End of the School Year

Some of our 3rd and 4th graders.

Some of our 5th and 6th graders.

There are only three weeks left before the end of the school year! So we are wrapping things up in our club program and are gearing up for summer! It is exciting to see all the progress that has been made this year. Both in our personal lives and in the lives of our kids here at Lifeline. For the last few weeks Jenna and I have started to take two kids to church with us. Kaniesha, one of Jenna's 8th grade girls, and Tyshawn, one of my 6th grade boys. Tyshawn is a kid that has been coming to clubs all year. At the beginning of the year he was one of the hardest kids to get under control. He is a very energetic kid that loves to have fun, but because of that he has a hard time listening and following directions. Every time we would try and get the kids to put away all the basketballs he would continue to shoot and shoot. I would have to steal the ball from him to get him to stop shooting!!! It was very frustrating. But through the year I have been talking to him about leadership and what it takes to be a leader. It has been great to see him step up into that role these last few months. I have recruited him to help me put away all the basketballs and now he is the kid that steals the basketball from the other kids who do not listen.

Our Lifeline soccer season comes to a close with our playoff tournament this weekend. We had a rough start to the season, losing our first four games but we have bounced back and won our last two games of the season. Even though I have never coached soccer before, it has been a blast. Jenna and I have both really enjoyed getting to know our players. It is a very different culture to the team. Where the basketball team was primarily African American, our soccer team is primarily Hispanic and most of them are in Jr High. One of my former basketball players, Junior, brought his sister Angela onto the team. It has been a great opportunity to get even closer with his family and we even got invited to a quinceañera.

You can pray for us as we gear up for the summer. Pray we will not lose contact with kids during the summer, many move or go to live with or visit relatives in Chicago or South Bend. Pray for our support raising we do a lot of support raising events in the summer. We have our Run-a-Thon coming up May 26th. And our golf fundraiser on June 18th.  God Bless, we miss love and miss you all!!