Until several years ago, Mission Centers of Houston offered our pre-teen and teens’ programs an overnight lock-in every summer. In 2010, however, assistant director Haley Jones was struck with the realization that perhaps an even greater impact could be taking place beyond the constraints of a one-night event. With the collaboration of several other Mission Centers staff, the idea of a several-day long summer camp was then birthed. “We wanted it to be something outside of the city limits,” Jones shared, “and outside of what is familiar for our youth.” As the staff continued to dream and plan together, the camp name — Souled Out — was settled on in a way to encapsulate the vision: youth stepping into a greater, more holistic and sustainable understanding and practicing of their faith beyond mere lip service.

Souled Out was a great success that first year as 40 youth, plus volunteers, retreated to a wooded location outside of Houston and spent an entire weekend discussing spiritual disciplines, gender roles, and more. One of the teens marveled at the fact that they had never seen stars until their experience during summer camp; another exclaimed that he had never seen a live deer before. The following year’s experience further cemented the realization that taking the youth to an entirely new and unfamiliar environment outside of the inner city allowed them to pursue unique ways of connecting with God, especially in the natural beauty of His created world. Opportunities to push themselves on a high ropes course, to enjoy walks along unusual and slightly scary wooded trails, and to participate in different team-building exercises also granted our youth a greater confidence in their own capabilities to succeed while further opening their eyes to a world beyond the known boundaries of their inner-city neighborhood.

This year, our goal is to have 80 pre-teen and teenage youth from all three of our Gano, Fletcher and Joy centers participate in the 3rd annual Souled Out summer camp. Unlike the first two years in which the camp lasted for a weekend, however, this year’s camp experience will be lasting for the greater majority of a week (July 8th-12th) in response to the overwhelmingly enthusiastic feedback from previous years’ participants. It is also our hope that the lengthier amount of time will provide staff and adult volunteers with the chance to engage in even more meaningful mentoring, adventuring, discipling and teaching outlets with our youth.

In order to help increase the level of personal responsibility and investment in their camp experience, each youth will be participating in a work-exchange program beforehand where 2 work days at their center will grant them a $290 scholarship guaranteed to cover their attendance. Community service hours will include assisting with yard work, food and clothing distribution, seniors ministry, neighborhood trash pick-up, and more. Another fantastic element of the camp experience also includes the 2nd annual t-shirt design contest. Different youth submit their unique drawings for this year’s Souled Out t-shirt and, following careful judging from the camp committee, the winner will receive a $25 cash prize, a $50 gift certificate to a local art store so as to encourage their artistic abilities, an opportunity to shadow a local graphic designer and — best of all — the satisfaction of seeing all camp participants and volunteers sport their winning design all week long.

To help make it financially possible for our youth to experience this life-changing opportunity and to connect with God, one another, and the world around them in an entirely transformational fashion, look here. Your support carries with it a limitless potential to touch and transform another’s life — we appreciate you!

Earlier this month, several pre-teens ended up sitting in on the regular leadership meeting held at Fletcher Center with a handful of volunteers and staff members.

As the conversation got underway and leaders began to discuss Mission Center of Houston’s theme verse for 2012, the youth started to chime in as well with their own observations and self-initiated input — much to the surprise and gratification of the leadership.

One of the guys, a 12-year old pre-teen participant who goes by “A.J.”, then proceeded to go home after the meeting before returning to Fletcher the next day with an original concept centered around the verse, Ezekiel 36:26, which reads, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. A.J. also brought an accompanying drawing for a large, creative and colorful graffiti artwork piece. “It was all his own idea, his own concept, his own work,” noted center director Noe Ortiz. Over the next several days, A.J. and a couple of his friends prepped the wall behind the gym and accomplished the majority of the actual painting themselves with minimal supervision from Ortiz. “Wow,” A.J. reflected in the middle of the project, “I never thought I could do something like this. I’m an actual artist!” The mutual sense of empowerment, self-expression and gratitude is as thrilling for staff members as it is for the budding neighborhood artist himself.

A.J. and his fellow pre-teens and teens meet at Fletcher three times a week for an ongoing time of mentorship, relationship-building, faith discussion and physical activity. While it is Ortiz’s hope to work with and train the teens to eventually take on a more active mentoring role with the pre-teens in their community, volunteer support is always welcome.

To find out more about the youth programming and volunteer needs at Fletcher Center, contact our volunteer coordinator here.

“So all I told my youth group was, Hey, we’re going on a missions trip! but they didn’t know what to expect. A lot of the students were not expecting to be in that part of town [in Magnolia Park where Joy Fellowship Center is located] and if some of them had known ahead of time, they probably wouldn’t have come… but looking back, they’re so glad that they did.”

While many students across the country flocked beaches and city centers to celebrate a classroom-free spring break this past week, 14 young adults and 3 volunteer leaders from First Baptist Church of Pearland chose to do something a bit different: spend a week of laughter, learning and service with the staff and community members at our Joy Fellowship Center. In addition to gaining an arsenal of ingenious showering techniques in the gym’s chilly waters and displaying flexible reactions to a week spent sleeping on air mattresses and sleeping bags, the students’ days were filled with involved activities such as yard work, lot clean up, after-school programming with large groups of kids, rowdy get-to-know-you games, food distribution, community outreach and clothing closet organization. In the process of doing so, many began to realize that a passport to Africa or even a long van trip to a service site several states away are not the only means of experiencing and responding to physical need. “This is our backyard,” several students remarked. And while it’s true that knowledge about the low income levels, crowded living spaces and high rate of labor trafficking that takes place in the predominantly Hispanic community that Joy seeks to serve is a sobering and eye-opening reality, the Pearland group was also able to experience first-hand and benefit from the relational strength and depth within the neighborhood. Stereotypes and fears were slowly challenged and replaced with the beauty and respect that stems from the forging of personal relationship.

Leader Jaime Rios provided the initial contact with Mission Centers of Houston after personal experience volunteering at Gano Center when he was younger and he relished the opportunity his students were able to take advantage of in learning about the neighborhood, forming relationships with people in the community and receiving support and encouragement from Joy staff. “It was eye-opening for all of us,” he shared. “Not just for the students but for us as leaders as well.” For many of the students, all of whom came with a committed and cheerful heart to serve in light of the Philippians 2:14 mandate to “do all things without complaining or grumbling,” the chance to walk away at the end of the week with a stronger sense of home forged through a deeper understanding of their own city has proved to be an invaluable gift. “Students kept asking when we could go back. We definitely loved it.”

To learn more about similar transformational volunteer opportunities for you to experience as an individual or with a group, follow this link: http://www.missioncenters.org/volunteer.html.

Current board chair and long-term supporter of Mission Centers of Houston since the 80s, Marc Schwartz reminisced recently over his first experience volunteering at one of our centers. “I was standing back in the kitchen in Gano,” he related wryly, “boiling hot dogs.” Schwartz’s initial connection with Mission Centers came through his church, Memorial Drive Baptist, and an end-of-the-year school party that they helped to provide for some of our youth. Over time, Schwartz and his wife became more and more involved with volunteer work at Mission Centers: from tutoring to fundraising expertise to board membership, their investment in the community is truly an invaluable one.

Schwartz is a self-described “Airforce brat,” born in California and living in a variety of states and countries before finally settling down in Texas where his career in forensic accounting landed him over 25 years ago. His family’s vocational interests are as interesting as his own: a son involved with pastoral ministry, a daughter whose background is in nuclear engineering, his wife’s long-term administrative work in the medical profession and — perhaps most importantly of all — the full-time occupation of curiosity and energy displayed by his 2 1/2 year old grandson. In addition to his familiarity with litigation and accounting-related work, Schwartz also holds an avid interest in both scuba diving and international travel.

With a personal history in which his own great-great-grandparents immigrated from Mexico to the US due to political instability and aslyum-seeking, Schwartz mentioned that he feels a significant affinity with our community members and many of the issues that face them today. “I believe there is no reason why children shouldn’t have a choice in experiencing a successful life in their future,” he shared. Schwartz’s main commitment with Mission Centers revolves around his position as board chair. He presides over board meetings, oversees strategic moves, focuses on creating and stabilizing fundraising initiatives, pursues partnerships with other key organizations, and seeks to aid executive director, Ginger Smith, in a shared vision for the Center’s role as a Christ-centered, proactive change agent in the community. “Christ told us — as often as we do for the least of these, we do it for Him. That’s always been close to me,” Schwartz stated with conviction.

To follow in Schwartz’s foosteps and learn more about the many volunteer opportunities we have at Mission Centers of Houston, look here: http://www.missioncenters.org/volunteer.html.

Despite her petite stature and calm speech, Tomasa “Tommie” Mendez — director of Joy Fellowship Center — is no shy wallflower. In the words of a co-worker, Tommie’s “tough love” approach in both her leadership style and her community interactions is a trademark feature testifying to her deep-seated commitment towards training others in responsibility, ownership and sustainable self-provision. “We’re here to tell you about the Lord, not just to give you food,” Tommie noted. “I never want to spoil our community with things that are too easy or too much. Instead, I want to teach them and help them to take care of their own families themselves.”

Originally from a small town outside of San Antonio, Tommie first felt the calling towards a lifetime of ministry when she was 18. Her parents, however, had different plans for their youngest daughter and so Tommie invested the first major portion of her life providing for her family in a characteristically hard-working and servant-like fashion. Once both of her parents passed away in the mid-70s, Tommie then stepped into the next season of service — one that she has remained faithful in for over the past 35 years.

After finishing seminary in 1976 (a remarkable accomplishment for someone without a high school degree), the spunky Tommie spent the following decade exploring summer missions, working as a relief house parent with Buckner Benevolences and getting married to a fellow seminary grad. “I was going downstairs to buy a Coke when I was on vacation,” Tommie reminisced with a bit of mischief in her eye when I pressed her on further details regarding her marriage to an equally hard-working, cheerful and godly man from Panama. “Roy was doing some cleaning or something and after he saw me, he asked a house parent for my address. We wrote letters for the next 2 and a half years and then — we married and it was — how do they say it? Happily ever after. I was 50 years old then, almost 51. God is faithful.”

Tommie came to Houston in 1984 by herself before getting married to Roy in 1987. When I asked her why, she laughed and then responded simply, “Why? Because Jesus brought me here, of course.” The Joy Fellowship director celebrated 28 years of service with Mission Centers of Houston on January 2nd of this year. In addition to her current position at Joy, Tommie also cycled through a variety of responsibilities at both Fletcher and Gano before settling in at our Magnolia Park location in 1995 where she and her husband have remained in faithful service ever since. “I can work with everybody, even if I don’t like them in the beginning,” Tommie shared with me. “I just give them a chance and then… that’s it. We get along.” While Tommie does provide a good deal of direction for the staff and volunteers at Joy as well in supervising the programs the center offers to the community (including food and clothing distribution, senior citizen ministry, after-school programming and tutoring), she emphasizes the personal importance of modeling a servant-like leadership style. “We are all the same. Since we as a body here need to have a head, that’s me. But I always remember what I was before and, you know, nobody is perfect. So I tell them, even though yes, I am the director here — we are all the same. We all work together.” In this way, she is able to constantly keep her favorite verse from 1 John 4:4 before her: little children, you belong to God and have overcome the world, because He Who lives in you is greater than he who is in the world.

When she’s not participating in the daily activities going on at Joy, Tommie can often be found enjoying her favorite dish of refried beans with wheat tortillas or reading.

If you stop by our Fletcher Mission Center on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, chances are you’ll soon spot the trademark blue brim and handy clipboard of our one of our favorite community members-turned-faithful volunteer. Emilio, born and raised here in “H-town” as he refers to Houston, has been serving at Fletcher for the past year and a half. His regular responsibilities include receiving, sorting through and organizing donations for the clothing closet as well as yard work, setting up tables and chairs for waiting clients, and assisting Noe Ortiz, Fletcher’s director. “It’s a good job,” Emilio told me earlier this week. “It’s my turn to return back to Mission Centers after they helped me out first. I like to make sure everything goes OK; I like to know I’m helping everything to go alright.” Emilio speaks highly of Noe as well as of Gano director, Dora Hernandez, who was the first one to encourage Emilio to pursue a further connection with Mission Centers. “When I was going through some hard times, real hard times, you all helped me a lot,” Emilio remembered, “so I guess — it’s my turn to help you now.”

Although he enjoys and does well with the chance to help train and supervise other, newer volunteers during their first experiences walking clients through Fletcher’s weekly clothing closet appointments, it is Emilio’s familiarity with the neighborhood community that is of particular benefit. “A lot of people see me and everybody knows me,” he shared in a brief moment of conversation before resuming his sorting efforts through a recent clothing and furniture donation. “I enjoy what I’m doing.”

To learn more about how you could join Emilio and his bright blue, newly revamped Low Rida bicycle in his outstanding volunteer commitment with Mission Centers, look here: http://www.missioncenters.org/volunteer.html.

“…it will be God who gives you meat for your meal in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning.” (Exodus 16:8, The Message)

“I think we might need more than just the two of us to unload everything,” the community missions pastor from a local church said with a wry grin. Minutes before, Adam (not his real name) had pulled up into our small parking lot at Gano and knocked on the door to announce the welcome arrival of a large food, clothing and toy donation. “Yeah,” he continued on to explain to me as I stood gaping, frosty-breathed in the January air, at the small mountain of shared generosity waiting to be placed on our shelves. “After we came to the food pantry last week and saw that ya’ll were basically limited to handing out cans of green beans, cereal and little else, I put the word out to all of our Sunday school classes — and in less than 4 days, this happened.” It’s true that our available supplies (provided solely by in-kind donations and the Houston Food Bank) have been fairly scarce in the recent past. It was with great joy, therefore, that Adam, myself and three other pairs of helping hands spent the next 45 minutes transferring bulging trash bags of clean clothing, recycled boxes overflowing with plastic toys and grocery sacks with dried, boxed and canned goods inside from the church vehicle to our building. Volunteers then spent the following two days sorting through the items and distributing them equally between Gano’s food pantry and the clothing closet at Fletcher.

Is it coincidence that the supplies were dropped off at MCH less than three days after much of Houston was submerged in record-breaking flood waters, leaving many without power and others without any shelter at all? Personally, I don’t think so. Do we take it for granted that a small group of monthly volunteers would arrive on site, observe a felt need and — completely without external prompt — rally their own community to give a tangible outpouring of love and generosity on to the clients whose families we serve every week? Absolutely not. As the paper handles of heavy grocery bags cut grooves into my chilled hands during yesterday’s blustery unloading and sorting out experience, I found myself wondering: is this gratitude churning up within me akin to what Moses must have felt every morning when he stepped foot outside of his tent and knew, thanks to provision completely beyond his control, that his neighbors would not go hungry for another day?

This morning, I watched bilingual grandmothers, shy brothers, brave mothers with two children in tow and five more at home, and physically disabled adults wheel their way through our now plentifully stocked pantry shelves. I watched weary eyes light up, cheerful banter take place between those still waiting to walk through and young voices squeal in excitement as they reached for a brightly packaged box of Cheerios. For the first time in several months, I watched as families were able to leave Gano’s food pantry with a healthy array of meal options to provide for those at home: soup, rice, beans, canned vegetables, peanut butter, pasta, macaroni and cheese, microwave dinners, baking items, cereal, condiments, crackers and more.

Thank you, Adam and all those who gave, for sharing an abundance with us and for serving as a reminder to MCH staff and client alike that God’s fullness truly arrives when most needed.

To read about more opportunities to connect with the weekly service we provide our community through two food pantries and a clothing closet, look here: http://www.missioncenters.org/foodandclothing.html.

Basics:

• Know the National Hotline # 1.888.3737-888 (1.888.373.7888)
• Pray for direction and wisdom
• Do not exploit victims or dramatize their stories for your own benefit
• Educate yourself
• Work with law enforcement
• Be aware

Websites:

• http://freedomnetworkusa.org/
• http://www.justice.gov/
• http://houstonrr.org/ – Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition
• http://www.freethecaptiveshouston.com/ – Free the Captives, Houston
• http://traffickstop.org/ – Traffick Stop, Texas
• http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/news/
• http://makewaypartners.org/
• http://www.sharedhope.org/
• http://www.thehomefoundation.net/ctsa/ – Christian Trafficking Shelter Association

What Can You Do?

• Develop resources for the faith-based community
• Be an advocate
• Educate youth and immigrants
• Purchase slave-free products – use your resources to take a stand
  • http://chainstorereaction.com/
  • http://laborrights.org/
  • http://www.transfairusa.org/
  • Provide resources for law enforcement and rescue organizations
    • Clothes, furniture, food
    • Get Involved!
      • Partner with an existing organization
      • Educate your church
      • Educate your community