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.