{"id":199,"date":"2010-06-29T05:39:17","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T09:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spendyourself.org\/?p=199"},"modified":"2011-09-21T03:57:39","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T03:57:39","slug":"flesh-of-my-flesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"“…Flesh of my Flesh…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s 3:08 am as I write this… \u00a0I can’t sleep… \u00a0I woke up at about 2:00 am or so, my heart so burdened, the weight of \u00a0leaving Newark becoming heavier and heavier on my heart as our departure draws closer. \u00a0I find myself asking God why? “Why are you leading us away from this place where we have spent the last seven years of our lives pouring into the kids of this community, building a youth center, changing a neighborhood….?” \u00a0Each one of these kids has become like our own children, each one so important to us. \u00a0Flesh of our flesh, fellow human beings, made in the image of God.<\/p>\n

Some of these kids have been raped… violated by adults and others who where supposed to care for them… Many of these kids are fatherless, abandoned by an earthly father of selfishness…. All of these kids are poor… \u00a0Maybe not compared to the kids in Haiti, but compared to the way I grew up and the standard of our country, poor… All of these kids need Jesus. I think of their lives and imagine them in 20 years. \u00a0Are we abandoning them… \u00a0Am I turning away? \u00a0Is leaving them to further my education so I can church plant and duplicate better what has been done here the right choice? \u00a0I keep asking myself that question. I keep checking my motives… \u00a0 This is the hardest thing I have ever done. \u00a0Yesterday a kid hugged me and said he wasn’t going to let me leave… I wept… \u00a0I don’t want to leave, how can I leave…? \u00a0But God keeps reminding me to trust Him, and trust His people to step up and continue to serve the poor, broken and marginalized kids of Newark while we are gone.<\/p>\n

Looking into the eyes of my youngest daughter Katy-Grace in the picture above, I can’t imagine going away from her. \u00a0I mean look at her. \u00a0She’s beautiful. \u00a0(Not to be proud or anything) \u00a0I see her mother’s feature and I love her and would never want to leave her… As I look at all these pictures of these precious kids below attending our summer camp my heart aches in a similar way. \u00a0I see their Father’s Features…Yes, they are not my very own, my DNA does not run through their blood, but God’s does… \u00a0They are His children and He will never leave them. \u00a0This ministry belongs to God and even though I leave, God will not. \u00a0He will still work in this place. “Greater things have yet to come in this city…”<\/p>\n

These kids are our flesh and blood…. they belong to all of us. \u00a0They are made in the image of God and precious to their Father in heaven. They are the least of these in our country, the marginalized and forgotten… \u00a0They are inner city kids of Newark NJ… As of right now, 39 of these precious kids still need to get sponsored for summer camp. \u00a0Our summer camp starts in 8 days and as usual we have no idea how we are going to fund it. \u00a0God has supplied an amazing team of people who are stepping up to pour their hearts into these kids, but it seems He has not raised up the people to fund it. <\/span> yet….<\/p>\n

So now I ask the people of God, on behalf of my children here in Newark… your children here in Newark… \u00a0“Will you turn from your own flesh and blood?” \u00a0You may not know these kids personally, but I do, and I plead on their behalf. \u00a0I ask for your help. \u00a0I am asking the Church of Jesus Christ, and everyone I know for that matter to come along side us and redeem Newark by redeeming the next generation… Join us in this mission to make right what has been broken by the sin and the selfishness of the human condition. \u00a0As Isaiah says later in the 58th chapter: “Spend Yourself on the hungry.” \u00a0This is an invitation to join God in the amazing redemption work He is going to do this summer. \u00a0The amazing work He already has done when He spent Himself by coming to our broken planet in the person of Jesus Christ to lay down His life on the cross for our sin.<\/p>\n

There are so many ways to help. \u00a0Right now our biggest need is $15,000 to run this summer camp for the 45 kids and 12 teen staff God has brought us. \u00a0Can we raise that in 8 days? \u00a0I believe God can. \u00a0That seems like a lot, but it really isn’t if you think about it.<\/p>\n

If half the people reading this were willing to sacrificed a pizza, or a trip to the movies, or a few trips to Starbucks than all these kids would have a 6 week long summer camp experience permeated with the love of Christ developing them for God’s Glory and the redemption and joy of their community.<\/p>\n

We have made it as easy as ever to sponsor kids or even form an online team that can raise funds for them if you can’t personally give. \u00a0I stayed up many a night building this website so I could leave an effective tool to help people help kids in Newark.<\/p>\n

Please go to our summer camp website and help… in any way you can.<\/a><\/h2>\n

For the King and the Kingdom,<\/p>\n

Danny Iverson<\/p>\n

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It’s 3:08 am as I write this… \u00a0I can’t sleep… \u00a0I woke up at about 2:00 am or so, my heart so burdened, the weight of \u00a0leaving Newark becoming heavier and heavier on my heart as our departure draws closer. \u00a0I find myself asking God why? “Why are you leading us away from this place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,5,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-the-hood","category-iverson-update","category-ministries","category-ministry-needs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.fromscarlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}