Changing Seasons

After spending the last 6 months building a handfull of friendly, trusting relationships, we suddenly find ourselves having to start all over again!  There are at least 5 empty houses where families with children used to live, some of which we had come to love.  Now, these houses have "For Rent" or "For Sale" signs in the yard and have been undergoing repairs and sprucing up.  I'm glad to see the houses getting some much needed attention, but I miss my little after school friends!  I miss their sweet smiles, the joy on their faces when I brought out my snack box, the fact that they were starting to understand that they were loved here and wanted to share part of their day with us.

Now, don't get me wrong, we still have plenty of children around and we still have kids to share snacks with after school everyday at 4pm!  But, we are having to learn all new names and personalities.  We are having to start over again proving our love to this new group of friends.  Case and point:  earlier this week I was on the front porch sharing snacks with a couple of girls, one of which was one of our "new" friends.  I was just simply making conversation and asked if she had a good day at school.  Her response was,"Why are you asking me that?"  This precious girl is probably 10-11 years old and did not understand that this was my way of showing her I cared about her!  It made me wonder if anyone had ever asked her that before or if she even has an adult in her life that is taking time to invest in her daily.  Maybe God has placed her on my front porch every day this week for a reason!  You can be sure I'm going to keep asking how her day has been!  Hopefully, eventually she will come to trust me and understand that I ask because I truelly care about her wellbeing!

Even though we have a lot of new friends coming around these days, we still have a few "old" friends coming around, too.  They are helping the others learn the ropes, so to speak.  I'm sure that's how the new friends knew to come to my house for an afterschool snack, after all.  That tells me we are doing something right, if one child is telling another about CH#3!  And, even though I miss my little friends that have moved away, God is showing me daily that we are having success in this adventure on the West Side.  I trust Him to grow whatever seeds of faith and love were planted in those that have moved.  He will put others in thier lives as they grow and mature to continue cultivating the harvest, even if we never know the results.

"So neither the one who plants not the one who waters is anything, but only God,who makes things grow."  1 Corinthians 3:7

Gardening

Apologies for such a long time between posts!  Life has gotten busy with the arrival of spring!  Not only does spring mean Easter, ballgames, and all the many end of school activities, it also makes me think of gardening.  I love the bright colors & pleasant fragrances that flowers bring to a yard, porch, or patio!  I enjoy getting out and planting flowers, pulling weeds, and watering plants in the summer months. Being in a new home has brought on all new gardening opportunities this spring.

 First, I decided to try my hand at making "starts" from the roses at old house. Those roses were my Mother's Day gift last year and they were SOOOO beautiful!  I'm sure hoping these starts do well so that I can continue to enjoy them for years to come.

Then, a couple of weeks ago the Master Gardeners group volunteered to do some landscaping here at CH3.  In meeting and emailing the leader of this group, I came to a realization - relationships are more important than flowers. Let me explain...... The front sidewalk here at Challenge House is lined on both sides with monkey grass and would look really nice if properly tended.  However, since our house is located at a busy corner, the sidewalk leading to our front porch is a popular turn around spot for all the neighbor kids (and my own kids) when riding their bikes.  This means that the monkey grass is constantly getting trampled.  At first, we tried to kindly remind the kids to be mindful of the monkey grass, but it wasn't working.  That's when I realized that I was going to have to choose between the landscaping and the kids.  If I continued to nag and fuss about the monkey grass, then the kids were not going to want to be around our house, feeling unwelcome.  That was NOT what we wanted!  Building relationships with our neighbors is the reason we are here!  So, we pulled out the landscaping border that was already heavily damaged from all the bicycles and decided that we were not going to worry about the monkey grass anymore.  I even spoke with the Master Gardeners and explained the situation to them and asked that they not do any additional landscaping around the sidewalk when they came.  Thankfully, they totally understood.  They focused their efforts on the porch area and it is just beautiful!

Praise the Lord we are surrounded by families with children and those children know that they are welcome at our house!

"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me."  Matthew 18:5

New Friends

I love the way kids can just instantly bond with one another in the name of play!  They don't care about skin color, economic status, education level, or even if they know each other's names!  They just want to play with someone their own size!  I have watched this happen so many times in the last couple of weeks.  As the weather has warmed, kids naturally want to play outside - ride bikes, walk the dog, etc.  There are so many children in this neighborhood, I don't know how we will ever get to know them all!  But, we have gotten to know our next door neighbor and her 4 children.  They are perfect playmates for Emma and Cooper - 2 preschool age boys & a little girl Emma's age.  As soon as they see that we are home, they are knocking on the front door!  Yesterday, I  walked into the living room to see a little face plastered to the window looking for Cooper!  It's wonderful! 

Adults, on the other hand, are much more stand-offish.  We have learned that people can be hurtful and unkind at times, so we tend to be more guarded with who we let into our lives.  I have seen this in the last couple of weeks, as well.  We had the opportunity last week to invite some teenage boys in our neighborhood to participate in a youth retreat sponsored by Austin Peay State University.  As we first approached each mother, we could see their stiff body language and somber faces bracing for bad news or a request for money.  Then, as we explained that her son had been nominated to participate in this retreat, free of charge, because of his standing as a good role model and positive leader in the neighborhood, we saw smiles spread across their faces and a sense of pride swell up from inside.  It was so much fun to get to deliver that good news!   I hope that we have planted some seeds of trust that will lead to friendships in the future.

This week, I am finalizing plans for a month of "healthy living" classes for the women of the neighborhood.  These classes will meet each Tuesday in April.  Our home church, Second Baptist, is going to sponsor the classes, which will be taught by RN's from the congregation.  They will teach about living a heart healthy lifestyle, basic first aid, and how to prevent infection.  Then on the last Tuesday of the month we are going to have a clinic night, where these ladies can have their blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, etc. checked.  Again, I am praying that new friendships will be planted and that we will begin to build up some trust in the neighborhood.

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!  Ecclesiastes 4:10

Unpacking

You never really know how much "stuff" you have until you put it all in boxes and then unpack it again!  That has been the primary focus for us this week-unpacking our new life here at Challenge House 3.  We've actually made pretty good progress!  We are basically down to just figuring out where to hang all the wall photos and curtains.

We have already had several meetings here, with another big day planned for tomorrow.  We have a Girl Scout Troop that meets here every Thursday, so we got to meet those sweet girls this week, several of which live here in the neighborhood.  Friday, the Leadership Hopkinsville class sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce came by to see the house and learn about the ministry that happens here.  I had the privilege of sharing our family's testimony with the group. 

This week there is a group of about 50 young men from Boston coming to spend their spring break doing community service in Hopkinsville.  Tomorrow, they are focusing on serving the West Side and CH3 will be "command central!"  Can't wait to come home and see what they have done to help our neighbors!

Now, we are anxiously awaiting spring so that we can get outside and start building some relationships!  I don't think we will have a hard time connecting with the children:)  On Monday, we were going into the house the same time the elementary school bus was coming down the street, when suddenly we heard our names being yelled out!  We turned around to see several children we've met through the children's ministry at SBC waving out the windows and shouting, "Hi Mrs. Lori!"  What a great confirmation that we are right where God wants us!

Blessed Beyond Measure

WOW!  What an exciting week we have had!  Last Sunday our home church commissioned us as neighborhood missionaries, pledging to support us in deed and in prayer.  Since we are Southern Baptists, this was followed by a potluck lunch:)  Then, those that we able walked the block and a half or so to our Challenge House, where we encircled the house, hand in hand, and prayed over it and all those that will be affected by the ministry taking place in it.  What an awesome experience this was!  Such a sweet fellowship with our church family.

On Monday night, ladies from the Beth Faul WMU group came to the Challenge House and cleaned it from top to bottom.  These awesome women came straight from work, cleaning supplies in hand!  They did everything from vacuum and dust to clean the refrigerator shelves.  Another blessing to know that my family could move into a clean house.

Two retired men from our church donated  a 40+ hour work week to paint the entire downstairs of our CH. This will be the common area of the house that will be used by any group that comes in to have a meeting or Bible study.  Such a relief to know that it is freshly painted and ready for whatever this ministry brings our way!

On Thursday, we had a buyer put a contract on our "old" house.  The circumstances behind this buyer choosing our house and the details of the purchase contract leave no doubt that God was in that situation!  We will have a couple of extra weeks to finish moving out the last of our stuff, and maybe even have a moving sale, before the new owner takes possession. (We are waiting on an outdoor storage building to be installed at the CH, so we had to leave behind everything in the attic and garage of the old house.)

Yesterday, Saturday, was our big moving day!  We had 9 men from church show up to help with the move.  We were done in a couple hours!  My mom and I were even able to get a good bit of the kitchen unpacked! 

Even today at church the blessings continued to flow.  We had several people approach us about wanting to reseed the front yard, having a friend remove a tree stump in the backyard (which is holding up the progress of our outbuilding), and just blessing us with gift cards!  We feel so loved as God continues to use our church family to confirm this life changing decision!

Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Luke 6:38

And the adventure begins.....

The Kirkmans are moving to the West Side - and we couldn't be more excited!  God has been working on this move for a couple of years.  We attended a Children's Ministry Day sponsored by the local Baptist Association that gave us our first glimpse at what the Challenge House ministry was all about.  We visited all 3 houses - 2 were fully functional and the 3rd was under construction with a major renovation/remodel.  Brad and I walked away from that day very impressed with the Challenge House movement going on here in Hopkinsville.  Little did we know that the 3rd house was being renovated for us to one day live in!

"The goal of the Challenge House movement is to make it easy for people to live out their faith within an under-resourced neighborhood.  While they are there to share not only their Christ-centered reason for relocating, they are also there to help connect kids and adults to opportunities of education, employment, and life skills."  In simpler terms, we will be moving from the comfortable, safe, suburban house that we own, to living in a home we don't own in an "inner city" type neighborhood riddled with poverty and all that goes with it.  We are doing this to show this neighborhood the love of Christ, to give them hope, to show them how to "take back" their community.

We are excited about meeting and befriending our new neighbors, about starting Bible studies, after school tutoring programs, and adult education opportunities, all of which will take place in our house!  God has removed our anxiety about this move and replaced it with a great sense of peace.  We are trusting him to protect us and to open doors of opportunity to share our faith.  If God is for us, then who can be against us?! (Romans 8:31)