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...