What Will They Do Next?

4-5 year olds have a different but exciting idea towards life. Their imaginations run wild all throughout the day. Its very hard to try and guess what they might say or even do next. Everyone of these kids can bring a smile to my face in may ways. The things they come up with are so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh because it tends to be extremely funny! They are the most adorable kids I've met. Throughout this week the kids have gotten to do many different activities, and make many different art crafts. They also learned new songs along with that moves that go with them. I personally think that the kids really enjoyed dancing and singing the most, they tended to get lose and go with the flow!

The Rambunctious but Altogether Lovable Fours and Fives

It's hard to find the words to describe my feelings about the 4 and 5 year olds that Sabrina, Kisha, and I have had the opportunity to lead and spend our time with at Urban. The kids are precious. While it's almost impossible to get most of them to sit still for longer than 30 seconds, they have such an inexpressible joy and passion for life that it's also impossible not to love them. We often find ourselves laughing very hard about the hilarious sayings, imaginations, and actions of these young children. A few of the kids have such wild and altogether entertaining imaginations that it's hard to bring myself to tell them to forget their imaginative ideas for the time being and focus on the task at hand. Here are some pictures of some of the darlings that I have the blessing to spend my days with this summer!

A group shot of about half of the little "Indians" we had running around one day.

Eduardo, the most imaginative little boy I have ever met. Here, he's posing as he's "frozen" while playing freeze tag. 

John John, David, Diego, and Jacob having a blast with Lance, one of the leaders from the Springtown group from last week.

The playground is definitely this age's favorite hangout spot. Here, Amore is posing at the top of the slide!

Joshua and David, two brothers who love each other to death and have the sweetest smiles!


God bless!

~Bets

Hurt Left Unhealed

Heart break was the theme for what I was experiencing last week at urban. On Tuesday, I found out that one of the sweetest girls in my group of 6&7 year olds tried to jump out of a moving car and also attempted to "seriously" attacked her sister. She was then enrolled in the psychiatric ward at a nearby hospital and studied for a while. I was broken over the news. She is one of those kids that melts your heart and rarely gives you any problems. I later found out that she was on medication during the day to keep her calm and due to some "home" problems, she was experiencing a lot of anger.
This same week, I sat outside with a 13 year old girl talking about how angry and short tempered she was at another girl and that it all stemmed from her dad being murdered a few years before. For 45 minutes, with her face streaming in tears of frustration, we talked about having self-control, the consequences of anger, and the healing power of God. I knew that God was the only one that could take her pain away and draw her off of the bad path she is headed down, but she spoke of God as being the one who allowed her father to die. All I could say was that an angry man with a gun killed her dad, not God, and that I truly believe that there is a better and bigger plan for her than the things she is doing currently. My heart was heavy with sorrow for each of the girls, but these are just two stories of the many here at the Lincoln Heights Courts. There is so much pain lurking behind the cute faces here at urban and it is a shame that they all have to be young children. Why does the world overlook things that are going on here, good and bad? Why don't ALL the people of God turn their deafened ears towards the cries of these children and to all the pain left unhealed. I know that I was oblivious to it all once, but if you have ears to hear, let them hear. We can no longer hide behind the "that's not my calling" smokescreen, or "I don't have time" excuse. Jesus speaks of them in them in such a direct way that you would have to be a pharisee to hide from it.
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. 10"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. 12 "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
So Jesus is passionately seeking after all the little ones in San Antonio, but the question is, "Are we?" Are we seeking to be God's guiding and healing hands and feet or are we just being kept in the pockets of our own selfishness like too much change that clangs around in some annoying repetitive fashion.

Our Adorable yet Crafty 8 and 9 year olds!!

This past week with our 8 and 9 year olds had an extremely fun time with the game telephone. The group we had here Springtown Church of Christ who were totally awesome turned the game into God Telephone. This is a video of our awesome and super cute 8 and 9 year olds enjoying God Telephone.

Gig em and God Bless, Lindsey Hawkins

Our Lovely girls in our Urban After hours Class!

Amaryis painting her Jewlery Box Blue!

Rosary admiring the work of others!!

Elyssa she put so much paint on her Jewlery Box that the top got stuck to the bottom. She is adorable!

Bets and I are having so much fun with our urban after hours class and this next tuesday we will be making lots of Jewlery , so the girls have plenty of Jewlery to put in their awesome new jewlery boxes!

Gig em and God Bless,Lindsey Hawkins

Blessings!!

The Lord has blessed this group of Americorps with not only wonderful children, but also wonderful volunteer groups! It is truly amazing to see how loved these children are, even by complete strangers that come in just to help out. We continually witness the love of Jesus Christ that is showered over Urban Connection, and the kids we have in the program. The groups have had some awesome activities planned for the kids. From decoration to dancing, and water sports to watching movies, it has been a blessing to see the faces of our children light up with joy. We have been given the opportunity to change lives and show others love. We are blessed. By: Julia H.

Jesus loves ALL the little children!

After spending a day at urban connection you'll quickly find out which kids are notorious and infamous for doing and being what: you got your charmers, you schemers, your lovers, your clingers, your drama queens and kings, your sweet hearts, your trouble makers and your "you're-just-so-cute-I-want-to-put-you-in-my-pocket-and-take-you-home" kids. And one would think that being with children like this all day 5 days a week for 8 weeks would be mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually draining...well it is! Sometimes at the end of the day I go home thinking that I have failed because I didnt change a life. As crawl into my bed after I've eaten and taken a shower, I am faced with 1 of 2 choices: I can turn on the TV or can open my Bible. Thankfully, I chose to open my Bible and my heart to the leading of the Holy Spirit; and day after day the Lord always tells me "If you love those children like I do, then you are changing their life." I know it seems so repetive to talk about love but the Lord is showing just what a powerful tool love can be. We hear songs about love all time: "all you need is love, love never fails, vision of love, power of love, let love be, L-O-V-E!" So when I wake up the next day and I thing about only loving those loveable, clingy, sweetheart, and charming kids, I think how Jesus showed love to all the children (yes even the drama queens and trouble makers) and by showing love we can change those not-so-easy-to-love kids into kids that we can't get enough of. Posted by Candice Johnson

Springtown Youth Group

This past week came and went to fast, I along with the children really enjoyed having Springtown Youth Group help us out! They were a wonderful group with everything planned. The activities they had keep the kids involved and excited to came back the next day. Our 4-5 year old age group had a blast with the youth group and all their activities. Each day the group worked on a story time with different stories from the bible, and with that they would teach the kids a verse that they had them repeat to get a treat. I love that this group not only had fun games for the children to play, but also taught them fun stories that the bible holds. The kids really liked the particular stories they told, most of them really liked the story about Daniel and the lion. Well that's all for now...

Springtown Rocks!!!

This week has come to an end, and I must say it rocked! The group that was with us, Springtown, was such a great group of people. Upon first meeting them I could feel the love of God through their interaction with the children as well as with the staff. Everyday they had activities that focused on a particular bible story. For example, Tuesday the children learned about Joshua and the battle of Jericho. They had the room fixed up to look like a town from the Old Testament with the walls of Jericho in the center. The children marched around the walls six times and on the seventh time the walls came down! The looks on their faces was priceless. Another thing I loved was when the children would play games to help them remember the memory verse for the day. It was great to see them catch on so quickly. Even I was able to apply each scripture to my own life experiences. The one from today really ministered to me because it helped me to reevaluate some things that I'm currently going through. "Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything." (Philippians 4:6) No matter what issues may come up in your life, you don't have to stress about it. Give it to God and He will take care of it in His time.
Be blessed and prosperous.......-K. Smith

Red Rover...Red Rover

This week has been great so far. I have seen some new faces, and gotten to know some of the old ones more and more each day. This week during play-time we played a very interesting, and challenging game of "Red Rover" which had a lot of funny moments, and "close-calls" Lol. But all in all, it was a great game, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Also, we got to play the famous water ballon toss game, and guess what?..Yea thats right, I got splashed. o_0! It was a very wet day indeed. I cannot wait for all the more interesting things to come around as the weeks go by, more fun to come i'm sure of it!! :) -Precious Nwigwe