Thursday, June 10, 2010

I am just filled with joy this week, as I think about what the Lord is doing in my life.  Sometimes, not often enough I drive in the car and just pray out loud to my God.  Just the other day I got to do this and I was filled with so much joy.  I am just amazed at what the Lord is doing in my life and the many blessings He is providing.  One great blessing is I got a car.  A wonderful family who I live with blessed me and bought me a car.  Thank you Thompson's, you have been such a gift to me.  This will take such a burden off me and them, and has been something I prayed for, for quite sometime.

Also a few post ago I commented on possible building my own non-profit.  The Lord kinda put a tug in my heart with the help of some wisdom, to just slow down.  Though it may be quite sometime before I run my own non-profit, I have had the freedom with the non-profit I already work for, to build some programs for them.  In a few weeks I will launch this program.  So instead of trying to do my own thing, I am building programs for an already existing organization and just seeing what the Lord does through this.  If you live in St. Louis and would like to donate time and money, or if you live outside of St. Louis and want to donate money for a great cause (how many times have you heard that?) But really I have big hopes for what can be done where I work.

Let me just explain the who, what, when, where of what I do and what I am planning on doing,

I will start with the what the heck do I do?  I have been working for this Christian non-profit (Hope Unlimited) for the last four months, and honestly I get paid to hang out with middles school and high school girls.  We do various activities, like going to the park, to lunch, swimming, we are going to the circus next week, etc.  I just felt like the Lord was calling me to do more with these girls.  A few months ago I went to Chicago and met up with an old friend from high school.  She is doing great things for young girls in Chicago and I was just really inspired to do similar things with my girls.  She did cooking classes and thought girls how to make skirts, and teaching them life lessons about what is means to be a woman.  I was like man, I need to bring up some of my older girls to do this program with you.  I was so excited and when I went back told the girls I worked with that I wanted to take them to Chicago to do this program.  Because my friend is traveling back and forth from Chicago the trip kind of fell through.  I thought just because I can't take these girls to Chicago, and just because I am not the chef (which she is), or just because I can't sew anything, doesn't mean I can't something similar.  So I decided to implement this same program here in St. Louis, just use my resources to do so.  I know artist, designers, and chefs.  So then I built this weekend program and pitched it to my board, they approved.  Then a few weeks later the Lord brought three different women in my life, which I wrote about two in past post, and another came on board.  With their help this program grew bigger and bigger.  Not its not just a weekend but its going to be on going programs built around these young women.  Programs that will enhance and encourage them in life and in the Lord.  The program is called The Art of Living.  So fill free to ask me how things are going.

So after I just explained the what, let me tell you a little more of the who?  I work with middle school and high school girls in Kirkwood, Missouri in a little neighborhood called Meachem Park, these kids are involved in or exposed to everything under the sun.  Yet they are exposed to so little positive influence, and they don't experience lift outside their little closed off box.  Like St. Louis as a whole Kirkwood is a very segregated place and because of some violence between the two communities in past few years it has become worse.  Their are organizations that has been put in place to change this.  What I think our organization is doing differently then other organizations in Kirkwood is reaching the youth.  I want to go a step farther with beyond hanging out, encouraging them, and being a friend in a tough situation.  I want to give them a taste of something greater then what the have been brought up to know.  I am going to end there because I just wrote a book.  Love all my readers.  You all are far more faithful then I am, sorry.

6 comments:

  1. So, so good, Mary. God is giving you grace to lay down your life for these girls. They are seeing in you a transformed life, a reflection of Jesus. Your enthusiasm and desire to love these girls challenges me in my complacency. Thank you.

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  2. How wonderful and such a great idea! God bless you Mary Alice for doing what needs to be done for the youth of this country and being a beacon light for the Lord!

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  3. thank you both for your kind word's, I pray the Lord does use me.

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  4. this is terrific Mary! I'm excited to pray for you and the girls you're working with... God will use your efforts to bear fruit in their lives--it's a promise!

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  5. I didn't know you were working for HU! That's amazing!!!! I love it!

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  6. This is really cool! I hope your program works because it sounds great. You developing a program within an established organization makes me think of CCK developing relationships with established organizations to partner in compassion ministries rather than running off and doing their own thing. I think it's great that there is already a foundation that you can work with. I will pray that a lot of girls get involved in your program and that a lot of people and resources volunteer to make it a success.

    And super great news that you got a car! Finally you can get around on your own! PTL because I know you've been wanting your own means of transportation for a long time.

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