Beauty in the Wilderness

After a long Monday of uphill climbing in the Rocky Mountains with a forty pound backpack strapped around our hips, battling off swarms of mosquitos and hot sun, we collapsed at our campsite.  The thirty minute bustle began as students pulled sleeping bags and tents and sacks of food and clothes and wet wipes out of their bottomless backpacks. We staked up our tents and huddled around a campfire to share life stories, warm cups of hot chocolate, and homemade sweet and sour chicken made over a little whisper stove with wind chill whipping around us.  The weather in Colorado is a lot like Texas: bipolar and extreme, with blazing sun during the day and frost around on the grass at night.  This is also comparable to our emotions – crying during the hike (not actually…well, maybe a little) and giggling over card games and silly stories in the evening.  We had several nights containing both tears of empathy over life stories and tears of laughter over inside jokes.  

Our peak day, Wednesday, ended up being more of a plateau day, but we reached the top nonetheless.  Brittany and Matt, our trail guides, woke us up at the crack of 12:20 am, and we choked down some granola and headed up the mountain in pitch darkness, our paths lit by an array of stars, the shiny red dot of Mars, and our strapped-on headlights.  The walk was a bit surreal, and I think our sleepy, dreamy state combined with the rocky climate made it seem like we were trekking across another planet.  We made it to the top of our plateau at 3:30 am, earlier than anticipated, so we laid out our sleeping bags and slept until sunrise.  At 5:30 am the sun began to peek over the landscape, and likewise our students’ heads began peeking out of their sleeping bags to gape at the sun.  Matt read Psalm 104 aloud, proclaiming

“Lord my God, you are very great;

You are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

He stretches out the heavens like a tent

And lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

And rides on the wings of the wind.

He makes winds his messengers,

Flames of fire his servants.”

I believe that moments like this made the physical trials of our hike completely worth it.

There is nothing like experiencing the vastness and majesty of nature that really puts God into perspective.  There is a quote by C.S. Lewis that says,

“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Most of our students have been exposed to the Gospel and the story of God’s creation, but it extends to a deeper level once we are in the wilderness of Colorado.  When our students are able to see nature through God’s lens, they can begin to grasp God’s character. They can look at hefty mountains and see His mighty strength.  They can feel rushing rivers and be swept away by His mystery.  They can peer up at tall trees and become conscious of their smallness.  They can gaze up at massive skies and feel the breadth of His love.  Even if our kids never gained any grit, never ate any of their meals, never shared their whole life story or learned more about one another, our prayer is that they would at least have developed a stronger relationship with the Lord.  That they would understand a bit more about how much He loves them and How much grander He is than any of the junk that happens on this earth.

I asked one of the girls on my trip to give me one word to describe the camp food and one word to describe the scenery.  Her response was better than I could’ve hoped for:

“The food was actually okay.  At the moment it was gross but now that I look back at it, it wasn’t that bad.  Everything was so amazing just spending time with you guys and being around the fire late at night and the beautiful stars.  I started to miss it when we got back to Dallas and everything is just so loud.  Now we’re just stuck with all this social media and everything else.  At the moment I hated how we didn’t have service but it was a wonderful break.  Then I find it really hard to connect with God out here.  The alone time in the mornings was my favorite part.  I really loved the experience we had.”

What a gift to see her grasping for a connection with God in West Dallas like the connection she felt in the mountains.  These are the kinds of seeds we love to see being planted.

Mercy Street Leadership Intensive Program has successfully conquered another week in Colorado!

This blog post was written by one of our Sr. Interns, Katie Kelton. Katie will be a senior at Texas A&M in the fall.

Prepared to Launch

From the start our dream at Mercy Street was to witness first hand young children grow and mature into influential West Dallas leaders.  For 12 years we've labored towards this goal, seeking to cultivate committed relationships that spark extraordinary change.  We celebrate the results.  Our average mentoring match endures over 4 years! Nearly 600 youth participate in our sports leagues!

These programs have successfully made us all the more fond of our neighbors and increased our blazing desire to see them do well in life.

This is why we've recently begun what we are calling the Leadership Institute.  We bluntly tell our students our goal is to prepare them to launch.  Students are selected to enter the institute and welcomed to participate in activities during the school year and an intensive program during the summer.

The 10 week summer program proves to be our most impactful time with the students. During this time we seek to develop our student's social/emotional health, marketplace awareness and Christian worldview. We immerse them in experiences that are difficult and build their GRIT and optimism muscles (non-cognitive skills proven to increase their success).  One such exercise is a 7 day backpacking trip through the mountains of Colorado.    We've also started 2 small micro businesses to teach them how the marketplace works.  These businesses ( a cafe and an artisan workshop) will be open 3 days a week and prepare goods for REAL customers.  Students will be exposed first hand to essential skills the marketplace will demand of them.

At Mercy Street we think leadership development is to be taken seriously.  We continue to learn and grow as an organization and learn more about what it is going to take for our students to be ready for the real world.  We invite you to come by and tour these business labs and watch all the learning take place.  Or, support the students by purchasing some of the their wonderful handcrafted goods at mercystreetdallas.org/store.

Emerging Leader | Shanessa Carson

Grade: 11th
School: Heights Preparatory School
GPA: 3.49
Activities: Street Team, Leadership Institute, JV Volleyball Team
Post H. School: Hopes to attend Texas A&M

Shanessa was matched with her mentor, Erin Lewis, in 2009. She has been part of the Leadership Institute for 2 years, participating in Street Teams and the summer internship program. She is now part of the Mercy Street Student Leadership Team and helps lead a small group of 6th and 7th grade girls each week.

Shanessa is a leader not only at Mercy Street but at Heights, as well. Her Bioethics teacher, Mrs. Gaines, had this to say about her: "Shanessa is a very active participant in my class. She continually impresses me with her participation. Shanessa is a critical thinker, and the comments she adds to our class discussion are very valuable and always offer a unique perspective. Shanessa also impresses me with her character. She is a born leader who is willing to stand up for what is right. There have been a few instances over the last couple of years where she has mediated conflict amongst friends. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to teach Shanessa the past 3 years. She is a rock star both inside and outside the classroom."

Mentoring High's and Low's

Working with Dee is full of High's and Low's.
So ended up with these great floor seats for today's SMU game. We were late getting to the game partially due to the "crap" he fights thru everyday. So upon waiting for Dee to get ready, I learned two things. One of his teammates had been shot the night before (should be fine, thank God), and his mom got laid off after 9 months from a great job at a call center.

The up's for the day were this text I got back from him last night - "I really thank God for leading you into my life. You have showed me a lot and I just wanna say thanks for everything you have done for me. I have never had a person care about me like you have, so I just want to say I appreciate you." But the other HIGH, you will love, is he's only played football one year, since I've been his mentor, and that was in the 8th grade at Edison, and I swear it was Vince Young out there. So he got invited to a football camp that Baylor hosted. They clocked him in a 40 at 4.3!

Let's get the kid in Orange!

Have a great week.

Dee is the kid next to me, the other two young men are the boys Trey and Melissa Hill have taken in and are raising as their own.

Sweet Retreat

We believe the First Annual Pine Cove Mentor/Mentee retreat might have been the best event that Mercy Street has ever done!  This was a sweet 24 hour time frame of connecting and building relationships.  All activities were very intentional - from the get to know you questions for the drive down to Pine Cove, to meal times together, to the times of worship.

Cabins were assigned with 5 mentors and 5 mentees, and at lunch, those same 10 people would sit together and get to know each other better! This was a great opportunity for mentees to make new friends and for mentors to get to connect and make friends with other mentors.  This always helps in the journey to have someone else who understands what you’re going through in the trenches and in the good times.

Free time is always the highlight of being at Pine Cove, and we had a whole 3 hours! Horseback riding, basketball, barn swing, canoe riding at sunset - you name it, we did it. There was even a time for mentors and mentees to conquer fear side-by-side on the double zip line!  We finished the afternoon with a team activity: the whole cabin had to work together to come up with a skit to perform using the random props that were left in a bag in their cabin.  Later, everyone got dressed in camouflage and put war paint on their faces for the theme night.  The game took place in the woods and the mentees worked towards a goal to find certain places the mentors tried to stop them.

One mentor, in particular, felt like he had done a poor job mentoring lately and really wanted to use this retreat as a springboard to a deeper relationship. The Lord was gracious to answer that prayer and he left the retreat feeling energized and ready to tackle the rest of the year with his mentee!

The opportunity to be with your mentee for 24 hours allows mentors to see what their mentees are like out of their comfort zone, not too cool for school all the time, but to hear them really share their hearts.

We had an awesome time of worship Saturday night where Darnell spoke about cultural differences and the gospel followed by a breakout time with reflection questions. It was neat to see mentors and mentees all over the room asking questions and sharing.  One of the last questions was for the mentee to make up their own question, and we’ve heard from several mentors that there were some good ones asked like, “Why did Jesus have to die?”, or “How do you tell someone about Jesus?” Good spiritual conversations were had that might not have taken place otherwise.  Later that night we had a camp fire where we roasted marshmallows and had hot chocolate with chocolate chip cookies.

Sunday morning we had a mentor enrichment, followed by a sweet time of worship where Darnell encouraged the mentees that they could be used by God right now while they are young. He used the analogy of a small acorn growing up to be a huge oak tree.  We then had Timothy, an alumni mentee, challenge the mentees to take advantage of their mentors because there are lots of kids who don’t have mentors.  Mentors are there to be your friend, not like another adult that tells you what to do all the time, but truly a friend that’s going to help you through life and guide you.

At the end everyone was given a small journal with these instructions: the mentor is to write a prayer for their mentee and the mentee is to write a prayer for their mentor. After the prayers were written, they switched and got to keep those journals as a sweet keepsake for each to have for years to come, reminding them of the ways the other is praying for them. We also wrote prayers for West Dallas on poster boards and it was moving to see prayers about protection and safety for West Dallas.

Overall it was just an incredible event on all different levels! We plan to keep this tradition going, so please make plans to come next year!

Check out our photo gallery!

A Special Thank You

Hi, my name is Deandre.

I’m happy to say I just graduated from UT Arlington with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Marketing.

I’m the first in my family to earn a college degree.

I just wish my mother could have been there…

I grew up in West Dallas and graduated from Pinkston High School in the top 30 in my class. I assumed that meant I was ready for college, but my Mercy Street mentor along with ScholarShot guided me to Mountain View Community College first. It was clear at Mountain View I needed more and when I did transfer to UTA I still struggled getting a 1.9. This put my public grants at risk so I knew I had to buckle down.

ScholarShot helped me financially but more importantly they provided guidance to navigate college that I would not have from home. I worked hard, and it paid off as I graduated with a 3.1. I work for a major commercial bank in Dallas making about twice my family's total household income. I'm very grateful. I don't take any of this for granted. There are many answered prayers.
    

I wish my mom could have been there but she was recently re-incarcerated. Both my parents love me but have struggled with drug addiction all of my life. My father and more importantly my brothers and sister did come to see me graduate. My younger sister and brothers are working to get their lives together and I'm pleased to say my sister is enrolled at El Centro College thanks to ScholarShot. I hope my brothers will be next.

I know that earning this degree is a game changer for my future and my family. I know that my making it has told my brothers and sister they can too. I know there are a lot of students out there like me.

Thank you for supporting me through ScholarShot. You've helped change my life!  I hope you'll consider helping others as well.

In Christ,

Deandre J.

BS, UTA

Story provided courtesy of ScholarShot.

Basketballs and Hello Kitty!

In 2014, a group from Highland Park High School held a drive to collect items for the Carver Elementary "Carver Store". The response was so overwhelming that they decided to do it again! Last month, the Youth for West Dallas, the name they've chosen for their group, organized another successful drive for Carver! Below is an email sent out to the parents and students who participated.

MOMS, DADS, FRIENDS, FAMILY!!! 

Do you ever feel overwhelmed and honored because you’ve been privileged with the opportunity to be a part of something really special? Have you ever sat in awe, without words, as you watched a purposeful project unfold right before your very eyes? Well, that’s how I felt all last week. As the Youth for West Dallas Executive Committee rallied to collect items, donations, purchase items, drop off items, and prepare for the drive - I watched with gratefulness as our community came together to help those that needed some extra bright spots in their days. On behalf of the cute kids at Carver … THANK YOU!!! Your donations were absolutely perfect! From the basketballs to the daily journals to HELLO KITTY (I was told that they little girls love the Hello Kitty section) to shampoos and toothpaste. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Another off the charts successful Carver Supply Drive! 

Another cool part of the drive was when the staff at Mercy Street took time out of their day to come share with us about how your donations will bless the students of Carver. Natalia Rodriguez (mentor coordinator) and Nicole Livingston (communication & events) shared with the students about the supply room and what these items will mean to the children. Then Sam Flores (Director of Development) led us all in prayer for the school and their community. It was VERY cool to have the parents and the teens pray together (yes, some teens prayed out loud- lol) for Carver and the community of West Dallas. 

In addition, you guys donated $1,800 to Mercy Street this semester! How cool is that! Thank you so much! 

All of this being said, my deepest hope is that you are blessed because EACH OF YOU has blessed another. Thank you for partnering with your children (not just with West Dallas), but in all the different areas of your lives. It’s awe inspiring to see the purposeful parenting and the intentional investing that’s taking place. I know this is a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Words aren’t enough….. 

It’s really cool to come together as families in this way. THANK YOU! 

xoxo- Mel