Volunteer Spotlight: Iowa Lakes Community College
Each spring a team from Iowa Lakes Community College volunteers at New Life Centers during their spring break. They come to serve and learn from the neighbors who live in the Humboldt Park community as they sacrificially give of their time, money, and energy. This year the team jumped right in, building genuine and honest relationships with the students that were full of joy and Jesus' presence. They didn't pretend to know everything about "the hood" but humbly lived life on life with the children as they shared their lives, stories, and love with them. We look forward to them each year not only because they are a huge help and answer to prayer when many of our weekly volunteers go on spring break but more so because of the encouragement and friendships they bring! Some come back year after year and it feels like they never left. We value and love our teams. They are family here. It's just another beautiful example of the body of Christ around the world.
Enough from us, let's hear from them:
What was a moment you treasured from your time at New Life Centers?
"One of my best moments was when I helped a child finish their homework. I loved seeing her succeed in life through this one moment. I also loved how similar my background was to a lot of the children here at The Vine. Sharing my love with someone also was a great moment." -Sabrina
"One of my favorite parts of this week was when the 3rd-5th grade group was learning how to double dutch. I also enjoyed learning how to communicate with kids" -Tanner
"One of the best memories was being in the classroom because I got to see the children and learn something new everyday. Each child is a special gift from God." -Danielle
"My experience during this week in the homework room was amazing. I loved seeing the children grow in their learning. I'm so glad I got to help them succeed in their education and grow closer with them. I learned so much from them and I thank God that he brought me here to serve them." -Sara
Why did you enjoy serving at New Life Centers?
"I enjoyed serving at New Life Centers because I got to spend quality time with all of the kids" -Tanner
"It was amazing to see how as I poured into the students' lives, they, in turn, poured into mine."
-Tim
"I loved seeing all the little kids trying so hard to learn and do their homework" -Cayli
"The kids taught me so much it is was really cool to build relationships with them." -Luke
"This is my second year and I was excited to be able to return. As a teacher, I found the work done here so inspiring. New Life's work impacts students far beyond homework help and a place to watch kids after school. The staff here fill up the students with love and guidance. The social-emotional and spiritual needs that are met here by the staff are the ones needed the most. Every staff member, Jessica, Jeremy, and Ross, have taught and shown me what it means to be truly passionate about your job and the work you do. I hope every year I am able to learn even more. Thank you for all this center has given me." -Stephanie
"I've really enjoyed learning the different cultures here and life in the big city for the kids compared to my small town life." -Randy
"For me, working with the kids was very enjoyable. Learning about the kids was a great experience." -Robert
Are you interested in bringing a team to New Life Centers? Email info@newlifecenters.org or contact one of the program directors: https://newlifecenters.org/en/contact/
Prayer is Powerful
"When man works, man works; when man prays, God works."
"Much prayer, much blessing. Little prayer, little blessing. No prayer, no blessing"
- Hans von Staden
God has been working in powerful and real ways at New Life Centers this year! Many of you have been praying for specific children who attend every day using the prayer cards we created (you can request these prayer cards on our website). And God has been answering in amazing and tangible ways, so we wanted to share two praises that bring us just SO MUCH JOY!
Thank you all so much for praying and don't stop! If God can do this much and more in just one year, can you even imagine how he is going to continue to transform our communities and our cities in five years? Ten years?
Jessica Quigley
Humboldt Park Site Director
Volunteer Spotlight: Hannah
When Hannah began volunteering as a tutor at New Life in the fall, she was afraid. She wasn't afraid of the neighborhood or the kids, but instead, she was afraid of loving again.
She worked at an inner city children’s program in another city during high school, and she loved the children and other volunteers very deeply. She planned to move to the inner city after graduating high school, but then a series of events occurred which forced her to leave those children and the ministry abruptly against her will. She was devastated, and fell into a season of depression for almost a year. For two or so years after, she closed her heart off to loving again. Since then, she has gradually regained that ability and desire to love again. However, she never reentered city ministry with children until this fall.
When she first came to New Life Centers, she was afraid to love the kids because
she knew she had to leave them at the end of the year. She was afraid of that year of depression coming back. She kept replaying the night she left the ministry in the other city in her mind. She only said goodbye to two of the kids she had closely worked with, and they both had tear-filled eyes and begged her not to go and questioned her about why she had to go. She thought it would be too hard to say goodbye to the others, so she didn't. Shortly afterwards the ministry shut down. Although there were plenty of other churches in the city they could go to, she felt like she had betrayed and abandoned those children. She regretted not saying goodbye, and not leaving those kids with one final message of God’s love and hope for them. She mostly regretted never telling them she loved them.
After a few months of being at New Life Centers, she realized she had started to love the kids and started accepting it. Tamiah reminded her so much of Zarrianah, one of her little girls from the other city. The first time Tamiah said, “I gotta use it,” (referring to the bathroom) her heart ached a little to hear the words again for the first time in 7 years, but she smiled as well, realizing God was giving her a new chance to love a new little girl.
The last official week of her volunteering, she realized half way through the night that she had not prepared herself for another “last night.” Several of the kids were emotional for various reasons and Tamiah was one of them. As Hannah held Tamiah as she cried because her sister had been mean earlier in the day and because now she was afraid some of the kids didn't want to play with her, Hannah got to cry too and hold her and tell her all the things she had regretted not telling her kids at the other after school program. Hannah told Tamiah that God loved her and she did too, and she whispered words of hope and encouragement in little Tamiah's ear. Hannah told her that might be her last week at Centers forever and told her goodbye just in case it was. But just like in the other city, that one goodbye hurt too much to say any more goodbyes. So she didn't say goodbye to any of the others.
Then Ms. Jessica handed Hannah an envelope before she left with two prayer cards and when she opened it on the bus, Tamiah’s was one of them. Ms. Jessica had no way of knowing that Tamiah represented all the kids she had left behind, and the second chance God was giving her to finish a ministry in the city. She cried the whole way home on the bus, and when she got home she took some time to think and pray through some things. She decided she was going back for one last night, because she needed to be able to have some closure and finally say goodbye so in the future she would know she really did have the ability to leave well.
She is so glad she came back for that last week and said goodbyes. She felt like God really used those last goodbyes, and the whole year really, to grow and heal her and to give her hope for future ministry. The purpose of volunteering is to serve and give hope and healing to others, but she feels like New Life Centers served and gave hope and healing to her.
Meeting the Need
A child’s middle school years are crucial years of development and decision making. During these formative years, their minds and bodies begin to change and they gain independence and responsibility to make their own decisions. For several years, New Life Centers met their need for discipleship, mentoring, and coaching through a combination of programs. But over these last few years, the need for something more became clear.
As a team, we started praying for an opportunity to consistently reach deep into these students lives in order to build deep, impactful relationships that would point our middle schoolers to Christ and allow us to speak His truth into their lives during these critical years.
This January, God answered our prayers by providing us with a grant to kickstart a new program and by raising up Joseph Cruz to take the lead in this new, 5-day a week program combining sports and tutoring to teach our middle school students to live out Christ-like lives! This program provides the consistency that they crave, the mentoring and relationships from positive role models that they desperately need, and the physical activities and academic enrichment during a time when they struggle with completing their homework.
After months of praying, listening to our students and parents, and planning, we kicked off our Middle School program for girls and boys in January!
Would you consider giving a gift today to help this new program to be a success? Your one time or recurring gift will make this new program excellent and sustainable. We’d love to see this program sustained beyond the grant kickstart we received and expand to reach even more students with more mentors, volunteers, coaches, and resources.
Give Today and choose "Bethel Family Programs" with a note of "Middle School" to help us sustain this program! Thank you!
We Love New Life Centers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkOIIH9Usdg
We have many students attend New Life Centers everyday. They come for help with homework and tutoring. They come for the friendships they have built. They come because they feel safe and loved. Our teachers and volunteers are passionate about creating a climate of safety and love for each one of our students. They meet them where they are and walk alongside them, bringing them closer to Christ. This is why we have so many students return day after day to our programs. This is a huge reason that we love New Life Centers!
CrossOver: Preparing Young People for the "Next Season" of Basketball and Life
CrossOver is an apprenticeship program that teaches young men not only basketball skills but also crucial life skills through mentoring and biblical life on life discipleship. This year CrossOver celebrates 5 years! During this time we have worked with hundreds of Chicago's youth to develop their basketball skills and prepare them to compete at a higher level for their high school teams. More importantly we set out to shape their character, provide them with life and job skills and teach them what the next season off the court will entail so they can be fully ready for any adventures they encounter.
When we first started five years ago, we faced many different challenges. One of the more major challenges was creating a culture of service among our youth verses consumerism. It seemed as if our facility existed solely as a space for people to come, play ball and leave. But God had bigger plans than even we could imagine.
Many youth came and went during this time but none more memorable then Alex. He had a passionate anger and witty tongue. At one point in time, Alex was asked to leave the Center for an indefinite amount of time due to his attitude and behavior. During his time of dismissal, Alex was arrested and also stabbed in his chest, a near fatal incident that left him hospitalized for days. During both incidences we stayed closely in touch with Alex to let him know God and CrossOver had not turned their back on him.
In a strange turn of events, this summer Alex, who is now 22 years old, began to resurface more often and even stressed a strong interest in serving with CrossOver. We excitingly obliged!
To our amazement he has been an amazing testimony to our youth during his time serving in CrossOver so far. One of our current CrossOver apprentices who know Alex’s past came to our CrossOver leader recently and expressed how appreciative he was that CrossOver gives people second chances. He said, "It’s cool how that dude use to be on my block doing no good. Now he's teaching us how to hoop and helping us not go done the path he went down."
It may have taken 5 years but it was all worth it.
Learn more about CrossOver.
New Life Humboldt Park End of the Summer Family Celebration
Our End of the Summer Family Celebration at the Humboldt Park location was a beautiful time together watching the church family come alongside the community and breathe life into new relationships. God's glory was celebrated through the children's poetry, their rendition of "Let It Go" from Frozen, and some extremely talented bopping. It brought tears of joy to many faces as we prayed for our New Life Center's site director Nikki Finklea and commissioned her out on a four month sabbatical of refreshment and restoration. Numerous families made commitments to start coming to church because they were overwhelmed by the church family's care of children. One mother decided to try to start bringing her family to church because she realized that change in her family needed to begin with her. She said it beautifully when she stated, "It starts with me." So we would like to challenge you also. Will you be the change in your community? Will you let change start with you? Will you help us change our community for God's glory too?
Find out how you can partner with us!
Summer of Fun, Learning & Love
We had three amazing summer camps this summer at our Humboldt Park and two Little Village locations! Each summer New Life Centers offers fifteen weeks of summer camp between these locations for our kindergarten through 8th grade students. Our students and their communities were challenged in their faith as they learned together. Two of our students from Little Village gave us a very tangible demonstration of God's power at work transforming lives and meeting us in our broken places.
Alex & Cesar, fourth grade campers, weren't getting along very well at this year’s away camp. Actually, that’s an understatement. On day two of camp, Alex & Cesar started throwing punches at each other during breakfast. Their team leaders brought them to the directors to sort things out. As they sat at the breakfast table, each one began to tell his side of the story. "He called me ----" "He came over & started hitting me." Their emotions ranged from angry and sullen to sad and despairing. They talked and the directors listened, and then asked them what would need to happen to make things right.
The children decided they should apologize. Each told the other, “I’m sorry”. The directors suggested they might want to give each other space since it seemed that they got on each other’s nerves. After all, that’s what we tell kids, right? “Just leave each other alone & you’ll both be better off.” But, as Ms. Emily was sitting there with these two, she wasn't convinced that it was enough. These boys were on the same team at camp and even if they weren't, didn't Jesus call us to something more than avoiding those who hurt us? Didn't He call us to forgiveness and to reconciliation? So, she dared the question: “What do you guys think it would look like for you to be friends?”
To her surprise, it didn't take them long to answer: “We could tell each other jokes.” “We could play together”. The directors affirmed these ideas, but wondered if there would be any real difference in their interactions? They didn't need to worry. A small miracle unfolded before their eyes: Alex said he was thirsty. In response, Cesar picked up the water pitcher, poured a glass of water & passed it to Alex. Then they started talking. And joking. And laughing. By the time they got to Bible time, they were enjoying each other so much the directors thought they would have to separate them just to get them to pay attention. Two guys who that morning were hurting each other with their words and their fists were now relishing each other’s company & having the time of their lives.
The Cat and The Baby
This is a story written by a 3rd grader at New Life Centers about a YouTube video he watched. He also drew and added his own picture.
The Cat and the Baby love to play. I watched them on YouTube. The baby started to giggle. Then the cat rolled around with the baby. The man with the camera loved the cat and the baby. Then the baby tapped the bottle and the cat got scared and ran away. The end.
By MICHAEL
Batman
Batman is my favorite super hero. He fights Joker. He also fights Penguin. Batman fights Joker in the park and he fights Penguin in the sewer.
By Sebastian (3rd Grade) 