Can we build it? Yes we can!

Can we build it? Yes we can!

On August 14th, 2010 ten teens and four adults embarked on an unforgettable trip to the Black
Feet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana where their eyes were opened to another world. The trip was full of laughter, tears, laughter, sweat, laughter, adventure, and more laughter. Over the week the teens performed tasks which were fun, such as working power tools to build the mudroom for Pastor Joel and his family, to the "boring" task of picking up rocks which took a little more motivation. In the four days spent in Montana, the teens accomplished so much. They built a mudroom from the ground up, using the tools at hand to dig holes for posts with hammers. The processes of seeing a building constructed from start to finish was incredible to witness, especially with the knowledge that their hands made it possible. Painting the outside of a two car garage created a few paint wars full of smiles. At times the teens had more paint on themselves then the garage. The grueling task of picking up rocks and leveling out the grounds was not everyone's favorite job but with the right attitude and encouragement from one another, the task got complete.

I can not speak for the other nine teens, but for me this mission trip was without a doubt a life changing event and will not be my last mission trip. I learned so much about myself as a person that I can only grow from making me a stronger. I will never forget the joy and happiness on the faces of Pastor Joel and Richard, the mission trip director, on our last day in Browning. This week was without a doubt an unforgettable experience.

Combatting Summer Learning Loss: SLAM 2010

I recently saw a time magazine article about summer learning loss for children in low income groups: it was startling, but not surprising. What we've seen, felt, and heard for years at the Rescue Mission is becoming common knowledge. According to the article, "By ninth grade summer learning loss could be blamed for roughly two-thirds of the achievement gap separating income groups."



Basically what that means is kids at the Rescue Mission and from the lower income bracket have few opportunities to learn during the summer. If you ask Tacoma parents about free summer programs for youth you will get a lot of blank stares. Why? There really aren't any. This is where SLAM comes in. SLAM stands for Students Living A Mission. It is a free program for Rescue Mission youth, other shelter youth, and community youth living on the hilltop. One mission that the kids are living is bridging the summer gap between their more priveleged peers. SLAM this year was a huge success and I believe it prepared kids to enter the next year of school with confidence, tools, and even fun to tackle their dreams for the future. This program wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the generous donors, passionate volunteers, and incredibly well organized staff who unanimously want to see ALL kids thrive!

S.L.A.M. 2010 Week 1

A week of Students Living A Mission, the hottest week of the year, 50 kids K-5th grade, gifted, passionate leaders, and activities to nurture kids souls & restore their hearts makes for one amazing week! SLAM is teaching kids that they are loved by others and by God. Each t shirt the kids wear says, "This Summer I'm living a mission, What about you?"





I hope the kids never forget their summer of SLAM!
I hope you enjoy their faces! Their smiles, hearts, & souls are worth more than anything I can think of!
Thank you to all the incredible volunteers, staff, donors, & readers of this blog for caring about the next generation of leaders!

A Slammin' Summer!

The Tacoma Rescue Mission youth are having a lot of fun in the sun with our summer program, S.L.A.M., which stands for Students Living A Mission. We started the program this past Monday with a very encouraging and motivating performance by Or1ginAL, and we have been going strong for the past two days. Tomorrow, I am very excited to take the kids rock climbing at Edgeworks, challenging them and pushing them to realize how capable they really are with the bodies God gave them.

In my group with the Kindergarten and 1st graders, we have been focusing on the story of creation. We learned, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" from Genesis. We have talked about how God created everything, and He said it was good. Most importantly, He loves his creation, and so we are lovely, and we are all created special and unique. Also, God's creation is a testament to how powerful He is; from nothing He created everything. That is amazing!

I'm excited to see how the rest of the month goes with S.L.A.M. It has only been two days, but I feel like we have already been able to do so much! We have had fun, we have been challenged, and we have already learned so much from each other.

Our volunteers deserve a big shout-out, too. Thank you so much to all those who have donated hours of their time to help out at S.L.A.M. We would not work without your generous help! THANKS!

Let Time Stand Still

Do you ever feel yourself growing older? Probably not. It's such a gradual process that, even though your mom asks on your birthday, "How does it feel to finally be (insert age here)," you might think, "Well, I feel exactly the same way I did yesterday."

Most kids think they can't grow up fast enough. When you're five, you can't wait to turn six. When you're 15, you can't wait to turn 16. Kids ache for freedom and responsibility. And it just doesn't seem to happen as quickly as they want it to.

But some kids actually do grow up much too fast. They transform from children to parents at a pace that almost seems instantaneous, having to take care of a handful of younger siblings or take care of themselves, having to deal with stresses like having a home, having enough food, or having adequate clothes. Responsibility is thrown at them instead of handed to them. They have it, whether they like it or not. Whether they chose it or not. I can imagine at this point, a child would ache to be taken care of rather than being the one taking care of others. They might wish to be dependent rather than independent. Slwoing down the clock might not seem so bad anymore.

What would we do if all the children in the world became tiny adults? From whom would we remember to have an insatiable curiosity for the world around us? From whom would we remember to have so much joy that we can't sit still? From whom would we remember to dance and not care who's watching, to sing and not care who's listening? From whom would we be reminded what it's like to have child-like faith?

How do we help to give a child back their childhood?

I feel like what we do at the Tyler Square Youth Program pumps kids full of opportunities to just be who they are: a kid. We do more than that, though, we give kids the opportunity to spend time with their families and to play the role of a kid within the family dynamic. We have Teen Late Nights, Family Nights, Story times, Skate Days, etc. Sometimes it seems like just a lot meaningless fun. But it's not. These are opportunities for families to enjoy each other, to forget about the stresses of life, to build relationships and memories with one another, to learn how to spend quality time together as a family without sitting in front of a television screen. They get out and enjoy the world around them. Together.

Birthdays

The First Tuesdays of the month at the Family Shelter are full of laughter, surprises, and unique activities. Tuesday nights are family night where families are able to have time tasked with creating memories and doing something fun together. The first Tuesday of each month, however, is set aside to celebrate all the youth birthdays of the previous month and all families are always invited to come and participate. For Previous celebrations there have been puppies and puppy chow, kids making their own unique Italian cream sodas, personalized cupcakes, games, and always a story. This month's celebration was yet again another success. The children, along with their parents, were all able to make their own chocolate covered bananas with nuts, sprinkles, and coconut. Without the help of our some of our great volunteers, Kathie and Katherine, the celebration for the kids would not be what it is. Katie always comes prepared with her family with fun activities and goodies for the kids and Katherine pours love into the kids and brings her favorite books to share with all. It is truly a special night for the kids whose birthday is being celebrated. There are usually about 25 clients, staff, and volunteers to celebrate with and sing happy birthday. The kids love all the attention they get as they blow out their candles and open presents; the attention they so much deserve. Thank you to all the volunteers and financial supporters!
I bet one of your best memories when you were little was at one of your birthday parties being surrounded by people who care about you. If your family had no means to give you a party you would be without that memory. If you want to help out for the next youth birthday celebration in July for the Family Shelter to continue making great memories for the kids with your creative ideas and servant heart shoot me an email or call me. Brian 970-231-8827/beggers84@gmail.com.

I am a firm believer that God is working in amazing ways through the Tacoma Rescue Mission to transform people's lives. After having personally witnessed changes both big and small, I know people are living better quality lives due at least partially to the work and outreach of the Tacoma Rescue Mission. But TRM is not some faceless organization. It is made up of people and places that ensure good things continue to happen to restore and heal our city. This includes the staff, the facilities, the donors, and volunteers.

Do you wish to put your hand in some of the good things that are happening in the city of Tacoma? If so, you might want to consider being a volunteer during the month of July for our kids' summer program called SLAM (which stands for Students Living A Mission). The program starts July 5th and runs Monday through Friday, 12 to 4 PM until July 30th at the People's Community Center on MLK. We will be working with kids who are K-5 who are both from the Tacoma Rescue Mission and from the surrounding Hilltop community. We have a lot of fun going on field trips, doing fun games and activities, having guest speakers, doing service projects for the community, and doing a lot of learning and growing in the midst of it all (for kids AND the leaders).

If you enjoy working with kids and could see yourself volunteering anywhere from once a week to once a day, then please let us know. We can use all the help we can get!

If interested, e-mail Kim Maki at makisolomon@aol.com and she can connect you with a time and an age group that would best suit you.

Thank you!

When Elephants Dance

In preparation for a Mexico Mission Trip Meeting this past week, I came across this story:

"'Would you like to know what it is like to do mission with Americans? Let me tell you a story,' said David Coulibaly, a ministry leader in Mali, West Africa.

Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, 'Mouse, let's have a party!'
Animals gathered from far and near. They ate, and drank, and sang, and danced. And nobody celebrated more exuberantly than the Elephant.
After it was over, Elephant exclaimed, 'Mouse, did you ever go to a better party? What a blast!'
But Mouse didn't answer.
'Where are you?' Elephant called. Then he shrank back in horror. There at his feet lay the Mouse, his body ground into the dirt -- smashed by the exuberance of his friend, the Elephant.

'Sometimes that is what it is like to do mission with you Americans,' the African storyteller concluded. 'It is like dancing with an Elephant.'"

From the Mobilizer Vol. 10, Fall 2000

In preparing for our trip, we try to understand that though we have good intentions and want to help a homeless family in Mexico, good intentions aren't necessarily enough to produce good outcomes. With cultural awareness and humility, we want to approach this new and different place as respectful outsiders.

In our bi-monthly meetings, we discuss topics like these to best prepare ourselves for what or who we will encounter and HOW we will encounter them. We understand we represent much more than just ourselves; we represent our friends and family, the Tacoma Rescue Mission, the U.S., God. We want to be good representatives, and we genuinely want to leave a mark on the community we visit that is good and lasting rather than imposing and damaging. We don't want to find ourselves caught up in the music, dancing like elephants.

A successful outcome: Braden

Just wanted to share a quick story about a teen I know that I want you to know. I can't give you his real name, but his story I will give you. Let's say his name is Braden. Braden is 18 year old now. Before the Tacoma Rescue Mission he had gone to numerous different schools and had struggled in most all of them since day 1. Reading and writing did not come easy to him. At home his mom had been addicted to drugs, men, and consequently chaos. His father was more of an idea than a physical presence. The idea of his father was locked up in prison most of Braden's life. The violence and chaos in Braden's story were one of the few consistent pieces. On one occasion when Braden was living in a rundown apartment building the violence peaked. On a balmy California summer's night after Braden had fallen asleep, he heard a loud scuffle downstairs, followed by gunshots. He slowly peered over the stairs to see the man his mom was with dead on the floor.
Things have changed a lot since then.

Since coming to TRM, graduating, and living on their own things are different. His mom has a great job, no longer uses drugs, and is a stable presence in his life. He has gotten his GED, is working hard to become an electrician, and feels hope for his future! In mentoring and teaching him, I have been given more than I could imagine and received incredible amounts from him!

If you feel led to mentor another youth like Braden or get involved, call us and we'll put you in touch with one of our amazing kids that could change your life!
~James Leet
(253) 627-4308

Battle of the Bands

Last Friday we held our mission trip fundraiser Battle of the Bands downtown at Urban Grace and if you weren’t there you missed some great local talent. With the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s own OriginAl rapping and hosting the event, there wasn’t a beat skipped all night. With music ranging from the SOZO Soljaz rapping and dancing on stage to a Taylor Swift karaoke song, all participants were well prepared and competed hard for the cash prize.
Urban Grace proved to be a great site as there was plenty of room for each performer to dance and interact with the crowd. We started early in the day preparing and decorating the space to make it a fun environment alongside the music with some Nintendo Wii, N64, good old fashion four-square, ping-pong, and cards. One of the best parts of the night was the bake sale that was going on during the Battle which sold many goods baked by the Rescue Mission’s own volunteers. I couldn’t help myself and ended up buying seven muffins, two rice crispy treats, a soda, and oh can’t forget the peanut butter chocolate crisp. I was full on music and on baked goods!
Shortly after the bands performed, the crowd was encouraged to participate in a dance off judged by the crowd’s reaction. One of The SOZO Soljaz ended up winning and then on top of that then entire SOZO crew was announced as the winners of the Battle of the Bands and the cash prize. Congratulations to them and thanks to all the bands that came out and performed. Everyone in attendance was so blessed by their presence and talent.

Memo to the disintegrated: Integrate

Memo

To: disintegrating people

From: disintegrating person

CC:

Date: April 23rd, 2010

Re:


Typically this weekly blog reflects the happenings of the Tacoma Rescue Mission youth program, but I wanted to change it up this week and address a goal we have with each youth we work with based on our own shortcomings as a staff.

The goal can be summed up in one word: integration. Integrating not only ourselves (mind, heart, & actions) but also our communities & especially our relationships is vital to our lives.

My need for integration is being revealed in reflecting through my recent trip to India, trying to catch up with everyone, and a great question from a good friend that was asked of me regarding integration. I am sad to say that I am fairly dis-integrated. If this were taken literally, I am not intact or solid, but instead deteriorating. This doesn't sound so good and I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not alone either. So, if I'm not alone how do we bring our relationships together so that we will see our church friends at our workplace, our neighbors in our homes, or our work friends outside of work???
I won't pretend to solve on a blog one of the biggest problems facing the middle class.

However, I will tell ya some things we're doing. It is both deeply internal and deeply external. Inside & outside. First, take care of your whole self: mind, spirit, and body. This means thinking critically, being connected to your emotions, and taking care of your body. Second, we are trying to connect kids to their community. Connecting them with other kids from their schools, their churches, and past schools. When kids are taken out of the shelter and into activities and adventures with other kids they already know integration begins to happen naturally!

Lastly, as we attempt to integrate at any level we can be left feeling pretty hopeless and incapable. In our pursuit of integration, I am feeling hopeful and capable in the ability of God through Jesus Christ to bring my circles of friends closer together and becoming more integrated with His help! Whether we realize it or not, when we forgive, when we serve, or when we love: those choices affect every person we know bringing unity and integration to our community!
~James Leet

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Last Thursday, families from the Tacoma Rescue Mission enjoyed the home opener of the Tacoma Rainiers baseball team. Tacoma’s Youth For Christ provided the tickets, we provided the transportation, and the Rainiers provided the entertainment, fun, and fireworks. Despite the loss for the Rainiers, it was a gain for family memories. It was supposed to rain the entire day but fortunately it held off for the game. However, the wind was freezing but we brought plenty of blankets to shield us. The game had plenty of great hits and catches but the best catch came at the beginning of the game in the first inning. The mascot for the Rainiers, whose name I am forgetting but I’m pretty sure is a moose, was tossing some souvenir baseballs to the stands. One of the fathers we brought reached out and caught one, among many other fathers, for his four year old boy. Neither one of them stopped smiling the rest of the game and not even the fireworks at the end could distract them from reliving the catch over and over.

Here at the Mission, we are blessed by so many organizations that provide opportunities for the families to spend some quality time together and laugh. Whether its skate night once a month at Wheelz, Tuesday family nights, father/child events, or just the random outing to the park, without local organizations and volunteers many memories would be lost. Thank you to the community of Tacoma for caring about your neighbors and thank you to the Rainiers and Tacoma’s Youth For Christ for making last week memorable!

New Life

This week, our theme at the Afterschool Program surrounded EGGS. We used eggs for art activities, science experiments (or EGGsperiments), games, races, riddles, and more. Eggs were significant this week because they represent the spring season and the Easter holiday since eggs symbolize new life.

With the spring season, we see new life with the sprouting of plants and flowers (an image soon to be seen at Tyler Square after all of the hard work put into our community garden). With the Easter holiday, we see new life in commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even though Jesus' resurrection was a historical event that happened in the past, this event of rebirth can still have power in our lives today, similar to how we can be affected by the beauty and power of nature's rebirth via plants, images of which are easy to notice in our day-to-day lives during the season of spring.

It's important to feel reverence for the beauty and power of Jesus' resurrection too. This event shows us the power God has over death. Only God has power over death and only God can give the gift of life. At Tyler Square, this is so important to remember because the whole point of the Family Life Program is to help people transform and to start new lives. But if God is the only one with the power to defeat death and grant new life, then this act of transformation cannot happen apart from God. We need him. Desperately.

Below I have included pictures of an egg activity we did this week. Some of you probably have done this activity before--it's an egg toss. The whole point is to throw an egg back and forth between partners without breaking the egg. The kids and the volunteers had a lot of fun with this.

Even though we had a lot of fun, this game is challenging. Eggs are fragile, so, obviously, it's not easy to throw this fragile item around while not breaking it. Similarly, the lives of these kids are fragile. They've been thrown around by life's circumstances, and they desperately need the cushion of God's loving hands and the power of His healing to bring the pieces of their life back together, to build a new life.

I pray that the After-school Program acts as a medium that transmits God's love, creating an environment where the kids are nurtured and are able to transform from past hurts into new and exciting beginnings. Thanks to all of the support we receive from volunteers, from donors, and from the local community in general. We can't do it alone!

Reigniting the soul: Spring Break @ TRM

If you're not around kids or don't have kids it's easy to forget about something as wonderful and relaxing to our soul as spring break. Although our spring break mission trip to Mexico has been moved to August, we still took every opportunity to keep our kids active & involved. Most kids at the mission weren't relaxing though, we kept them busy either with backpacking, an art camp, or making Easter crafts in an effort to reignite their soul. This spring break it was especially clear how much we rely on other organizations, churches, and individuals to re-create the path laid out for our kids. The teens backpacking went with Peak7 into the wild of the Olympics for 4 nights, more than 20 miles, and adventure that they will be telling their grandkids about. To reignite the adventurous souls of our teens we sometimes take them away from all the distractions, so that they begin to see who God is and who they really are.

Reigniting the soul often involves art, music, and dance and 10 of our elementary kids participated in an art camp all week at Urban Grace church to explore these. The kids were able to have time and space to explore art and had a lot of fun doing it! They learned break dancing, graffiti art, music, fashion design, and many other forms of urban art that speaks to them and who they are as artists.

Thank you Peak 7, Urban Grace, and our volunteers during spring break that helped our kids to reignite their souls with adventure, art, and Recreation!
More pics to come of our kids roughing it in the Olympics...

Good Morning Star

Last week the Tacoma Rescue Mission was blessed with an energetic group from Morning Star Church in Salem Oregon. Morning Star’s youth program sends high school kids out on mission trips every year during their spring break. The high school freshman came to Tacoma to serve, deepen their faith, and try to understand what it means to live a life of service. Morning Star has done this the past three years with their freshman group and this year was a group of around forty that came to the City of Destiny. This group of forty couldn’t have been any more willing to serve. Their hearts we so kind, flexible, and Christ-like.
Among other service projects throughout Tacoma they participated in, the freshman, which also consisted of some junior leaders, helped the Tacoma Rescue Mission by serving lunch all week at both New Life Square and the Family Shelter, working in the Need-A-Break donation center, sharing a VBS with the after school programs at both Tyler Square and the Family Shelter, putting on a family night, and ending with a bar-b-que at Tyler Square and loving on all of the youth. One of the favorites was definitely the VBS worship songs with the guitar which none of us could get out of our heads. The youth were clapping their hands and singing along, begging to hear another song.
Thank you Morning Star for sharing your spring break with all of us involved in the youth program. You could have played video games all break or gone somewhere relaxing in the sun with friends. But you chose to raise $300 each over the past couple of months to pay your way to come and serve during your spring break. You slept on cots, showered sparingly at the local gym club, and even missed a couple of meals in all of your service. Thank you so much and may you be blessed from your experience. You truly blessed us all with your hearts of service!!!

Reptile Man!

A couple of weeks ago, Tyler Square hosted the Reptile Man! He came to the office with all of his wild animals in tow, and he presented us with an exciting, informative, and interactive show. The kids and parents alike watched in awe as he brought out lizards, snakes, alligators, and turtles that were only five or ten feet away. And the Reptile Man has trained these animals to handle the human touch, so everyone who wanted to was able to hold a snake, pet a turtle, or tickle an alligator. Isn't God's creation amazing? We don't necessarily need to be faced with snakes and alligators in order to realize it, though. God's beauty and creativity is all around us.

We're so grateful at Tyler Square for all of the fun events and opportunities we have that let us learn, laugh, and grow in fellowship. There is so much joy and laughter here, and I think both joy and laughter are wonderful aids in helping people transform their lives.

We have another opportunity later this week on Thursday night: a church group will be throwing a Family Night event at Tyler Square with root beer floats and the movie UP. It is a great opportunity for families to spend quality time together.

Thank you to all who give their time and effort to bring laughter and smiles into the lives of people at Tyler Square!

Tool Time

Our mission trip to Mexico is approaching fast! We have four weeks until our team will be building a home for a family in Mexico. We’ve come along way since our first staff meeting where the mission trip was dreamed into reality. Over the past five months we’ve been preparing our team to enter another culture, lovingly holding the students and staff to the expectations to go on the trip, and faithfully raising funds. So many people have helped us along the road leading up to Mexico and now we’re in the stages of gearing up for the trip, literally. One of the unique aspects, and I think one of the coolest, about this trip is unlike most houses here in the US, the house we build in Mexico will be done without power tools. We’ll be mixing our own cement, our best friends will be our hammers, and I saw on our list we need a sand sifter (that should be fun). Given this, we have to bring our own tools to Mexico. If you know of anyone or you yourself would like to help, we are starting to collect the tools necessary to build the house. Attached in the following link is our building manual and on page 26 is the tool inventory list. If you have a tool on that list and are able to part ways with it for a week it will be put to good use with the Tacoma Rescue Mission Youth program in Mexico. Thank you so much for your help and please continue to pray for everyone involved in the mission trip. http://mumbles.amorhq.net/build/single.pdf

Growth!

During the last couple of days, I have been helping some of our 5th grade students with their big Science Fair Projects at the Afterschool Program at Tyler Square. It's been a lot of fun, and I love seeing the kids' creativity. With one student in particular, we were experimenting with flowers to see how their growth would be affected by different liquids that we used on them over the span of a week. The different liquids we used were water, milk, and vinegar. Below is a picture of the new, spry, and still-healthy flowers on the first day that we got them.



Then we watered one flower with water, one flower with milk, and the last flower with vinegar.



The vinegar smelled so bad! We plugged our noses...



By Day 2, we could already see a change! You can see in the picture below that the flower on the far left already began to wilt within 24 hours of our first watering session. Can you guess which liquid we used on that flower?



If you said vinegar, you are correct! Vinegar is acidic, and in this case the vinegar was so acidic that it made the environment of the soil nonconducive for this flower's growth, and so it began to die. This flower not only began to die, but it smelled and looked bad too. The other two flowers that were given water and milk, however, look healthy and beautiful. They were in conditions that helped them grow, and it showed.

This experiment made me think about what we "feed" ourselves as people. Even further, it made me think about what the Youth Program feeds the youth. If we don't feed and nourish ourselves mentally, spiritually, or even literally with the right "food," then our bodies and our states of mind show the effects.

Our mission statement within the Youth Program is to "Foster a safe environment that empowers all kids to grow academically, socially, and spiritually through the love of Jesus Christ." Essentially, we hope that what we "feed" the kids at the Youth Program helps them to grow and transform. We hope that what we do here helps the kids to lead healthy, productive lives that bear fruit. With the help of good volunteers and a caring staff, I think we do a good job. But really, we can't do any job at all without the help of the all-good and all-loving Father, whose hands must be in all we do if we want to succeed.

If you feel called to support the growth of the kids here in the Youth Program, one of the first things you could do for us is pray! If you have time that you can pour into these kids, you can also volunteer during the Afterschool Program or become a mentor. Let us know if you are interested in helping! It is an opportunity for you to grow and transform alongside these kids...I know that I as a staff member have definitely grown and learned a lot. The Tacoma Rescue Mission is a good environment for everyone involved to grow and transform.

Bootstraps & Bullet dodging

Have you ever thought about why you are where you are in life?
Did you really pull yourself up by your bootstraps?
Do you really believe that you earned everything you have?
C'mon.
You might immediately in your mind agree with me, but does your lifestyle and actions follow suit with your mind?
Whether you feel good about where you're at in life or not, you did not get there by yourself, there were many people actively involved.

If you're anything like me, I'm guessing someone influential in your life helped you to dodge some serious bullets.
If you're anything like me, I'm guessing there was someone or a combination of someones who poured into you.
If you're anything like me, these influential people or mentors are one of the main reasons I do the work I do.
If you're anything like me it was a coach, a teacher, a grandma, a pastor, or a mentor.

Think back on where your life would be without a single stable mentor, teacher, coach, aunt/uncle, or grandparent...We at the Tacoma Rescue Mission work with many kids without these, and if you feel led to be an influence in a kid's life by being a mentor, please listen to that pull on your heart and let us know!
Sincerely,
~James
(253) 627-4308
jamesl@trm.org

Silent Auction Success!

Thank you to everyone who attended the Mexico Mission Trip Silent Auction! It was very successful, and we owe a lot of our success to the generous volunteers and attendees who were there. I think everyone had a lot of fun getting into bidding wars, and I think many people walked away with at least one thing that they wanted. I know the Mexico Mission Trip Team definitely walked away with a prize--we are now $2,000 closer to Mexico! God has blessed this trip in amazing and miraculous ways. I'm so excited to see what He has planned for us.  

This is the before picture, when the chips and the salsa were still pristine and untouched. 

First raffle! The winner got a dozen cupcakes from downtown Tacoma's Hello Cupcake! YUM! Delicious goodness!

We had some beautiful performances by guest vocalists and guitarists. They blew me away!

I really enjoyed James' motivational talk about "weight." He wasn't talking about the weight we carry on our thighs and around our midsection, but about the weight that we carry on our shoulders. He focused particularly on the weight our teenagers who are going to Mexico carry on their shoulders everyday. The teenagers motivate him, he said, because they have had to carry so much weight their entire lives, and they have had to figure out ways to cope with  carrying all of that pressure and weight. 

Everyone's putting down their competing bids with only a couple of minutes left!

Two sharply-dressed members of the Mexico Mission Trip Team! Don't they look ready to serve?

Everyone's enjoying their delicious food (enchilada casserole) made by the awesome New Life Square Kitchen, and the food was made even better because it was served by the lovely New Life Program Ladies. 

Thank you all for your support! We will continue to keep you updated on our trip. 

Hello from the TRM Youth Program!

We had an exciting week last week, and this next week will only continue to bring more bustle and excitement! We have had a lot going on!

Last week, we took a group of younger kids to Pump It Up, a huge building filled with inflatable bounce houses--it is the perfect place for kids to run around, use all of that pent-up energy, and get some exercise all while have a lot of fun! We also got to make crafts. We painted pots, and the kids did a beautiful job. They were such artists, and they were so focused too--especially after getting so tired out with bouncing around for an hour and a half.

Last week we also had our monthly Teen Late Night, and we did another (upon much request) Fear Factor theme, except this time we really stepped it up a notch. With the help of some great volunteers, we were able to do teammwork challenges, physical challenges, and food challenges. The kids really stepped up to the plate! They ate raw eggs, unknown mixtures of things, and they all really worked together and had good attitudes. It was a blast! Unfortunately, those few who attempted the gallon challenge (drinking a gallon of milk in an hour) found themselves visiting the bathroom probably more often than they had wanted.

Now, this Friday, we have another really exciting event that is much more open to the public, so we hope you are able to come! It is a Silent Auction being held at Trinity Church by the Tacoma Mall, and it is at 5:30 pm. Tickets cost $20, and it includes entrance, dinner, and the night's musical entertainment (singing and acoustic guitar). All of the proceeds from this event will go directly to our teen's mission trip down to Mexico, the purpose of which is to glorify God by building a house for a homeless family in the area of Tijuana. We hope you can come! If you want more information, you can call Krista Dunham at 435-757-1673.

There are always exciting things happening around the Youth Department here...we hope you can be a part of them!

Soma Sacred Spaces!

The Tyler Sq. garden is just waiting to grow yummy, fresh, local produce this spring/summer after receiving a face lift with raking, weeding, and much love today! A missional community from Soma Communities came and rejuvenated the garden at Tyler Square and reorganized our cluttered storage space as well! They did an amazing job serving!!!