Tuesday, February 24, 2015

What do you do?

 

     
What do you do?

Every time Tony and I tell people about Living Bridges Ministry, inevitably the question comes up: “What do you do?”  We are humbled that people care enough to ask and want to know more about this ministry.  We also realize that through social media, we are “meeting” many people whom we don’t ever get to have personal contact or conversation with.  Many of them are curious what we do also.  So this blog post is a summary of each of our programs and what the volunteer needs are that go with those programs.

   In his song, Do Something, Matthew West sings:

I'm so tired of talking
About how we are God's hands and feet
But it's easier to say than to be
Live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves
It's alright, “somebody else will do something”
Well, I don't know about you
But I'm sick and tired of life with no desire
I don't want a flame, I want a fire
I wanna be the one who stands up and says,
“I'm gonna do something”

After reading about what we do and what our volunteer needs are, we hope you will take some time to pray about how/where you can become involved.  Come “do something” and make a difference in South Valdosta!

Kids’ Connection
  Our Kids’ Connection program was our very first Living Bridges program! It runs from June through September on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month. The format is similar to Vacation Bible School only we are at the park.  Families come and the kids rotate through 3 stations where they get a Bible story, a craft activity, and a game or music time. While the kids are doing that, the adults are hearing a devotion.  The adults then make something to take home or they play bingo.  We all come back together as a group and eat lunch.  It takes 12 adult volunteers and several youth volunteers to successfully run a Kids’ Connection Saturday. 

Trunk or Treat
  Trunk or Treat at the park provides kids the chance to have a safe environment to get treats and play games.  Volunteers decorate their cars in a family friendly theme and then hand out school supplies, small toys, candy and other goodies to the children who come through. We have roughly 30 spots for Trunk or Treat this year and it will be held on Saturday, October 24th from 5-7pm (car decorating and set up begins at 4pm.) In addition to those who set up cars, we need about 6 volunteers for registration and to help make sure the cars stay stocked with candy/prizes.

Thanksgiving Luncheon
  Our Thanksgiving luncheon is a potluck Thanksgiving meal.  Living Bridges provides the hams and everyone brings sides and desserts.  At this event, we hand out sacks of staple grocery items like flour, sugar, oil, etc to help our families through the holiday season.  The Thanksgiving Luncheon needs about 8 adult volunteers to serve food and sign in our guests.

Birthday Party for Jesus
  Held in December, our Birthday Party for Jesus is much like a Kids’ Connection program day.  We have 3 stations for the kids and the adults play Bingo to win prizes that they can give as gifts or keep for themselves.  We also collect board games throughout the year to distribute to our families as gifts in an effort to promote quality family time. We hope to have a new toy to wrap and send home with each child. We need 12-14 volunteers during the birthday party to run the stations, serve the food and help with gift distribution.  About a week before the party, we will have a wrapping workshop and 3-4 volunteers will be needed to wrap toys for the kids.

Transformations
  Our newest program, Transformations, is a 10 month long 3 phase program geared toward helping people out of poverty and into self-sufficient living. The first phase helps participants identify how it is they are in poverty and then to set realistic goals toward getting out of it.  The second phase helps with skills like how to fill out a job application, how to build a resume, and interview practice. The last phase teaches sound financial management decision making skills that will help guide participants in both the spending and saving of the money they make. Several volunteers are needed for this program in the following capacities: to serve as mentors for the participants, to speak during one or more nights of class on one of many topics we will be covering, to be a mock interviewer and share constructive feedback with our people, and to serve in the prayer circle that prays for this group.

Clothing Exchanges
  Clothing exchanges take place in the spring and fall and allow people from the neighborhood to show up and get 1-2 gently used outfits for each family member. Then they can exchange gently used clothing that their family has outgrown for more of our clothing in any size.  Our March clothing exchange needs 12 volunteers.  We anticipate needing about 16 volunteers for the one in the fall.

Mom’s Connection
  Mom’s Connection is a program similar to MOPS (Mothers of PreschoolerS.)  It gives moms with children of any age a place to come and enjoy fellowship.  While at the Mom’s Connection, mom’s will receive a devotion, information relevant to the stage of life they are at, and a snack will be provided.  Activities and supervision for children who are not in school will be provided for each of these meetings. Mom’s Connection will meet on 2 weekday mornings each month and will only go on during the school year.  It will take about 8 adult volunteers to run each meeting.


As I said at the beginning of this post, we hope you will be prayerful about becoming involved.  Some volunteers come out once or twice and others are there almost every time we have something.  We are blessed by all of them no matter how often they come. Consider getting your Sunday school class, your small group, a couple of coworkers, or a few friends together so you can work as a group! For more information on our ministry or about volunteering with us (including specific locations/times for each program), please email info@livingbridgesministry.org.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A Year of Stone Soup!


A Year of Stone Soup!


     Toward the end of last year, I began thinking of all that God had done during our first year of ministry and all that He would want to do in 2015.  We and our volunteers worked hard in 2014 and we were physically tired. However; God had done so much with so little.   Tony and I reflected on the first Kids’ Connection where literally no one showed up, but volunteers.  Then we reflected on the Birthday Party for Jesus (our last event in 2014) where we had 50 people not counting our volunteers!  God has brought us so far in such a short time!  We want to make sure to give Him thanks and praise for that!

     We did not schedule any ministry events in January—setting a precedent for years to come!  We wanted our volunteers to rest. Tony and I also rested, prayed, and were seeking to learn what it is that God would have us do in the year 2015.  Then we met with our board and our volunteers and presented a calendar and a budget so we could get going again!

    Our central theme this year is Stone Soup!  It was one of my favorite stories as a kid.  For those who are unfamiliar, Stone Soup is a folk tale about a group of 3 soldiers (monks or farmers depending on the version you read) who are on a journey.  They travel through a village at meal time and begin to ask villagers to give them so food.  Not one villager will share with them, in fact they all say they don’t have enough for themselves, let alone to share.  It is the same story with everyone the soldiers speak to.  Eventually, the soldiers decide to make stone soup.  They ask a villager for a pot and some water which they are given.  In the center of the village they build a fire and heat their pot with water and a few stones.  Curious villagers ask what the soldiers are doing and are told that they are making stone soup.  With each answer, the soldiers comment that the soup would taste even better if it had an ingredient (meat, potatoes, carrots, or spices) which villagers each take turns going home to bring back. Eventually there is enough delicious soup for the soldiers and the whole village!

   Our desire for this year using this theme, is to begin to build a partnership with the people we have been serving. The most effective ministry in our neighborhood is one that reflects a diversity of people and the variety of gifts that God has blessed each of us with!  In 1 Peter 4:10 we are told, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”  You may notice that it does not say “If you have a gift.”  Each of us has a gift from the Lord that is to be used for His purpose.  We know that while most of these people have needs that require outside financial assistance, they are still blessed by God and can faithfully serve Him and others. We will be encouraging them to find an area of service where they can use their gifts and talents to bless others! 

  We also want to encourage each of you to pray about using the gifts and talents God has given you to partner with us! We are starting two new programs this year so the need for compassionate and loving volunteers and mentors has never been greater! You may serve one time or several according to your schedule and how you feel led to serve.  We have openings where you can work with adults, with children, or volunteer to do more of the office end of things. To find out more about when/how you can volunteer with us, please email info@livingbridgesministry.org we would be happy to tell you about all of the areas we have available and let you select the best match for your gifts and talents!



Blessings, Darcy



Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Where Is The News??

Where is the News?

     Good morning friends!  Some of us are old enough to remember when Wendy’s fast food restaurants ran the “Where is the Beef?” themed commercials.  It showed a lady peering under the bun of competitor’s hamburgers trying to find the beef which indicated that competitors served smaller burgers.  Since we started Living Bridges Ministry, I have felt the same way about our newsletter.  I picture readers reading the whole 4 pages and thinking “Where is the news?”  The templates we had to choose from just didn’t allow us to get as much “news” into the monthly newsletter as we would have liked and my schedule does not allow me to “lay out” my own format! So we have prayed and searched and prayed and searched some more and we think we have found our solution (at least for now!)

    We are going to a quarterly newsletter which will show pictures and give snippets of information just like many of you have already been receiving monthly.  In between those, we will now write a blog.  Those writings will have more details about our programs and more information about exactly what we are doing in our ministry. As readers, you will probably feel more informed and you can easily share these blog posts with anyone you feel would be interested in the information.  By sharing a single blog post instead of a whole 4 page newsletter you can make sure that the person you share with is seeing exactly the information you wanted them to see.


     Another benefit is that we can blog when we have news instead of storing it up for the next newsletter.  This will allow us to share information faster (although we do share relevant information on our Facebook page fairly often!)  It will also allow us to share news that might not have otherwise gotten included in the newsletter due to space limitations!  Often, those stories are the ones about how God is really working in our ministry!  Stories like how we got the use of the picture of the living bridges that we use on our website and our Facebook page from an award winning photographer for only $100 because he admired what we were going to be doing! Or about how when we are low on funds and have an insurance payment due or other large expense coming up, a check shows up at just the right moment which has happened quite often over the last year (we call this Manna for Today!) Or how when it was 38 degrees outside (at the start), we had one of our largest turn outs ever for an event at our Birthday Party for Jesus! Those moments make us laugh, cry and give thanks and praise to God, but often, because we are trying to get news out about activities within the ministry, you aren’t hearing those stories! So we look forward to sharing more with you this year! We would also like to thank you for your prayers, comments, support, and for sharing our information with others as we continue our ministry in South Valdosta!