Hey everyone! I miss hearing from you... I just wanted to send you guys a quick update because I know some of you know what I do and some of you don’t. I go to this church called the Rock Church and it is an Evangelical church that has Baptist roots. Anyway, some friends from another church and I have started hanging out and the things we do are incredible. During the week, you can find us Rock Climbing, biking down to concerts in the city, or whatever. Then on weekends we take our sleeping bags, hike up and camp under the stars. It has been really cool to hang out with all of these friends on all these extreme adventures. I have some Rock Climbing pictures attached.
Monday Nights are something completely different. We go to downtown SLC to pass out food, clothes and anything else we might have. It has been an incredible last few months. I have heard a couple of people saying that we are the only thing that works. We get clothing donations from people at the church and so we try to pair things up with people.
Now, my friends and I are trying to set up a day center type of role for Monday nights. We want to make a difference for the adults, the teens and the children that are homeless. Eventually we dream of getting a grant for a day center to provide mentoring and a good, positive, educational environment for kids.
Monday was our first night to offer a job table. People are really excited that we are interested in getting them ads and trying to help them with their resumes. Another thing we have done is to ask them for their top needs or their wishes. Some of them are far fetched such as “sending the teenagers from the shelter to the Montel Williams show so they can be in boot camp” which cracks me up and some are as simple as lotion.
I know that some of you have extra clothes or extra items that you don’t use any more. If you have any of these items, will you let me know and we can arrange for me to come pick them up? I can also send you a list of items and get you a statement from K2 the Church that you donated to Monday Night Life. If you will just join with me in praying that we can continue to meet basic needs, it would be so incredible. One woman wrote that she would like to be in a drug free, positive environment and she only wants prayer that it would happen.
Also, this is dreaming big, but if you know of anyone that owns a piece of property downtown and wants to partner with us to build a day center where we can help kids, that would be amazing. A gentleman was telling me that he was an equipment operator but that he had an expired license and some fines he had to fix before he could renew his license. He said that he had a 13 year old and a 3 year old but that he couldn’t leave the 3 year old to go to work because the shelter doesn't provide care and won't allow him to leave his kids. It is these basic problems that we want to meet.
Finally, in a week, I leave to go to be a counselor at a kids camp for kids in the foster care system. This will be a challenge for me and the other counselors so please keep us all in your prayers that we will change lives next week.
And before I forget - Ony is doing well. He loves living with my parents and Kendall and anytime I call, they spend half their time talking about the dog :) It was definitely a good match. My brother is doing well, he is trying to channel Cesar the Dog Whisperer and my Dad is just as soft with the dog. I think my Mom will have a hard time leaving Ony when she goes back to work.
