Yes it is spring break already and we have already had over 80 degree weather. It is beautiful in Elkhart! This week Lifeline is taking 25 high school boys camping in Kentucky. Many of them are basketball players, which is exciting for me. It is amazing how many of our kids don't even get outside of Elkhart and very few who have ever been camping before. This is a great opportunity to get the kids out of their environment so they can see life differently. They will also be challenged by the word of God, so you can be praying that God will really work in the lives of the young men that are a part of this trip. Sadly, I am not going with them. I am staying here so Jenna and I can hang out with our elementary kids. We are having hangout time and movie nights tonight and Wednesday night. It should be fun.
Soccer season is also starting up. I have never coached soccer before so this is a new experience for me, but I think it is going to be a lot of fun. It is a co-ed indoor league for kids 13-18. I have ten kids that are signed up so far: 8 boys and 2 girls. I am a little short on girls, but I am hoping that more will show up. But so far all of the kids on the team are Hispanic, expect for one, and they all know more about soccer than I do, but Junior, one of my basketball players, is helping me coach. I am excited to get to know some more of these kids.
Elementary Club as been going very well. After Christmas, I guess it is pretty common for numbers to drop some, but this has not been case this year. We have had some huge growth in the last month in our elementary club. Two weeks ago we had 6 new kids in one week and had a record 50 kids that week! So that has been very exciting to see. I am looking forward to this summer where we will be able to do a lot more things with the kids outside of our building. We will spend a lot of time at the pool, doing bbqs, and Jenna and I are hoping to be able to do 4-5 camping trips with kids. So you can pray that we can get a lot of good contact information for our kids in the summer. Summer can be a hard time to track down kids, especially with them moving or being sent to live with other family all over the state.
Tomorrow brings our third round of Stanton visitors! Jonathan and Christy came the first weekend of March, Josh came two weeks after that, and tomorrow Gary and Donna Mae arrive! We are feeling pretty blessed to have our family see and experience what we are doing here in Indiana. We will be headed down to Oklahoma on Thursday to visit Mamaw and the rest of the extended Stanton family for Easter. So excited to see Gary and Donna Mae!
Thank you for reading our blog and for being faithful supporters in prayer and financially. We at Lifeline really appreciate all that you do, even though some of you may not be here in Indiana experiencing it. God bless! Caleb and Jenna
Monday, April 2, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Basketball Team
Here are our Basketball Team pictures. They were taking at the basketball tournament at the end of our season. We ended up getting 2nd place in our tournament.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
First Family Visit!
Taken by Jonathan Stanton in front of the Chicago Bean :)
Jonathan and Christy Stanton (Caleb's brother and his wife) came to visit us this last weekend to celebrate their one year anniversary. As you might guess, Caleb and I were pretty excited to have family come visit us in the booming metropolis of Elkhart, Indiana. We got to tour them around Elkhart, show them Lifeline, take them to Das Essenhaus to see Amish people, and explore Chicago a bit. On Sunday, we drove into Chicago and just had to have Chicago-style deep dish pizza. We even found a place that had gluten-free crust for me! We went up 103 floors to see the top of the former Sears/now Willis Tower and stood on a see-through ledge. We saw the Bean, which is shown in the picture above. That is our reflection off the Bean.
For me, I think what meant the most about the Stantons visiting the Stantons was that someone came and got to see even just a taste of what we do here in Elkhart. What do we do here? We invest in God's kingdom. We love on kids who need love and attention. In clubs this year, we taught elementary kids about the Ten Commandments, the Armor of God, and soon the life of Jesus. Most of these wonderful, mostly crazy, children do not know Jesus personally. We try to communicate the love of Jesus and the saving grace of the gospel to seven year olds in the best way we can. Caleb visits Mary Beck Elementary during lunch hours and gets to know our Lifeline members and their friends, showing them that our love for them extends past the two hours we see them on Mondays. Caleb coaches Lifeline's basketball team and is building relationships with our high school guys, while I volunteer with Jr./Sr. High Girl's club and invest in girls who need to hear that we love them no matter what, and Jesus loves them even more than that. To be 100% invested in these kids lives here in Elkhart is an amazing blessing.
So a huge thank you to Jonathan and Christy for coming out to see us :) We love you both. And as a shameless plug, read our previous blog entry and watch the video that we posted. Kyle Peterson did a fantastic job giving a face to Lifeline Youth For Christ :)
Saturday, February 25, 2012
New Year, New Excitment
I apologize it has been so long since we have updated our blog! These last two months have been a roller coaster ride. We got to go home to Washington and see our amazing family and friends, attended a week long biblical counseling conference, and are over half way done with our Lifeline basketball season.
I have been staying very busy running our sports program. Coaching basketball has been a blast. We have two full basketball teams with a great group of guys! Our Black team is 5-0 and our Blue team is 4-2. We are gunning for a MYSL championship and I believe we have the talent to do it! In the process I have been able to develop some good relationships with some of the players. Jeremy and Elijah (brothers) have been two of our most reliable players, always showing up at least 30min early to practice or games, so we get time to just hang out and talk, which has been fun. Junier Lopez is another guy I have spent a good amount of time with, if you can pray for him and his family. As I have gotten to know him, he has shared about his family situation. His dad was shot and killed about a year ago, which has left him as the man of the house with a younger brother and sister. And just this last week he told me his mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I can not imagine what they are going through. So pray we can minister to them in their time of need.
Elementary clubs have been going well. We are going through the Armor of God series and it has really led to some great discussion with our kids. I have been in a small group with three 4th grade boys and it has been great to be able to talk about who God is and what it looks like to follow him. All three of them just recently have told me that they do not have a Bible and want one that they can take to school with them and read during reading time. So it is really exciting to be able to get them their very own bibles! Please continue to pray that the gospel will penetrate the hearts of our students in a very real way.
Here is a video about some of the things that we do at Lifeline. It is one that is made specifically for the church of our director here at Lifeline, so it does not have us talking as much, but it is still a great picture of what we do. Hope you all are doing well we miss you and love you all!
http://vimeo.com/36422479 (The best way to view it is to copy and paste this link above.)
God Bless, Caleb Stanton
I have been staying very busy running our sports program. Coaching basketball has been a blast. We have two full basketball teams with a great group of guys! Our Black team is 5-0 and our Blue team is 4-2. We are gunning for a MYSL championship and I believe we have the talent to do it! In the process I have been able to develop some good relationships with some of the players. Jeremy and Elijah (brothers) have been two of our most reliable players, always showing up at least 30min early to practice or games, so we get time to just hang out and talk, which has been fun. Junier Lopez is another guy I have spent a good amount of time with, if you can pray for him and his family. As I have gotten to know him, he has shared about his family situation. His dad was shot and killed about a year ago, which has left him as the man of the house with a younger brother and sister. And just this last week he told me his mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I can not imagine what they are going through. So pray we can minister to them in their time of need.
Elementary clubs have been going well. We are going through the Armor of God series and it has really led to some great discussion with our kids. I have been in a small group with three 4th grade boys and it has been great to be able to talk about who God is and what it looks like to follow him. All three of them just recently have told me that they do not have a Bible and want one that they can take to school with them and read during reading time. So it is really exciting to be able to get them their very own bibles! Please continue to pray that the gospel will penetrate the hearts of our students in a very real way.
Here is a video about some of the things that we do at Lifeline. It is one that is made specifically for the church of our director here at Lifeline, so it does not have us talking as much, but it is still a great picture of what we do. Hope you all are doing well we miss you and love you all!
http://vimeo.com/36422479 (The best way to view it is to copy and paste this link above.)
God Bless, Caleb Stanton
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Lifeline Christmas Party
On December 19th, we celebrated a Lifeline Christmas! We took 43 kids to Dandinos restaurant to eat some good food and open Christmas presents. And let me say, it was an absolute blast! Many of the kids had no idea what to do with all the food, as they were given four courses and were used to one. Goofy, happy kids make fun times. Here are a few pictures highlighting the party :)
Jaquelyn and Maria
Joey and Travis
Juan is enjoying the mozzarella sticks a little too much!
And so is David
Two of the kids at my table, Amairiya and Thairek
Caleb's table: David, Byron, and Juan
Byron and his moustache
5th and 6th grade girls awaiting presents
I have never seen anyone SO excited about Barbies
(I got really excited, This girl's name is Ainslee :D )
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
December? Already??
Here's the latest and greatest :)
We had a more than OK Thanksgiving with Caleb's extended family down in Oklahoma (get it? OK - Oklahoma. Gosh I love these jokes haha.) Thanks to God doing His thing, we were able to drive down for the whole weekend and spend the holiday with family. We got to spend some quality time with Mamaw, Caleb's grandma, and met his aunts and cousins, some for the first time. They were so gracious to us and made us feel very welcome. Can't wait to do it again! Though we may wait til the snow leaves.
Lifeline is moving closer and closer to our Christmas party!! It is one of the highlights of the year for the kids. All the kids who attended club consistently receive a free Lifeline hoodie, which kids ask about constantly. On December 19th, they will receive their sweatshirts, as well as Christmas gifts. The gifts are part of the Adopt-a-Child program we do every year. Many families cannot afford Christmas gifts, especially in such a bad economy, so we bring some joy to the boys and girls of Lifeline and each child receives a gift. We had over 100 children adopted by churches, families, and organizations who are graciously willing to love on them. We will try and get some good pictures of the party so you can see some of the kids we work with.
Caleb and I have continued taking kids out to the Dollar Theater on Saturdays. It is such a great opportunity for the kids to connect and see that we love them. This past Saturday we took a boy named Byron and his brother to see The Smurfs. Byron has one of the biggest smile you'll ever see, but also struggles to stay out of trouble in school. His family includes at least ten kids in his home on a consistent basis, so he constantly has to fight for attention, and that fight flows into school and club. When it was just the four of us on Saturday, Caleb and I saw a completely different kid. He was very well-behaved, excited, and thankful to get to go to the movies with us. He said thank you four or five times. It will be fun to see how God uses us in his life, and he in ours, as we continue to pour out love and attention on him.
Caleb has started coaching basketball for Lifeline's sports league, and is learning how to view basketball from a new perspective. I am pretty pumped to go to the games. My job at the bookstore is going well, though it is hard to resist buying books everyday. Christmas break is rapidly approaching and we are headed home for two weeks!!! We're excited :) We will be in Washington December 21st through January 4th, so if you'd like to see us, let us know! We'd love to talk to you about how things are going, and hear how you have been.
Prayer Requests:
- That we can find a way to get to Seattle while we are home. We don' have the money to fly or rent a car, so be praying that we can find a way to get over there and see the Stantons!
- The Christmas party will go smoothly and we can enjoy the children and have fun, rather than have to spend the time keeping them in line.
We had a more than OK Thanksgiving with Caleb's extended family down in Oklahoma (get it? OK - Oklahoma. Gosh I love these jokes haha.) Thanks to God doing His thing, we were able to drive down for the whole weekend and spend the holiday with family. We got to spend some quality time with Mamaw, Caleb's grandma, and met his aunts and cousins, some for the first time. They were so gracious to us and made us feel very welcome. Can't wait to do it again! Though we may wait til the snow leaves.
Lifeline is moving closer and closer to our Christmas party!! It is one of the highlights of the year for the kids. All the kids who attended club consistently receive a free Lifeline hoodie, which kids ask about constantly. On December 19th, they will receive their sweatshirts, as well as Christmas gifts. The gifts are part of the Adopt-a-Child program we do every year. Many families cannot afford Christmas gifts, especially in such a bad economy, so we bring some joy to the boys and girls of Lifeline and each child receives a gift. We had over 100 children adopted by churches, families, and organizations who are graciously willing to love on them. We will try and get some good pictures of the party so you can see some of the kids we work with.
Caleb and I have continued taking kids out to the Dollar Theater on Saturdays. It is such a great opportunity for the kids to connect and see that we love them. This past Saturday we took a boy named Byron and his brother to see The Smurfs. Byron has one of the biggest smile you'll ever see, but also struggles to stay out of trouble in school. His family includes at least ten kids in his home on a consistent basis, so he constantly has to fight for attention, and that fight flows into school and club. When it was just the four of us on Saturday, Caleb and I saw a completely different kid. He was very well-behaved, excited, and thankful to get to go to the movies with us. He said thank you four or five times. It will be fun to see how God uses us in his life, and he in ours, as we continue to pour out love and attention on him.
Caleb has started coaching basketball for Lifeline's sports league, and is learning how to view basketball from a new perspective. I am pretty pumped to go to the games. My job at the bookstore is going well, though it is hard to resist buying books everyday. Christmas break is rapidly approaching and we are headed home for two weeks!!! We're excited :) We will be in Washington December 21st through January 4th, so if you'd like to see us, let us know! We'd love to talk to you about how things are going, and hear how you have been.
Prayer Requests:
- That we can find a way to get to Seattle while we are home. We don' have the money to fly or rent a car, so be praying that we can find a way to get over there and see the Stantons!
- The Christmas party will go smoothly and we can enjoy the children and have fun, rather than have to spend the time keeping them in line.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Broken-Finger Blessings ;)
So if you have been following the saga that is Caleb's finger, you know it has been a long process and involved lots of stress and screws haha. Caleb had surgery two weeks ago on his ring finger, left hand thankfully! The surgeon put in two screws and helped rotate his finger back into a normal position. Caleb was awake the whole time and even got to take a look inside the finger! Last Friday he went back to the doctor and found out it is healing well and has about a month of physical therapy to help his finger bend again.
Needless to say, surgery costs alot of money. And sadly Caleb's insurance is not the best in the world, with a deductible of $3,000 and the surgery still $2,500 after insurance kicked in, not to mention all the x-rays and doctor visits. We got our first batch of bills on Wednesday for about $300, which sent me into a panic. I am a huge worry-wart about money, and struggle trusting that God will provide. We had to continually pray for trust and provision. We knew that God would provide for the medical bills, whether we had to pay all ourselves, if we could get the clinic to let us do payments, or if miraculously someone would help us pay. Well, God decided to be miraculous!!
We don't have to pay a dime of our medical bills!!! A very good friend of Caleb's called us and told us they were sending a $700 check to us to help out, my aunt sent some money in a get-well card, and the big kicker came when we went to Lifegroup on Thursday. Ironically, we were talking about tithing. After prayer request time, when we asked for prayer for financial provision, our leaders came up to us and told us that our bills were covered. That they all pitched in to help us get through this. That they were glad we were here and are thankful we are in their small group. HOW COOL IS GOD?!?!?! And how cool is our Lifegroup!?!?! We are still blown away and not sure how to properly thank them for a gift of this magnitude. God is clearly showing us that He has us exactly where He wants us, broken finger and all. Thank you to all who were praying with and for us. We appreciate those prayers so much and love you all dearly. THANK YOU!!
Needless to say, surgery costs alot of money. And sadly Caleb's insurance is not the best in the world, with a deductible of $3,000 and the surgery still $2,500 after insurance kicked in, not to mention all the x-rays and doctor visits. We got our first batch of bills on Wednesday for about $300, which sent me into a panic. I am a huge worry-wart about money, and struggle trusting that God will provide. We had to continually pray for trust and provision. We knew that God would provide for the medical bills, whether we had to pay all ourselves, if we could get the clinic to let us do payments, or if miraculously someone would help us pay. Well, God decided to be miraculous!!
We don't have to pay a dime of our medical bills!!! A very good friend of Caleb's called us and told us they were sending a $700 check to us to help out, my aunt sent some money in a get-well card, and the big kicker came when we went to Lifegroup on Thursday. Ironically, we were talking about tithing. After prayer request time, when we asked for prayer for financial provision, our leaders came up to us and told us that our bills were covered. That they all pitched in to help us get through this. That they were glad we were here and are thankful we are in their small group. HOW COOL IS GOD?!?!?! And how cool is our Lifegroup!?!?! We are still blown away and not sure how to properly thank them for a gift of this magnitude. God is clearly showing us that He has us exactly where He wants us, broken finger and all. Thank you to all who were praying with and for us. We appreciate those prayers so much and love you all dearly. THANK YOU!!
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