So, the other day...

I went to prison to talk to my juvies... Now, usually I love that time, but things have been super busy, somewhat stressful and that day my trip to the prison just felt like one more thing on a long list of things I had to do... I wasn't into it...

But of course I went... They expect me there and they wait for me. A proven fact, as that day I walked in and one of the officers saw me and said 'Oh good, you are here. They were all worried that you weren't going to come tonight.'

That night I had more of the guys come out than ever before. I am limited by space and can only take a certain amount... And I only had 3 open seats left.

We'd been talking a lot about identity. One of the youth pastors at Central Christian Church had recorded a series of talks on identity and it's been really great seeing these 'kids' wrestle with real stuff in their lives and come up with questions and even some answers.
That night was the last part of the series and it was about passing it on. We talked for quite a while about how we all have gifts and skills that we can use NOW to help others. We even talked about respecting others and how that needs to include the officers. (They like to brush right past that!)

It was a great night and even though I certainly 'wasn't feeling it' when I set out to go, I was so glad I came.
As I was walking out, waiting for my escort, the bubble officer (the guy that sits up top and I really have hardly any contact with him) talked to me through the port (little loudspeaker by the door).
'Hey Mam!'
Me: 'Yeah???' (thinking: What have I done wrong?)
Him: 'Hey, you're a doing a good thing there! Keep doing what you're doing!'

Now, I don't go to prison because I get a pat on the shoulder, but on days like this it was such an encouragement to know that I've made that right choice. Hardly ever have I heard officers say encouraging things like that. And especially not just through the port. That was amazing!

So glad to be part of God Behind Bars!

Conversation in Jail - Can Jesus fix murder?

I wish you could meet my juvies and see the things I see.

A couple weeks ago this happened:

'Miss, can Jesus fix murder?'

I was blown away by this question because it was so raw and honest. So much depended on the answer. There was so much fear in it. So many 'what if's'. It was one of the best questions I've ever been asked.

I love that I serve a God who said 'YES' to all of our sin.

What happened next was that I explained again what Jesus has done for us and how it is available to us. And then I saw it...

I saw the guy who had asked the question out of the blue quietly close his eyes and murmur a prayer. He accepted Christ that day.

Thank you Lord for saying YES to us.

the truth about camp or how awesome is cottage cheese?

I went to camp:

• My feet smelled BAD once released from the confines of the sneakers.  
• I ate cottage cheese. every. single. day. 
• I met a bunch of new people (80% of them were junior high age. Seeing as this was a junior high camp with 450+ junior high students, this is ok!)
• I waved my amazing YELLOW blow up 'foam' finger.... (and consequently lost it. Note to self: Do not lend foam fingers to junior high boys)
• I had a mohawk for 'mohawk day'. 
• I spent half a day on the ground waiting for someone to rescue me, because someone had the great idea to have 'attack day' where everybody shoots (pretend) blow darts at you and I just plain out suck at that game and got hit a lot.
• I got wet while kayaking, coz I didn't want to sit in the back. Instead I sat in the middle and almost SUNK the freaking boat. Not a boost for self esteem, but funny nevertheless. 
• I slept in a cabin and was surrounded by lots of dirt, rocks and trees. Some would call it beautiful. I call it nature. 
• I was part of the yellow team. We didn't win. 

It sounds ok, doesn't it? Not great (apart from the cottage cheese) but just ok...

But then you add the God factor. The God factor happens when you present these 450+ junior high students with truth.
The truth about self esteem and what they might see in the mirror (ugly, fat, etc) and how God sees them (beautiful, created with love).
The truth about not having to do everything on your own. Giving up the struggle and trusting God to take it. Surrendering things like drug use or addiction, family problems, peer pressure, alcoholism and more completely to God. (yes, those are all real problems junior high kids struggle with. I suggest you start talking with your kid!)
And the truth about community. The answer to the question of what comes after camp? What happens when I fall back? What happens when I get abused again? 

When you add the God factor to camp it takes camp from ok to mind blowingly great. It makes cottage cheese fade into the background and helps me see the students for who they are. And it gives me hope for this next generation. They can change the world. They will tell others about Jesus. As long as I will tell them! 

Conversations in jail - Dads

This was not a conversation, but more an observation of the atmosphere...

When I go in to talk with my juvies I show them a DVD of the service from Central Christian Church. I only show them the worship, and then do a hybrid of a talk and small group myself afterwards, going along with whatever series is going on in our Junior High and High School environments at church.

But the worship is on DVD. Even though worship is definitely not their preferred style of music, they actually manage to sit through it quietly and every now and then I can even hear them 'sing' a word of two.

This time the worship included a description of how the worship leader spends time with his daughter before going to bed. They hang out and sing a few songs together in her room. Quite a special moment for both of them.

During this story everybody in the room got quiet. (There's usually some chatter going on). And I realised that this story struck a chord with them.

I don't know their stories, their families or what they've done. But I think I know enough to suspect that many of them did not have a Dad like that in their life. A dad who would have a special place and a special moment with them when they were little.

Or even when they were older.

The 'special' moments they've had were with their older brothers when they got introduced to gang members and were allowed to do little errands to earn trust.

Of course not every Dad has the time to do what that worship leader was talking about. But I think every Dad should make time to have that special moment or special activity together.

The special moments I remember with my Dad were at Christmas. My Mum prepared everything downstairs and Dad played with me and my brother upstairs, until Mum was ready.
Or the times during summer when my Dad, my brother and me played soccer after dinner.

My Dad wasn't able to do something every day. But he did stuff with us that only he could do (love my Mum, but she can't kick a ball for the life of her!)

So my prayer for my juvies is that God would help them to see Him. And that they would be able to have a special moment or a special activity with God. I've learned that God sometimes uses our parents to care for us, sometimes He uses other people and sometimes He just does it himself.

Since my juvies are kind of restricted by their location and the rules of their location I pray that God would do it Himself! :)

Conversations in jail - fights

Sometimes I ask my juvies questions and I am blown away by the honesty of their answer....

The latest one went like that:

Me: You guys like to see girls fight???
Them: Yes! It's HOT.
Me: REALLY?? You think that's attractive? As in, you would LIKE to go out with a girl who is not afraid to fight another girl???
Them: Heck yes!
Me: ..... 

Of course I had heard that before that guys think that. But it was more like a rumor to me. But to hear it from a bunch of guys (they ALL agreed) and to hear them talk about it so excitedly was kind of shocking to me.

The day before I was at a BBQ and was mucking around with one of the Junior High Boys. He took it one step further and proceeded to start hitting me with his bandana (like the kitchen towel fights). About 2.5 seconds after he started I heard one of the leaders tell him to stop. Reason? Because you don't hit ladies!

You might smile at that, but I was so thankful that someone was looking out for me. (Of course I could have taken on this 6th grade boy... But anybody could have! That is not the point!)
And I was super thankful that there is still this value of treating girls like girls.

Looking at my juvies I wish someone would have been there for them to tell them not to hit girl, not to hurt others, to respect life and even to be able to walk away and still have dignity.

I wish someone would have told them that their identity is not rooted in how many people they hurt or how many guns they have. But that their identity SHOULD be rooted in who they are in Christ. And that there are people around them who want to help them find that.

Like that leader who over the next 3 years will pour his life into that 6th grade boy to help him become a man. A man who will respect girls and who will pick girls that respect others as well.

One day your 6th grade boy or girl might be play fighting with a bandana. But if no one helps them to understand some boundaries I might get to hang out with them at jail. And I don't want that.

Conversations in jail - Names

My Juvies... I wish you could all meet them! They are incredible to me, make me smile, laugh and feel like I know a little better how God feels when we 'don't get it'.

I've told you before that I've been trying to learn names and that these guys sometimes give me their street names, rather than anything their parents may know them by. 

For me, it's ok to call them whatever they tell me I should call them as long as a) it's not offensive and b) they listen when I say 'their name'. 

The breakthrough came a few weeks back when some of them gave me their real name. That's a big deal for them. 

Names are powerful. We see that already in the Bible where names hold a certain meaning about the life of the individual. 

Names give us identity and therefore these guys like their street names. It's their identity. It's what they are known by, by their friends and also by their enemies. If they know how to handle themselves in tricky situations, then their street name carries importance and makes them feared by others. 

And that is also why giving me their real name is a sign of trust. And it makes me excited every time it happens. 

Today it didn't happen. I tried to learn all their names again and couldn't for the life of me remember the name of one of the guys. So they started 'helping' me. 

In the end, he 'suggested' to be called 'smurf' (They all wear blue!). I warned him that that's what I will call him unless he tells me his name (street name or real thing) and he decided smurf was ok with him. 

So I called him 'Smurf' the whole lesson long. And I grew quite fond of calling him that. And I think he did too! This might be the first 'cute' street name ever. 

I hope he keeps it! 

Good night Smurf! Hope you know how much Jesus Loves you! 

Borthwick - May he rest in peace... Part 6 (conclusion)

After church and lunch and fellowship and what not we were still trying to figure how we could get back to Darwin.


It's not like we had money. 


But thanks to some friends in Darwin who bought us Greyhound tickets we suddenly had a way back. 


We stayed the night in Katherine with a family, watched kids bull riding (yeah, really!) and then slept on the floor, on couches, in beds... Until the next morning when we woke up to rain. 



Now rain in the tropics is not just rain. Usually it's a lot of rain. 
But it's also not the random event like we have it here in Las Vegas now. At that time we were in the middle of the wet season and rain was to be expected. 
But this was A LOT of rain. So even driving from the house (outside of Katherine) to the bus station (Centre of Katherine) took several trips and quite a while because streets had started to flood. 


When we got to the bus station we found out that our bus was cancelled. The road out of Katherine was flooded. 
Panic set in, as we had tickets to fly to Indonesia in 2 days. We HAD to get out. Fast. 


There was a bus. There was a driver. But the road was flooded and we couldn't get out. 


We huddled together as a team and did the only thing we knew how to do... We prayed... 


10 minutes later the driver came up to us, told us to put our luggage in the bus (where the seats are, not underneath, because of the flooding) and told us to get in. Shortly after the bus started moving and we started towards Darwin. 


The driver kept on saying that the road was still considered closed but that he was gonna try to get through. Since us and our luggage were the only ones on the bus we all claimed 2 seats and started praying like crazy. 


It was still raining and there were parts of streets that you couldn't see anymore. Flooded with brown water, half the area on the way out of town was already not visible anymore. 


But we made it out. 


Now that doesn't seem like a big deal. But it was.... 


Turns out this storm and the rain was the worst in decades.
We were on the last bus/vehicle that left town for the next 10 days. The whole town flooded. As in REALLY flooded. Water up to the roof, people hanging out on top of the roof, getting picked up by helicopters - in short: Water everywhere. 




Now why is that story so amazing?

* Well, we made our flight to Indonesia and saw hundreds of people come to Christ.* We wouldn't have made that IF we would have had our own vehicle (Borthwick), as he wasn't high enough to pass through the flood waters, like the greyhound bus was able to. 

So Borthwick died so that we could go on outreach... 
Rather like Jesus died so that we can have life. 


Basically the same thing. :)

Happenings over the past few months

RUSH—

 Rewriting Ur Story Here:

RUSH is the youth version of God Behind Bars and what I’ve worked on for the past few months.

It’s about introducing youth to Jesus through a weekend worship experience on the inside; helping them deal with life’s issues through Freedom (Celebrate Recovery for students) and then disciple them when they get out through our mentorship program (Project 22)

We provide mentors who walk with them, check up on them, do stuff together and care. The mentorship program includes things like sports camps, rap/dance studio and more. It’s amazing!

We are getting ready!!!

Twelve volunteers came and got trained (a full day operation) and we were able to video the training to be shown in Vegas, as the center we are working with is 3 hours away.

Needs to be able to launch (please pray)

· Equipment such as projector, screen, sound system etc.

· Games such as Basketball hoop, balls etc

· About 20 more volunteers

My Day with God

At one point I realized I was quite worried about a number of things and to get some perspective I was able to take a day and spend it with God at Mt Charleston. (I’m really blessed that I can even do that kind of thing)

It was a great day filled with good talks with Jesus, new ideas, sorting out my head and gaining new insights and perspective.

Things I learned:

· Psalm 91 still blows my mind

· Things are not as bad as I sometimes think they are

· I came out of the day with a renewed passion for God and going deeper with Him.

Random exciting stuff in short:

· We just recently trained 30 volunteers (getting ready to reach more inmates)

· We also partnered up to put on a huge sports day for kids and youth

· We’re close to launching another adult campus in Colorado

· RUSH launched in the youth unit at the jail 3 weeks ago!!

Random stuff I do and love

· My church small group rocks

· My Junior High Small group has been challenging, but it’s been good. I get to hang out with JH girls… How much better can it get?

· Love going to Midnight Hockey games (game starts at midnight. Oh and I LOVE the mascot!)

· I’m part of the medical team at church again. Because I can and I love it

Random stuff I need or want:

· German Bread (it’s just THAT good)

· Learn Spanish for real

· $$$ for my flight to Germany ($1,500!!! Yikes!)

· Be more positive (that’s a need AND a want)

Website you should check out sometime:

www.godbehindbars.com and www.churchwithinmates.com

Cyber hang outs: 

twitter.com/jackie/doyle and facebook.com/jackie.doyle and jackieinvegas.tumblr.com 

________________________________________________

Yes, you can support me:

For  online giving go to: www.godbehindbars.com and find the ‘donate now’ button on the bottom.
 Make sure you put my name in the comments and questions box to ensure it goes towards me. You can set it up to be automatic and it sends you an email every time it gets taken out of your account.

For 'old school' giving send checks to:

God Behind Bars

c/o Jackie's support

129 W Lake Mead Parkway

Suite 22

Henderson NV 89015

USA

If sending a check please  make it out to God Behind Bars and  attach a note stating: For Jackie

If you have any questions about why, how or how much you can send an email to jackiegotmail (at) gmail (dot) com

Borthwick - May he rest in peace... Part 3

The first road train pulled Borthwick off the road. By then we had a closer look at what had happened. The horn of the cow had popped out the radio from behind and deposited it on the front seat. The front seat was EXACTLY the size of Lisa now. No wiggle room. If it'd been me, I would have been crushed a bit. All she got was a scratch. And you also couldn't move Borthwick anymore. You know, without the help of a road train.


The second road train that came by was going the right way. I'd also like to mention that this was in 1998. Cell phones were rare and well, we were in the middle of nowhere anyway. the next town was 70 kilometers away. Oh and road trains are not allowed to take passengers. So for all intents and purposes, we seemed pretty stuck.


But the second road train driver helped us out. He took Lisa on and drove her to the next town. (Looking back, maybe that was a bit scary, but at least we didn't send a student!)


I stayed back with the students, Borthwick and maybe 4 liters of water in the dessert with no way of knowing when she'd be back.


But she came back. With a towing truck. Let me tell you what she told us what happened. So they got to the town (still pretty early in the morning). They found someone who was awake, who then found the mayor/town leader, who's cousin owned the towing company and woke all these people up. And then she came back with the tow truck... Sounds easy? Well, maybe you should ask her for her side of the story!


We were just hanging out in our broken van, trying not to die. (Obviously we survived!)

The tow truck got Borthwick on the flatbed and then there was the question on how to get all of us back as well... Only one or two people would be allowed to ride up front in the tow truck... But the tow truck driver made another exception from something completely illegal and let us all ride INSIDE Borthwick on the back of the truck. One of those rides you wish you had photos of.




To read part 4 of 'Borthwick - May he rest in peace' come back tomorrow. 

Borthwick - May he rest in peace... Part 1

Ok, no need to be sad or anything. Borthwick was a van. An Australian van that was totaled in an unfortunate incident with a cow.
I thought it was time to tell the story...


Once upon a time sometime back in the nineties when I was on staff with Youth With A Mission Darwin, we were crossing Australia in our trusty old van 'Borthwick'. (The photo has the same model, but ours didn't look that nice)


The name Borthwick was a name I had heard from one of my friends (Donka, to be precise. remember, this is in Australia). We baptised him with cordial (it's like kool-aid) which made his rear view mirror sticky (which we didn't clean forever).


'Trusty' is also a very generous word to describe Borthwick. I learned early on that if visiting friends I was never to leave last. That way there were always gonna be enough people left to help push-start Borthwick. We even tried in reverse once. (This is also the reason why I'm a CHAMP at letting the clutch come slowly)


So Borthwick had it's problems and already during the trip down (from Darwin to Adelaide) - a mere 3,000+ kilometers - Borthwick tended to be temperamental. Since we were a Discipleship Training School with YWAM and on outreach, that just meant we had lots of opportunities to pray for the van. LOTS of opportunities.


To go up the hills in Adelaide we had to stop and take a break before we'd attempt it. Just so that Borthwick wouldn't overheat.


The overheating was a real problem.


But we also had other problems. Running out of gas was a regular problem as well, but we always filled the billy can and were good on that. And so we usually took those stops to make sure everything else was secure.
One of our guys would climb up on the roof and check all the ropes. The leader of the school, Lisa, and me would make sure that Borthwick was doing ok and getting petrol back into it.
And then we'd all climb back into the van and get going again.


Except one time.


Somehow we didn't quite count and had forgotten Bill on the roof. Luckily his wife remembered that he was missing and stopped us from going so that he could climb back down and into Borthwick.
--------
For part 2 of 'Borthwick - May he rest in peace' come back tomorrow.

A start

RUSH -Rewriting Ur Story Here

Rush is the youth version of God Behind Bars. The idea? Introducing young inmates to Christ by providing a top of the line, relevant worship experience for them; helping them to overcome hurts, habits and hang-ups in their lives by providing Christ centered youth recovery groups and helping them to move forward after they get out by providing mentors in their life. 


So last Saturday was the first time we ran RUSH at the county jail. The jail now has a youth unit with between 15-25 young people who are waiting for their trial. 


20 of them showed up that day. 
Voluntarily.
With lots of questions.
Some of them knowing nothing about Christ. 


It was a challenge, but totally worth it. I thought the worship time was going to be awkward. And it was. And yet after about 10 minutes the awkwardness lifted and they were staring at the screen, taking in the music. 


I thought the games were going to be awkward, but they weren't! I just asked them questions about life. What do you like better? Beach or Pool? (Beach) NYC or LA (LA). 


And then the message. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do a normal message. There was no way that they would let me talk uninterrupted for like 15 minutes. 


It went well in the end. I was able to talk to them about who Jesus is, why He is important and what He's done for us. At one point I got a little nervous, because I knew it was time to finish soon and with all their questions in the middle I couldn't move past the point of 'We all SUCK! We've ALL been bad and deserve death!'
You can imagine my slight panic as I knew I had to keep going no matter how many questions I had to ignore... And I'm happy to report that I did it! Left them with hope that is! We all deserve death, but that's why Jesus came..


Amazing night. To be repeated. Every Saturday! :)


Pray for me!?

The last 15 minutes (7)

I don't know if you can see it, but in this photo I see progress! Hard work, endless meetings, lots of emails, phone calls and talking. 

What is it?

This is a group of volunteers that all made the 3 hour trip to get trained at our first youth detention facility. It's a big deal! People took time off work for this, they sat in a van for 3 hours with a bunch of people they never met and then they sat through 4 hours of training (and it was GOOD training) just so that they can sit again in a van with a bunch of people they still really don't know. We left at 7am and came back 6pm. I was blown away. 

Of course one of the questions is always going to be 'why would you go to a youth detention facility so far away?'

And the short answer is 'Because it's worth it!'. This facility has some of the best staff, best training and best resources. They believe in themselves, in each other and their kids. One of those things you don't really find on a regular basis when working with detention facilities. 

Now that we are done with the training, we I need to put together our own training on how the mentorship program will work and get that started. And the last thing we need is the equipment.. Screens, sound system, projector, TV's, Video Games... All the stuff that would make an environment fun and appealing for a youth to walk into. 

I honestly can hardly wait. While I enjoy heading up some stuff and bringing leadership to projects, it is also time to actually have contact with the youth that I want to reach. It's still a few weeks out, but I can almost feel it...

Funny story: A while ago we had a little get together where we all shared about something that God was showing us. I had a meeting lined up and had to leave early. And I was pretty frustrated with meetings anyway. For a while I had done nothing but meet with people without getting anyway. So I quickly shared how much I disliked useless meetings by now. If I am in a meeting, I want resolution and some sort of action at the end of it. Schmoozing bores me. 
Since then this AWESOME friend (who is way awesome even if she wouldn't do what I am about to tell you) screens people for me! I didn't ask her for it...Whenever someone is interested in our ministry she makes sure she spends time with them before she passes them on to me. Just so that I don't have to go through useless meetings! 
It makes me smile and also makes me VERY embarrassed. Let's just say that my focus is NOT at all her focus! Thanks L. You rock my world! :)

Gotta go now. The 15 minutes are up! 

Economically challenged...

The coffee shop was almost empty, but he was still there. What are the odds of running into the same person over and over again?

Last week I met him at the restaurant, the week before he happened to be at my house, and the week before that, someone had invited him to come to my birthday party. It's not that I minded having him there.

He was a really nice guy, with black unmanageable hair, tall and lanky and forever wearing jeans. He had the best deep voice ever which made listening to him actually fun. It was always nice to talk with him, figure out what his take is on stuff. He seems to really care about everything that's going on. It's a little freaky at times. But it's also what makes him approachable and fun.

As I was walking into the coffee shop I stopped at his table and chatted for a minute.'What's going on with you' he asked. 'Nothing much' I replied, the standard reply these days. 'Yeah right' he smiled.I went up front to get my coffee. With the coffee in hand I started to look for a good place to sit and just let the day go past. It had been one of those days and the only thing I wanted to do was to relax, drink coffee and not think about the stuff going on in my life.

There was a comfy chair open right next to him and I asked if he would mind if I sat there. He looked up from his computer, almost puzzled to still see me.
'Go ahead. I wish you would' he said and smiled.
Then he got right back into whatever he was doing on the computer.

I settled into my chair and took out my handy dandy journal. It helped me work through stuff if I wrote it down and for the next half hour I was furiously writing whatever came to my mind. The stuff with my family, my friends, disappointments with un-kept promises... It all seemed so messy.

After half an hour I looked up and found him looking at me. 'What?' I said almost irritated.
'You ok?' he asked. 'You seem sad. A lot going on right now eh?'
I sighed. 'Yeah. It all seems so messy and out of my control. I wish I could do stuff, but there's nothing. I tried.'
'I know how that feels' he said and I could only imagine.
In his position I would have probably given up. The fact that he was sitting here chatting with me was a miracle, considering I was sure that his computer probably demanded his attention ten times more.
Come to think of it, his phone had gone off at least 3 times since we started the chat and not once had he looked down to check who was calling or texting him. I remembered how much I hated it when my friend looked at his phone, rather than me in the middle of a conversation.I began to tell him more of the details of what was going on. He listened, looked at me and seemed so concerned for me. It felt good. My family was far away and a lot of my friends had so much going on, that I didn't want to bother them with my stuff as well. But I missed this. This feeling of being taken care of. The feeling that there is someone who listens.
Even though I was pretty sure nothing was going to change the situation right now. But he cared and that's all that counts.

We ended up talking for almost an hour. He never once looked at his phone or the computer, even though both were furiously ringing and dinging, demanding his attention. I had told him several times that he could take it if he needed to, but he insisted that he would get to it in due time.

I stood up to leave and we hugged. 'Hang in there girl. Don't give up. I'm with you in this, ok?' I smiled.
'I know, Jesus. Thank you. It's always good to talk to you. See ya around?!'


I was still smiling when I finally left the coffee shop. So glad I met him there.

My life needs to be about Jesus and people and not about me

That was one of those reminders I needed again. What I do is about people and not about furthering my career. (yes, there are politics, careers and the strive for more in ministry. It's a truth I don't really like, but have to deal with)


For me it always gets back to finding my identity in Jesus, rather in what I do or who people perceive I am. 
Meetings don't make me more important. Meetings (oftentimes) just take me away from hanging out with people who need to hear about Jesus or people I could help to grow deeper in Jesus. 


With some of the people I hang out with I am very much aware that it's not so much about what I say, but rather what I do. Do I hang out? Do I care? Do I flip out at them? 


When I truly find my identity in Christ, I know who I am, I know why I am there and I can truly do what I feel God has called me to do. I don't have to worry about the next step, the next opportunity to move forward, the next time someone acknowledges what I'm doing... I can just do it. the Nike way. The Jesus way. He knew who He was and why He was there. He was not worried. I want to be like that. 


Every year God and me sit down and figure out things. Talk about learning curves, setting challenges, and figuring out the way. At least I like to think so. Last year I learned all about self control, patience (help me!), joy and much more. Each day a reminder on my phone helped me to focus on one area I had to work on. It was fun. Sort of. There were 13 different topics. 


This year there are just 2. Finding my identity in Christ and Fear of the Lord. I fear that this might not be the last time I have to learn about these.


You and me God. Together. Let's do this.

Christmas party for inmates and their kids

So pretty much 3 weeks ago at a Starbucks a Christmas party was organised. That fact alone sounds scary, but since we are working closely together with God and his helpers it was pulled off. 

So on December 19th 2011 we were able to pick up inmates from Casa Grande (transitional housing) and provide them with 4 hours time with their kids. It was an awesome event. 

Some kids had been flown in for this event from Utah to be able to spend some time with Dad. 

Each Mum and Dad got to give 3 presents to each one of their kids thanks to the donations from people at Central's North East Campus (who also provided an 8 foot table FULL of desserts)

The inmates got to pick the gifts, which then were wrapped and then they got to give them to their kids. 

Here are some pictures of the night. Enjoy!

The toy donation room looked like Toys R Us on steroids.

Getting the room ready

Sound Check

I helped decorate this tree! BIG deal! Huge...
Just don't look at the back! :)

The first families coming in and getting something to eat.

Shopping for the kids!!!

Working on the Christmas Cards

Mountains of presents for each kid!

The family photo opp. 

I had to test it of course

So so cool to see this come together