Will you miss us?

I've been putting off writing this blog for reasons that will become obvious as you read on:

Last Sunday night, when was that, the 3rd?? I can't believe it's been THAT long since I've visited this site, or at least visited it to write. Anyway, we went to the bus station armed with a video camera, questions, and contact cards. One of the things we've said is a purpose for CharMin is to "assess needs." So, after handing over a cup of lemonade we asked if people would mind being videotaped while answering some questions we have about Charlotte, its residents, and of course The Salvation Army. For those of you information seeking souls, here are the questions we asked:

1. What is Charlotte's greatest need?
2. What is your greatest need?
3. What is your impression of the Salvation Army?
4. Do you know how to contact the Salvation Army?
5. Do you believe in God?
6. If you go to church, why?
7. Have you seen us here before?
8. Do you know why we're here?
9. How does the hot-chocolate/lemonade taste?
10. What have you received from us being here?
11. What more could we do?
12. Will you miss us?

The answers we got were from my perspective...comforting. A lot of responses to Charlotte's greatest need is to help the poor. Many of them said they knew why we were there doing what we do. All the people we asked believed in God and many of them attended church to worship, pray, praise, and thank God. Most importantly, EVERYONE said the hot-chocolate/lemonade was fabulous! One of our favorite people said he had received "warm presence" from us being there - and that has touched our hearts.

And, everyone we asked said, "yes" they would certainly miss us. As of July 3, 2005 CharMin in it's current state (hot-chocolate/lemonade people) is taking a rest to assess our next need to meet. The bus station was meant to serve as a stepping stone to something greater. Not greater in size, group, or recognition, but greater in the need being ful-filled. Perhaps we will continue with the bus station in a different capacity. Perhaps we will venture into the neighborhood surrounding the corps so we can have long-range contact with the people. Perhaps we'll find a way to serve the children. Perhaps we'll help people get their groceries. Perhaps we'll minister to the Bobcats or the Panthers. Perhaps we'll help Jack fight to keep his family together. Perhaps we'll take over the neighborhood, city, state, country, and eventually the WORLD for Jesus! Gosh, we'll be there soon!

Thank you to everyone who has brought us to God during these past months. Your encouraging words have been sweet honey to our souls. Please continue to bring us before God so we can know His next move for us. I believe whatever it is we will be challenged, and it may take more than a few people to accomplish.
Pray for leaders, pray for direction, pray for effective assessment, pray for us, and pray that we will find people from all walks of life and help them find the God who has made them and loves them more than they can ever know.

Blessings,

Kristy

Encouragement will always, well, ENCOURAGE

One of the things we're learning is that in order for a particular ministry to continue, and continue well, there has to be some cheerleaders along the way. Not a lot of people, just the occasional one or two who take you aside and tell you what you're doing is valuable. This will inevitably happen when you are considering giving up. There were people we met on Sunday like Rob, Rusty (needs a kidney transplant), Andrea (artist at Urban Ministries and gospel singer), Rucker, Julia (works at Wendy's), Christian & son, Michi, and Dean.
Our blessing for this night was found in the person of Beverly. She was there with her son Dwayne. Beverly pulled Stephanie aside and began telling her she has seen us there every week. She moved here from Charleston and has gone through the alcohol treatment program at the Center of Hope. She has a job now at a cafeteria but realizes it is not a postive environment for her to be in as most of the workers are coming to work drunk or leaving work and drinking. She is hoping to get another job with the school system in their cafeterias thus getting out of a negative situation. We gave out four Bibles, 4 4 the streets magazines, and 175 cups accompanied by a bagful of snacks.
I say all of that at the beginning because I believe this is a learning experience and any good learning experience is better shared so others who attempt the same thing will know of a better way to do it. One of things about CharMin that we are coming around to realizing is that we never started our ministry at the bus station with an end in mind. "Begin with the end in mind" as Sue Miller puts it. The only way for us to know when our goals have been reached is if we know where we're going. We started the hot chocolate ministry in February as the result of a bunch of us just wanting to do SOMETHING to make a difference. When we started we said we would do it for a while and then build on what we've done. In discussing this with the other members, we were feeling a little guilty that our zeal has dwindled. Further discussion I think revealed to us, that it's not that we're losing our heart for ministry, but that we've arrived where we were going and didn't even realize it! In thinking back to those original conversations when we first started this, some things we said we wanted to do were:

• Offer a tangible gift (hot chocolate on a cold night sounds like a good gift to me!)
• Get comfortable in being with the homeless (we do it with ease now, nervousness is gone)
• Build relationships (have you SEEN the list of people??)
• Go further than the bus station (we've gone to Urban Ministries and Samaritan House but I think we were thinking further as in bigger in our offering)
• Gain knowledge of homelessness (we are more aware now than ever before)

Lessons learned: God will empower you to do SOMETHING whatever it is. Do SOMETHING with wonderful people around you can count on. Prayer and being in prayer with each other should never be outside of what you're doing. Begin with the end in mind. Know where you're going. Stats ARE important. Ministry that costs you will cause you to constantly evaluate it's effectiveness. Relationships are at the core of ministry. Deciding to change is never easy no matter how far in to something you are. Raise up leaders who will take your place. Encourage each other.

Through the ups and downs of this ministry we have grown closer to God and closer to each other. A pretty good pay off as far as I'm concerned.

Kristy

Power in Numbers

Last night was a trio. Tilden saw his friend Lamay (I think that's how we spelled it) again. We saw Archie! He is doing well. Please pray for him. He smelled good last night, that's a good sign. His clothes looked clean and he was in good spirits. The names and the stories are as follows: Rosa, Roland (pray for alcohol addiction, praise God Roland has been sober for a few days now), Robert (a guy who loves to see us and usually hangs out to talk or just to sit with people who like him), Gale (last week she needed food, this week she needs summer clothes. Pray for Gale that her needs will be met), Kim (she is in detox, praise God she's getting the help she needs), Ernest (he works at Lava Bistro, pray for his job).
We are really feeling the burden of having people depend on us to be there every Sunday. Even as we were leaving last night, a few people made reference to seeing us next week. With only three or four of us to depend on, it is becoming burdensome. If ANYONE with a heart for this ministry would like to join us, you are more than welcome. We have already extended invitations to the corps folk. You don't necessarily have to physically go to the bus station with us, you can stay at the corps and pray for us while we're there, you can walk around the bus station saturating it with prayer, you can pray for us before we go, lay hands on us, you can buy hot chocolate or cups or Bibles (thanks Mrs. Greer!), you can come make quilts on Tuesday mornings (thanks YAM). We are usually down there pretty late and we have to clean the supplies when we come back which means we are leaving the corps sometimes at 11:30 PM. You could come and help the clean up process as Stephanie did last night because she was unable to be with us at the station. There are countless ways to be involved with this ministry. If you can only commit to once in a while, give us your name and we'll call you when we're short a few people (thanks Booth, Sarah, Daniel, Wayne, Sheri, Josh).
Thank you to those who have given time to this ministry when able. You are appreciated.

Quick Summary...

Several weeks have passed since the blog was updated so I’ll try and bring everyone up-to-date…

Three weeks ago: We helped Archie with some food, Tylenol, and a bus pass. Hopefully the bus pass will help him get around town a little easier. He tried to come to church but turned right when he should have turned left. Keep Archie in your prayers - pray for direction. This week we didn't bring any hot chocolate and Officer Willis wasn't too happy about it.

Two weeks ago: This was the first week without Desmond and Booth. Both of them were definitely missed. Captain Gainey helped out and spent an hour or two talking with Archie. It's always good to have Captain Gainey out. I think Archie go something from their discussions. Kristy met a mother and daughter, Monique and Ashley, respectively. They sung the ABC's and did the Hokey Pokey! The three of them prayed. Monique would like for everyone to remember her. Oh yeah, we brought a special cannister of hot water for Officer Willis and made his coco on the spot. Also, a corps member brought us some Bibles - thank you! We gave out five that night; two to Monique.

This past week: It was good to have Desmond back with us last night. He was missed. For those who don’t know, CharMin Ultra is down 2 members this summer – Booth and Desmond. They are at Camp Walter Johnson working with hundreds of children. We all hope everything goes well for you both. Archie was around; however, we were not able to speak with him. Maybe next week we'll hear that things are turning around for him. (I'll finish up later tonight...)

This one's for June 19th

Well...we are trying to play catch up with the CharMin blog. Our apologies for those of you who are faithful in returning to this site for updates. We have been without our webmaster for quite some time and I (the most NON-computer geek of the bunch) am now added to the list of contributors. I have the information for June 19, another member has it for the week before. Hopefully it will be added. There's also a little spot at the bottom of the page where our cup/story total has been updated. I have no idea how to change that, so I'll include it here and if any other member knows how to add it - feel free! So here goes...
Last week. We were in full force. 180 cups were given out. We saw at least 6 people who remembered us from weeks ago, and were able to give us an update on where they are now in their journey. I have a list of names to share, but again, I have no idea how to add them to the actual "name list" located at the bottom of the page. Courtney, Tomeka, Brian, Chaz, Claude, Rabbit, Blue, Cierra, Michelle, Norman, Don, Archie, and Jack.
When we got back this week, the four of us were commenting on how weird it is the people we are meeting and the things we are learning about them. Some of them are one degree of separation from famous people. Well, their all famous according to God, but you know what I mean.
Most notably for me, was Claude. We met Claude a while back. He was the chef who told us about adding a little nutmeg and vanilla extract to our cocoa to make it that much richer. Claude has a CD of recipes. He gave one to Tilden for free.
I am finding my zeal has begun to diminish. I still would rather be no where else on a Sunday night than at the bus station, but my energy while there has gone down the tubes. I've been reading that ministry is never supposed to become comfortable no matter how long you're doing it. Its definitely become comfortable. I know why, and I'm embarrassed to admit the reason.
Pray that we would consciously renew our spirits - no matter what.
Thank you to all for being faithful in your prayers thus far.

Blessings,

Kristy

Ministry is hard when you're tired.

It was fantastic to have Stephanie and Tilden back on Sunday night. Everything even feels so much different when they're around. The problem was the four of us were completely exhausted. No other way to say it. We were hanging out at Men's Camp this past weekend, maybe staying up a little to late to really be accommodating to late night ministry . . .

But we perservered . . .

We spilled a little hot chocolate, and ruined a few cups . . . but we did get to share a lot.

A couple of interesting things. Archie, whom you should remember from a number of entries now, was back again, and we ended up taking him to his 'spot'. He's trying to work with a temp agency doing security patrols, but there's not much work. Turns out he's living behind a building in our neighborhood . . . very, very interesting. He passes by our apartments every day on the bus.

Also, we found out that there's a monthy/weekly bus pass that we can get - maybe be able to give to someone like Archie. You can ride as much as you need to for that week/month. It would save a lot of money for him to be able to do that.

The lesson of the night, that we really have no reason to complain about anything! And that we need more people.

New Cups

We found some new cups, cutting down on our overhead - which, realistically wasn't very high to begin with - but rather than spending $70 for 1000 cups - we can now spend $11.

This week - And they're the perfect size - 8 oz. That way, we can fill up each cup and not have to worry about rationing too much or too little. OR, people complaining because we didn't fill up their 16 oz cup.

So we managed to dish (or cup) out 155 cups, and we didn't even get it all given away.

Next week (aka tomorrow) I think we're back at full-force.

Keep checking back.

Grace.

Delta Force, Abridged

Well, it was a slow night - and a late night. Firstly, Tilden and Stephanie decided that SUNDAY NIGHT (of all nights!) was a great time to get married!

Just kidding - we're VERY happy for them. And I'm sure they're having a great honeymoon already.

But, in the meantime, the mission had to go on. So, Booth, Kristy and I made our way, with one cambro of lemonade to the bus station. Lemonade wasn't such a good choice. It took a long time to get rid of it

But the highlights were:

• Booth's friend Jack was back
• Kristy met Jose
• We were bombarded with requests from the kids on the corner before we even got into position.

Full force is back in action next week!

Grace.