Snowshoeing, frozen toes, & Icy roads

A multitude of TRM teens embarked on a snowshoe trip that proved too difficult last week when attempting to reach a cabin near Mt. Rainier.




The original plan was to drive up to the trailhead, snowshoe roughly 4 miles to the cabin, relax, spend the nite, and hike back to the trailhead the next day and return safely to Tacoma. This original plan quickly changed when the impassable icy road proved unsafe. So, we decided to play it safe. This tacked on an extra 3 miles of hiking before even getting to the trailhead! So after a chilly 3 miles, we did what any group would do, we took a vote. I'll be honest, up to this point the hiking was slow, people's toes were frozen, and pants soaked through. The duffle bags, sleds, and sleeping bags were a disheveled mess dragging behind many of the youth. The result of the vote was to eventually turn around and go back to the van. Back to warm up and head home to the safe refuge of Tacoma. Although the plans changed, the kids took it in stride and maintained a positive attitude throughout it all!

A Servant's Heart

This past Monday, the Tacoma Rescue Mission held a graduation at Life Center Church for those who have completed the New Life Program and Family Life Program. It was a very exciting and inspiring event that not only allowed us to celebrate the accomplishments of those who have worked hard to transform their lives through these programs, but it also allowed us and the youth the opportunity to lend a helping hand and serve others. The teen leadership group, which typically meets every Monday night from 6 to 8 pm, attended the graduation this past week as servants. They dressed their best, and they represented the Tacoma Rescue Mission very well by holding open doors, greeting people as they walked in, and serving food during the reception that proceeded after the ceremony. And it wasn't easy! It was a challenge for the youth to serve the food--the line was long, with the end nowhere in sight, and the youth were hungry. It was tough for me too. It was my dinnertime, but I had to wait alongside the kids to eat only after everyone else, about 300 other people, ate first. I was impressed with them, though. They handed out food and filled everyone else's plates before serving themselves. They did an awesome job!
I hope that, through experiences like these, the teens are challenged and are given an opportunity to grow. Hopefully, from this sort of perspective, the youth can have a deeper appreciation for all of the help we get everyday at Tyler Square from our generous volunteers. It's not so easy to give your time away so freely, and we at the Youth Department are so blessed with a constant influx of volunteers.
Ultimately, I pray that we use Monday nights to coordinate a group of teens who come to understand leadership as a means of getting along with people instead of understanding leadership as how much power one has over other people, as Mohandas Gandhi once said. So it is our goal here to define leadership as an act of serving rather than dictating. And through this, the teens can be encouraged to go out and give back to their community in a positive way, in a way that is similar to how our volunteers give to us.

SuperClub at Tyler Square!

The moment Superclub catapulted into our community with carnival games, pizza, and tons of kids it has taken off here at Tyler Square. We are grateful to have the partnership with the Superclub family that comes every week and contributes life to our thriving community! Check out these videos of our kids having fun at SuperClub:

UPCOMING VOLUNTEER EVENTS...

Hi to all past, current, & present volunteers!
We work with kids that are hurting, have been homeless, and need help...
We could not serve the kids we serve without the help of faithful volunteers like you!
"without sacrifice, love is not complete", so I want to thank every volunteer who sacrifices greatly to love our kids!
We have 2 upcoming volunteer events that you should know about.
They are:
1) Tyler Square and New Life Square Graduation. Monday December 7th @ 7pm at Life Center Church. Come see families, men, & women whose lives have been transformed!
2) Volunteer Training/Orientation. Tuesday December 15th @6pm at Family Shelter (609 S 15th, Tacoma, WA 98405. A chance for volunteers to come, learn, and tell their story about volunteering!

Mission Trip Silent Auction!

As you've read below, the Tacoma Rescue Mission Youth are going on a mission trip to build a house in Mexico over spring break. We're all very excited about the trip and have been working hard to put our team together. We had our first training for the trip last Thursday and received our information binders filled with packing lists, documentation materials, requirements, safety tips, parent info, a few Spanish lessons, and much more. The students had many questions as the anticipation of the trip keeps growing. We learned that we will be staying in tents, are not allowed to use powertools to construct the house, and will have to survive the week without cells phones. There will continue to be many more trainings as our trip approaches. At the next meeting, each student will be presenting their research of a Mexican holiday to help us learn about the culture.

One event we will be discussing in the upcoming meetings is our silent auction on Feburary 5th. All of the proceeds from the silent auction will go towards the mission trip. Not only are the youth staff and students going on the trip working hard, but many volunteers are putting in a lot of time into planning this event. The silent auction will also have a live auction, raffles, live music provided by Urban Orchestra, and dinner! Check out the Facebook event for the auction on the Tacoma Rescue Mission Youth Program profile's wall posts. It's going to be tons of fun and we want to invite you to partner with us to make this event a success and helping to send us on our mission trip.

Currently, we are seeking donations for the event. If you have any items to donate or would like to help out with the auction please do! We need your ideas, talents, and heart. Maybe you could put together a theme basket for the event. A rainy day basket filled with movies, hot chocolate, and banana bread would be a fun basket for sure. Or what about a best friend basket with golf passes, a resturant gift certificate, and tickets to a ball game. Putting a theme basket together can be fun and use your creativity. Furthermore, we want you to attend the event. Tickets are $20 which include dinner for the event starting at 5:30 on Friday Feburary 5th. Please contact Kyle at kyles@trm.org for more information.

Literacy rocks!

This past Monday, the Tyler Square Afterschool Program had a Literacy Program Kick-Off party with the generous help of a group of Pi Beta Phi women from the University of Puget Sound. This Literacy Program that is being led by this group of young women is called Champions Are Readers (CAR), and it is a month-long program that strives to get kids reading at least 15 minutes every night. Hopefully, those 15 minutes can be spent with a parent or sibling--the program is geared towards involving the whole family, not just one child. In the end, we hope the children participating learn to enjoy the activity of reading, we hope they become more competent readers, and we hope parents and children learn how to spend time together in the act of reading.

Thankfully, our kick-off party was a huge success. With the help of the Pi Beta Phi girls, the children ate pizza and received new books to read for their minimum 15-minute reading goal each night. The children also received free workbooks that provided fun activities to go along with their reading, a race track that simulates their reading patterns (and through which the children can keep track of how much they are reading), and guidance for the children's parents in terms of how the parents can be involved with their youngsters' nightly reading.

The following day at the Afterschool Program, I was encouraged to see some workbooks out with race tracks that recorded 30 and 45 minutes of reading for the prior night. The kids were excited about reading!

With a program like this, I can see that the kids are enabled to achieve success. The kids aren't just given a set of expectations (Hey you! Become literate!). Instead, the kids are given a ladder to climb on and multiple sets of hands that are reaching out to help during the journey towards achievement. In the end, the children aren't just literate, but they hopefully have learned to love the act of reading and are capable of using reading to enrich the rest of their life. The kids can't achieve this on their own; with the right type of resources and support, though, they will be able to climb to the very top.

Do you believe that they can make it to the top? There are a lot of things in their lives pushing them down and holding them back, putting a heavy weight on their shoulders even before they take their first step. They can't do it alone. Can you help?

Our kids are champions, and we believe they deserve all the support that they can get!

Youth 2009 Mission trip

The Tacoma rescue mission staff believes that every teenager is capable of success, because we believe this we have partnered up with Amor ministers to lead are youth on a mission trip to Mexico to build a house. Our main purpose in leading this trip is to build up are youth and to help transform them into Godly leaders who understand the value of being a servant. We also feel privileged to be able to share God’s love with a Mexican family. Please feel free to check out more about Amor at amor.org. There are many ways that you can partner with us the first is through prayer. We need prayer that God Gives the leaders wisdom to lead this trip who he wants it. Also we need prayer for each student that will be going with us. You can also partner with use through helping out with our bake sale by baking some goodies or helping with our auction by adding some new auction items. We are very exited to see how God is going to work through this trip and are excited to partner up with Amor and with all of you.