A Night to Celebrate!

This past Sunday Impact hosted its annual Night of Celebration. At the Night of Celebration there is usually an awesome speaker like Mitch Wilburn or Brian Mashburn to come and talk about all the good things that we work to accomplish here at Impact. But this year was different, instead of a speaker, we decided to let all our ministries speak for themselves. Each ministry had its own little booth set up in the auditorium and around 2 minutes to descride how they change lives in our community. 

In our youth section we had 3 sections to work with so we chose to make them all fit together by showing what the average kid experiences as they grow up in Impact's Youth programs. Our average kid was named Zachary and was played by Impact children at each age level. We showed how Zachary learns how to read and that Jesus loves him in Elementary School. How he learns life skills like shaving and the importance of serving others in this world in Middle School. Everyone got to see how Zachary has grown and matured into a High School student who teaches and loves kids who came from the exact same situation he has, and how he is able to go on trips to serve all over the country. 

And at the end of it all, we showed our Zachary graduating from High School surrounded by all the people who loved him every step of the way, and that he is stepping into the world to succeed as a Christian adult.

There is no way for me to describe how well this night went and how much God was glorified in it!

The highlight of my evening (shown above) was when I met one of my supporters here in Houston who has never met me. Clara Beaman is an amazing woman with great faith, and is such an encouragement to me. Without knowing a thing about me other than what Suzannah Gabriel and Steven Wells said, she supports me. She encouraged me when we talked like we had known each other all my life, and she knew me all because of this blog and Facebook. So I know she'll read this and I want to say Thank You! Thank you for believing in the call I have heard to come and love the kids of Impact. Thank you for being an encouragement that renews my soul. Thank you for giving from your heart and stepping out on faith to support what God is doing here.

And the same goes to all those who support me and Impact as a whole.

Grace and Peace and Blessings to you all.

John Carson

Traders?

I like these two videos and I thought I would share. They reality is most of the time this doesn't happen because of fear.

Food for thought. 

Grace and Peace,

John

My Mija Vicky

        Since I've been in town around 10 days out of the last 40 or so I've not had a lot of time to make any posts. So I will reflect a little bit on those past 40 days. They began with me finding out that one of my more ornery high schoolers had commited armed robbery and was sittting in jail. Yay.

         After a fun time of calling county jails and police officers I know, and getting the run around by the kid's mom, I realized that I was not going to be able to go visit him in jail. Which was frustrating. Even more frustrating was finding out later that he was literally sitting in jail for stealing $20 from someone.

         The next week as my interns and I began to get our high schoolers together to prepare for our mission trip to Tulsa; I heard more bad news. One of our favorite people at Impact, Ashley Cooks, had suddenly died at age 25. Ashley was the sweetest and most kindest person you'd ever meet, she was an intern when many of my kids were in our VBS program, and adored by them all. I remembered being at her graduation party just the year before where we celebrated her getting her criminal justice degree and her new job at the jail. Needless to say, times were not happy around Impact.

         But a surprise came out of nowhere for me! My sweet Vicky who I have had since my first summer as a middle school intern came up to me and asked if I could get a hold of Wes, our old middle school minister, to baptize her! I was excited to her my mija say this. I call her my mija, because she's like my little daughter sometimes, but apparently we're brother and sister now since Wes is like our adopted Houston dad, but it's a Spanish word I don't know.

          Nevertheless, I got Wes and he came and baptized Vicky the Sunday before we left for Mission Trip. Which was perfect timing because almost right out of the water, we're taking her to a place where she can serve others and live out her faith. It's moments like these that keep me going in this job.

      There may be times when things are just heart-wrenching and sad, but there's nothing better than seeing one of my kids put on Christ. It makes it even better to get a hug and to be told that you made a difference in someone's life. 

Grace and Peace,

John

Watching Beauty Unfold...

Once the summer is over and done with I most certainly intend to blog more frequently. My days are filled with planning trips and small group activities. One such activity got me thinking. Earlier this week we picked up our high schoolers, and loaded them up in a van with waters. Now these waters were not for them. These waters were for anyone we saw on the street as we drove around the city.

It was a such a great opportunity to talk about how Jesus told us to feed the hungry, and give water to the thirsty. While watching my kids go and take water to the outdoorsmen they encountered and pray with them. Something dawned on me. My kids are just a few bad decisions away from being one of these outdoorsmen. I certain hope they don't become one, but many of these outdoorsmen come from situations like my kids.

Now I don't know what to do with that thought. But it was beautiful to watch some of my kids who don't get enough food to eat, going and handing a bottle of water and crackers to someone who needed it just as much as they do. I don't have enough words to describe the Presence of God in that moment.

Grace and Peace.

John

I Like Free Things

Later this week I and 14 students and interns will take off to the beautiful land of Colorado. There we will begin an adventure up a mountain with Wilderness Trek Expeditions, which is a Christian outfitting group that leads youth groups and such on trips like these. Before we can go on this trip we all must have physicals.

It's a tedious and trying time to get physicals set up for 15 people, but we make it work. The simplest solution I've found recently is to pick up who I need and head on over to the Walgreens Take Care Clinic. There is a lot of paperwork there, but they are usually quick. So I walk in last week to get mine out of the way, and something cool happens.

The conversation went about like this.

Me: Hi!

NP: Hi! Oh you're wearing an Impact shirt...

Me: Yeah. I'm a youth minister there.

NP: Oh cool, I used to go there and house interns in the summer until I moved away.

Me: Sweet! Well I've got some kids lined up out here for physicals. We're going on this trip to Colorado and we're required to have physicals.

Physical begins, blood pressure is being taken and then...

NP: You know I hate to make Impact pay for these. How bout I come up to Impact on Monday and do them for free?

Me: Really? Sweet!

So we got our physicals today, for free, saving us hundreds of dollars. I learned/remembered two things from this experience. 1. Always wear an Impact shirt when going places in Houston. 2. God is funny. This lady hasn't had a church home in a while, hasn't been connected to a Christian community since being laid off. Yet for some strange reason, I stroll through her door, and she offers to do something inconvenient for her, but nice for Impact on her day off, all because of my shirt.

Now as much as I tried today, I don't know if I convinced her to return to Impact. But I think a door has been opened and opportunity has presented itself and I have no doubt that God with work through this.

Please pray for us as we trave l8 hours to Colorado this weekend!

Grace and Peace,

John

I Never Want to Speak at a Graduation

Today, I went to a graduation, many of which I hate. They are boring, lame, and nobody really remembers what the speaker says. This one was different, I found myself at the graduation of one of my kids I had just gotten on to, and told couldn't come with us on Monday. I had every reason not to go, I certainly knew I wasn't going to enjoy it all that much. I was sure that it would be an awkward encounter seeing her and her family afterwards.

So I went. It was boring. It was different from what I'm used to. It was awkward seeing her afterwards. But something happened. It may have been my girlfriend whispering to her to tell her to say something to me. But I got a hug.

Sometimes, I feel like it's just easier to just write the difficult kids of mine, or to just avoid them and not do things with them. What would that teach them though? That when things get tough at all between us I'm just going to ditch them? NO! That would be the opposite of what I want to do. I wanna teach them all about forgiveness. That even though we screw up all the time Jesus does not ditch us. And as a person who seeks to pick up his cross and follow Jesus everyday, I must stick with my kids when they treat me terribly. Maybe, just maybe I can teach them a little more about forgiveness through the awkwardness I experience.

The Beaten Path

Over the past month or so, I've spent a lot of time and effort into getting my car fixed, and now it has finally meant its demise. So now I get to search for a new car which is not quite in my budget. While my car was in the shop, I used the bus as my transportation method. My first attempt at riding the bus was a complete fail resulting in my somewhere in south Houston, quite a distance from where I live west of the 610 loop. Two weeks ago, I made my second attempt after my car went back shop, it was much more successful. I got home and back to Impact safely, but I noticed something interesting in my walking from the bus stop.

I walk a few blocks to and from my bus stops and transfers. I walk past a few different blocks on my way to the church. When I got to the block where I turn to go towards Impact, I noticed something. There is a beaten path where people had cut off of the sidewalk to save a few steps to get to the church, I looked to the other side of the street and saw the same thing.

It reminded me of the text in Isaiah where he says "A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him." This is text is commonly interpreted to be speaking of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. John is a guy who is speaking to a thirsty and hungry people looking for a hope and a Messiah.

We try to do similar things here, there is a beaten path to Impact because we are a group who seek to reach the hungry and thirsty people of Houston, and I'm proud to be a part of it. The hopeless seek us out, and we bring light and love and food and clothes into their lives. We are preparing the way for them to meet Jesus, and trying to make paths straight for the day he returns.