Mobilizing Kids to Serve

Iris, the daughter of one of our ESL students joined Kids Adelante over a year ago. Now, having turned 13 years old, she has graduated from our Thursday night Kids Club and has joined our brand new Leaders-In-Training program (LIT), designed to mold the most responsive youth from Kids Adelante into leaders among their peers. Last night Iris stood in front of about 30 Mission Adelante volunteers, introducing herself and explaining that she was excited about becoming a volunteer in Kids Adelante “because the volunteers are such an inspiration to the kids.”

We believe that God can use a program like LIT to help at-risk kids navigate the minefield of their blighted neighborhood and come out the other end, not only having survived, but having thrived and having brought other kids along with them. Following The Hope Center’s example, Mission Adelante has selected 13 kids to participate in LIT, an intense after-school program that includes three-days-a-week of tutoring workshops in math, grammar, and spelling as well as character development and recreational components. In addition to these essentials, kids are given small responsibilities and opportunities for leadership growth within LIT as well as other areas of Kids Adelante.

All of us who have invested time in Iris over the last year or more were as proud of her as parents last night. Oh how far she has come! And oh, how much farther she can go! And now, as LIT finds its rhythm for the first time, I have no doubt that God will use the 14 new LIT volunteers to shape not only Iris, but also the 12 other young potential leaders that are a part of the program over the course of the next nine months.

Praise God for his work in these kids’ lives! And pray with us for them as they are called to a higher standard of character and leadership. Pray for support from their parents and pray for their faith to become solid and dynamic.

In other news:

• Fall ESL classes and Kids Adelante begin this Thursday. God has again supplied all the volunteers we need for the four English classes and the kids club and we're looking forward to getting off to a great start!
• Our worship community has finished a year-long study of Acts and will begin studying Philippians in small groups this Sunday.
• Mark Deras and David Schall of Heartland Community Church are helping Mission Adelante develop a worship team. They debuted on Sunday night.

Prayer needs:

• Please pray for our service teams, which are primarily made up of the Hispanic members of our worship community, to gain momentum and begin to thrive.
• Jose, a member of our community, is returning to Mexico this week to care for his seriously ill 13-year-old son. Please pray for his son's healing as well as Jose's journey there and continued spiritual growth.

Current needs:

To restock our resource center for the new trimester:

• baby items (diapers, wipes, etc.)
• non-perishable food items

To find a complete list of requested items to stock the Resource Center, click http://www.missionadelante.org/docs/ResourceCenterOngoingNeedsList.doc.

Upcoming dates:

• Thursday, September 18: Beginning of Fall Trimester