"You're saving people"

So Mary and I just arrived this past Friday to our "Honeymoon Suite"! We have really found some friends in Christ in my time here over the past few years. The women who work at the Salvation Army (Nancy, Karen, and Robin) have put together a bedroom with a bed, night stands, dresser, and mirror in a room on the top floor of the church. They even decorated it with candles, chocolate, etc and put up "Honeymoon Suite" signs. It was especially nice seeing all the work they put in and the comfort it gave Mary! On top of that, our first night there we already had our friends from Bridge of Hope church provide us a specially made Puerto Rican meal (you can't beat their pork chop and rice).

Things are really kicking off ministry-wise too. Started open gym right away, league is starting next week (12 teams), doing a lot with children now, and looking to start a cooking class (Mary and some others from Bridge of Hope, not me!). A couple nights ago at open gym, a new comer named Ty who has been out of prison for a few months now and trying to "stay out of trouble and away from the wrong people" told me, "I don't know if anyone has told you this, but you're saving lives doing this." Little does he know that lives are being saved in a greater way than he knows! The past few days Mary and I have been doing cleaning and organizing, so now we can really get into some personal witnessing and relationship building. Pray for the league that's starting next Tuesday; as a matter of fact, pray for each team:

DBB

Next Level

Jewtown

Dynasty

Rebels

Warriors

Street Kings

Deep N Pack

Too Easy

Flamers

Good Fellaz

Businessmen

On top of the league, we have discussed other things with Bridge of Hope (we will be partners all summer long)--they already do a bible study with some youth, so we are looking to merge guys from open gym to that bible study on Friday nights (starting next week) so be in prayer for that. Also, we have raised enough money to reach our minimum goal! We have raised $9,910 so far, so we will be looking to do a rap concert, youth trip, buying lots of toys for the kids (the city is closing 65 pools and parks, so we will get some inflatable pools for the parking lot and lots of other fun stuff to basically do VBS... EVERY WEEK!

On a final note... a Philadelphia Eagles linebacker came to my open gym the other night... He played for Auburn and was drafted in 2008--and his sister plays basketball for UK. His name is King Dunlap--so that was pretty cool! A picture of him is at the top!