Hard Work with Little Return

by Fatherofeight | More from this Blogger

27 Jan 2007 11:51 PM

Our former church worked with the children in a housing project in north Houston for many years. It all started when a woman in the church starting bringing a few children from there to church. More and more kids wanted to come to our church and other volunteers started helping.

I have been in most of the worst housing projects in Houston in terms of poverty, living conditions, and crime. Jefferson Park (not the actual name) ranks right up there with the very worst. Drug dealing, robberies, rapes, and murders were common. Once when our volunteers returned the children from a church service, they had to walk around police crime scene tape and the dead body of a murder victim.

In ten years or so, we had anywhere from five children to thirty children in a church service. They were also mainstreamed into the children's and youth ministries. They came to church on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and attended events like Vacation Bible School, summer camps, and sleep overs at the church. For a number of years, there was a Saturday morning event at Jefferson Park and various ministry outreaches, including a Christmas party with presents for everyone.

Two things stick out in my memory in addition to the deplorable living conditions. There was no family structure whatsoever. It was very scandalous for the children when they discovered that Mrs. Paul (the children's pastor at our church and my wife) was "my woman". That described their understanding of the relationship between a man and a woman. Of course, we tried as best we could to explain marriage to them.

The other thing involved their school system. The public school that they attended did not have enough books. They had to share books in class. The school system didn't care about these children either. You and I would show up one day and raise the roof at our own children's school. But these kids' parents didn't really care. We had to buy books for the children so they could have a chance to stay at grade level.

We generally had a good turn out among the young children, but the teenagers gradually stopped coming to church. After all those years and all that effort, the score card was nothing to brag about. Of course, we will never know what seeds were planted that blossomed somewhere else. The hearts of many of our church volunteers were changed.

But, I must report that the entire ministry had but one success story. One child was still among us when he became a man. Was all of that work really worth winning one soul? Absolutely, yes, it was.

Nancy and I were shown once again that to have a real impact, the children have to be moved from their bad environment.

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Valorie Delp (49340) 28 Jan 2007 05:33 AM

How many years were you in Houston? Our big problem here is gangs. And did you live in the neighborhood?

Linda Hansen (1796) 28 Jan 2007 07:31 AM

To save one soul would be worth a lifetime of hard work. I feel sure seeds were planted. We all retain memories from our childhood. Some of these children will be in a circumstance in their adult lives that will warrant remembering something they learned while attending your church. They will draw on it and find the help they need. I really believe that. Artcraft

Valorie Delp (49340) 28 Jan 2007 08:28 AM

I agree. I am constantly amazed at how the Lord uses things that I consider so minute and blossoms it. After having lived here for more than 10 years, I have seen lots of kids turn to drugs, pregnancy, etc. I have seen lots of kids come back though. . .some changed, some hungry, etc. It is relieving to know that our calling is not to 'save souls'. It is to be faithful to that which God has called us to do. . .and he will do the rest.

Fatherofeight (2475) 28 Jan 2007 12:49 PM

Thanks to both of you. Valorie, no we have not actually lived in the inner city. But our church was on I-10 where one side of the freeway was very yuppie upper middle class and the other side was fairly impoverished in some areas.

I think that is goes to what you and Art are saying, I saw in prison ministry a lot of hardened criminals who came back to God and scriptures that they were taught as children would come back to their memory. Many times it was a faithful grandmother that had planted the seeds, and I liked to think that dear granny had never stopped praying, even when they were carted off to prison.

We were in Houston three differnet times, I worked for Shell and we were transferred in and out, but the years that I am writing about we were there for 17 continuous years, now we live 45 miles from Houston kind of in the country, although the city is creeping closer and closer.