boy grow bold, stories like that make a man walk straight.” The Fruit of the Spirit and the Armor of God, David, Deborah, Moses and Esther. Mary & Joseph, Peter and John and the boys, and best of all, Jesus, the manger, the parables, the miracles, and the cross. And the twelfth and final egg, which is, of course, empty.

I think of the meals, and all the laughs we had around the table and out in the yard. Easter egg hunts and Halloween carnivals. Banana boats and dirt cake, hot dogs and Frito pie. A dunking booth on a certain very cool October day, and kickball games. Swing sets and bluebonnets. The prayer walks and recruiting volunteers. Working with teens for the “Young Leaders of Abilene.” Finding unexpected skills, like the time I handed my neighbor Diego the spatula during a cookout, then couldn’t get it back, only to learn that he used to be a short-order cook! I wouldn’t trade a minute of any of it.

And I think of so many friends who have supported, and continue to support, our work through your prayers, your gifts and your financial participation, a huge and heartfelt “thank you.” We literally could not do this without your gracious assistance and partnership.

To the colleagues I’m leaving behind, past and present: Please know that I’ve enjoyed every minute of working beside you. It has been a privilege to serve with you. I’m praying for your continued success.

Working for CCC has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, and I shall always cherish the opportunity to live out the call to love our neighbors, to bind up the broken-hearted, and to seek the shalom of our city. Thanks to everyone who participated in this ministry, and may the Lord continue to bless and guide all of you, as you continue to work on behalf of CCC, our neighbors, and our community.

Peace for One and All

And just like that, it was over.

If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you know that my colleagues at CCC and I have been leading a series of summer day camps in various neighborhoods around the city where we serve. It’s part of the “Young Leaders of Abilene” program; the summer camps are made possible in part through gifts from the Ruth & Bill Burton Family Fund, and the T & T Family Foundation, at the Community Foundation of Abilene.

So, all summer long, we have conducted a series of day camps across Abilene. Teenagers from our neighborhoods have been working as counselors, and their elementary-aged siblings, cousins and neighbors have enjoyed the fun program of snacks, crafts, games, and more. The theme for the summer has been, “Kids for Peace,” and we have tried to reinforce the message that you’re never too young to be a peacemaker – and there are many ways to work for peace. Part of our curriculum has included saying the “Peace Pledge,” which challenges and encourages kids to make a difference for peace through kind words, through caring for the earth, through valuing diversity in all things, and through everyone working together.

But now, we’re up to our final week, and we’re doing something a little different – a week of service projects, involving our teenage counselors putting into practice the peacemaking activities they’ve been talking about all summer. We’re going to a neighborhood nursing home, to use our kind words to brighten someone’s day. We’re doing yard work for some disabled neighbors, and picking up trash in a part of the city that’s too often overlooked. We’re assembling packets of school supplies for kids whose families have recently arrived in Abilene, from places in the world that aren’t safe.

On Thursday, we’re meeting at Hendrick Medical Center, in a beautiful little spot on the west side of their campus, to install and dedicate a “Peace Pole.” If you’re not familiar with them, Peace Poles are hand-crafted posts that display the message and the prayer, “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” in different languages on each of its four sides. The idea began in Japan in the 1950s; today there are over 100,000 peace poles in more than 180 countries around the world. And this week, we will be installing three more, including the one we’re putting in at Hendrick. The kids will be in charge of the dedication ceremony. They’ll offer prayers for peace, and say their peace pledge one more time.

So, after a week of training camp, four weeks of neighborhood camps, and now a week of service camp, the “Young Leaders” summer program wraps up for another year. We will continue meeting with the teenagers throughout the coming school year, and they will continue to serve as leaders and role models for the younger kids around them. We will continue to help them with service projects and activities for neighbors and neighborhoods across Abilene. And we will encourage them to continue to be peacemakers as they go about their lives.

Now if we can just get the grown-ups to do the same. Shalom.

Kids for Peace

A few weeks ago, I wrote about CCC’s “Young Leaders of Abilene” program, and the summer day camps we would be hosting in some of the neighborhoods across the city. (If you missed it, you can click HERE to read that article.) So now, with mid-July approaching, we have finished two weeks of camp , we have one in progress this week in College Heights, and we have two weeks more ahead of us.

Our theme for this year is “Kids for Peace.” That’s a name that we borrowed from an organization that is accomplishing great things, doing just what that name suggests.

Ten years ago, Jill McManigal and Danielle Gram met at a neighborhood party in their home of Carlsbad, California. Jill was the mother of two young children, and Danielle was a high school honors student. The new friends began to discuss ideas about ways of working for peace, and they realized they both shared a vision of finding ways for children to be more active in making that happen. And the “Kids for Peace” movement was born.

The kids began working together, learning about other cultures, and learning to respect people of different backgrounds. They began to join together on various projects to make practical, positive changes in the world around them – as well as around the world. Currently there are 113 recognized chapters of “Kids for Peace” at work in 23 states and more than 20 foreign countries, and they’re involved with conservation and recycling efforts, neighborhood clean-ups, and community art projects. They’re working to promote listening and understanding, and learning to celebrate diversity of cultures, languages and traditions.

One of the most visible parts of “Kids for Peace” is shown by their motto: “Kindness Matters.” This past January, through their “Great Kindness Challenge,” they coordinated more than 5 million schoolkids around the world and more than 250 million specific acts of kindness! And they’re hoping for an even bigger response in January, 2017.

In our summer camps, we are putting these principles to work. The kids are making “Kindness Coupons,” which they can share with family members or neighbors, while they learn about specific ways of helping others. We’re planting flowers, to help the campers learn respect for the earth. We play games from different countries around the world, to help them learn to appreciate diversity. And we have fun through it all!

We are also teaching our campers the “Peace Pledge:”

I pledge to use my words to speak in a kind way.
I pledge to help others as I go throughout my day.
I pledge to care for our earth with my healing heart and hands.
I pledge to respect people in each and every land.
I pledge to join together as we unite the big and small.
I pledge to do my part to create PEACE for one and all.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah looks ahead to the establishment of God’s peaceable kingdom, and he says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

Kids for Peace is getting a head start on it.

Young Leaders of Abilene

One of the most successful programs in CCC’s history is about to launch its second year. By almost any standard, Young Leaders of Abilene (YLA) has been a hit!

YLA began about a year ago, with a grant from the the Ruth and Bill Burton Family Endowed Fund at the Community Foundation of Abilene, allowing us to develop a new summer program for the young people of our neighborhoods. The idea was to recruit middle-school and high school students, give them some training, and put them to work as “camp counselors,” for a week of day camp in an Abilene neighborhood. We came up with a theme – Caring in Action – and we went to work finding teenagers who could become our counselors.

We began talking with families from our various neighborhoods, with whom we had built relationships; from there, we branched out and talked with some of their friends who also were interested. We ended up with about 15 kids who would serve as camp counselors. Early last June, right after school was out, we met for a week at the North Park Friendship House, and started helping them become a team.

We did various activities to help them get to know one another; the kids also brainstormed about what kinds of snacks to serve the campers, what kinds of games to play, what kinds of craft projects to do. As much as possible, we wanted to promote and develop leadership within our team of counselors. We held a day of “practice camp,” and then, ready or not, it was time to start.

We conducted four weeks of day camps in different Abilene neighborhoods, where CCC had a presence – Stevenson, College Heights, Valley View, Holiday Hills. Sometimes we had good turnout, other times not as much as we hoped, but it was good to see our counselors stepping up and being the leaders for the camps – and role models for the younger ones. It was good for the elementary school kids to see their older sisters, brothers, cousins, neighbors – kids who looked like them, and that they knew – running this program, with guidance and help from the CCC coordinators. And it was good for the families in those neighborhoods to have something positive for their kids to do.

By the end of the summer, we were tired but happy with the results we had seen. In the year since then, YLA has continued to function, and most of the counselors from last summer are still active with the program.

We have been meeting about once a month – one month, the young leaders will meet at my house, to visit, hang out, eat, and plan a service project. Then the next month, we will meet in another neighborhood, to host an event for the kids & neighbors there, including a Fall Festival in Holiday Hills, a Christmas party in Stevenson, and a Valentine’s party at Cobb Park. In early May, we went back to Holiday Hills for a “Spring Fling,” in association with our friends from House of Faith.

So, what’s next? Our plans for this summer  include growing the program to include five weeks of camp — thanks to another gift from the Ruth and Bill Burton Family Fund and the T & T Family Foundation at the Community Foundation of Abilene–and we’ve recruited some new counselors to join some “old hands” who are returning this year. Our schedule for this year is:

• Week 1 – Holiday Hills, June 13-16
• Week 2 – North Park, June 27-30
• Week 3 – College Heights, July 11-14
• Week 4 – Valley View, July 25-28
• Week 5 – Service Week, August 8-11 (various locations)

Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Maybe giving a few teenagers jobs as camp counselors won’t change the world; maybe holding a few weeks of day camp in different neighborhoods won’t either.

But maybe, it’s a start.