School Supply Drive 2012!

Full Circle is collecting School Supplies for all of our Garden Ridge member families and also to make new friends in Garden Ridge and Vickery Meadows.

It is already time for back to school sales.

Walgreens is selling backpacks 2 for 1! 

Almost all of the retailers have back to school sales this week!

If you are out and about and see a great sale it is time to start donating!

You can donate through the mail with supplies or Gift Cards to Target, Walgreens or Wal-Mart.  You can also donate at St. Paul Lutheran Church Plano, Texas in the green tub under the mail boxes near the fellowship hall.  The school supplies and backpack normally get cheaper as school gets closer.  Send questions to our email fullcirclecommunities@hotmail.com.

A short list of supplies,

1. Backpacks
2. Three ring binders
3. Paper – Three hole punched reams of paper
4. Pens
5. Pencils
6. Color Pencils
7. Elmer’s glue
8. Glue sticks
9. Crayola crayons
10. Crayola markers
11. Composition Notebooks
12. Scissors
13. Mechanical Pencils
14. Pink Erasers
15. Red Pencils with erasers

Our First Grant Submission!

Sherry and I have worked very hard to submit our first grant this week.  We submitted a grant toe  Wheat Ridge asking for $50,000 dollars over 3 years.  Pray for us and the children of Garden Ridge for a great after school reading program.  It is still a long process until we receive any money, so keep praying and hoping. God bless you and all the work you do.

State Representative – Deep Ellum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eric Johnson is our Texas State Representative for District 100.  The district as Eric put it covers the territory from Irving to Mesquite.  Sherry and I met him when he came to our Buckner Terrance Neighborhood Association meeting.  Our neighborhood is in the same state representative district as Deep Ellum.  Sherry and I tried to get a house as close to downtown Dallas as possible.  It turns our we were pretty successful.  Our neighborhood police officer, the parks and rec. officer, and the city code compliance officers also attended the meeting.  It was a great meeting.  We are looking forward to meeting our state representatives and city council people for all the areas where we work.  Pray for us and we do God’s work with those in power.  So far, Jesus has been very good to us. Let’s ask him to keep us on a roll, you know it was his plan long before we got here anyway.  So help us stay on track with where he wants us to go.  God bless Dallas, Deep Ellum, Vickery Meadows, Uptown, Plano, Mckinny, Buckner Terrance and wherever you live. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa men.

Check out our Summer Camp Photo Album

Click here for our Summer Camp Photo Album.

Best Night ….. Ever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids just kept coming.  We looked around for more chairs and tables, but we were running out!!!  We have 48 chairs and 17 tables!!!  Adults and children were sitting on the stairs and the low wall.  I thought we had enough chairs, but we may need more!!  56 children have signed up.  Children are lying about their age in order to come to summer camp.  We had several older children signing their own permission forms in order to get into camp.  Summer Camp may the hottest ticket in town!!!! Go Jesus, Go Jesus.

Lightning Strikes Twice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightning was striking all around tonight.  We thought there was no chance for summer camp tonight.  Pastor Darren went to buy gas for the grill to cook outside, because the apartment was so bad from the flood.  We thought we would cook outside, let the kids take the food home and stay out of the rain. By the time Darren got back from Wal-Mart there were 20 kids and 6 parents setting up and having fun.  It rained all around us, but the people kept coming over.  We have 47 kids signed up for summer camp, over 40 kids came out tonight and we had 2o parents helping out.  h parents were making handmade pinatas, buying awesome cupcakes, making dinner and helping with the craft projects.  It was a rough start, but Jesus made the sun shine through the clouds.  How many times can he do it!  I think he said…..he could do it forever. How can we not hang with a guy who can do these amazing things over and over?    I LOVE IT!!!  It is good to be alive!

Lemons into lemonade, the Jesus way.

The apartment flooded, what do we do?  Our members decided we should take summer camp outside.  It was a lot more work, but we had more help from the residents than ever before.  The way Jesus made lemonade out of our difficulty was, as we made beautiful art on the path many residents stopped to ask what we were doing.  We met 2 whole new families.  They were terrific and very excited about getting involved with our community development project.  A grandfather stopped by to ask if his grandchildren could come and talked to Pastor Darren for 10 minutes.  Families continued to register their children all night long.  Thanks to our great volunteers our first night of summer camp was a great success.  There were about 40 children and 15 adults.  Sherry and I left the apartment at about 10pm.  If you are counting that is 6 hours of great community interaction and connections.  Jesus always amazes us at what he can do in any situation.  He is the man, there is no doubt!

Summer Camp starts with an over pouring of Water and Love

We forgot to put our phones on silent when they beeped during church.  We were surprised by the news we received in a text.  “Check your Full Circle Apartment it may be flooded.”  We look at each other with wide eyes filled with concern and ask more questions.  The apartment above ours is rented by a wonderful lady that attends Bible Study.  A faucet in her kitchen would not turn off and it flooded her apartment and our Full Circle Communities apartment.  I guess we will be checking on this right after church.

We arrive at the apartment to find drawers full of water, seventy-five percent of the carpet soaked and many paper goods soaked.  The cabinet above the kitchen is now a few inches lower on the left side and cabinets above and below are warped.

We spent several hours cleaning and using a wet vac to soak up the water.  Five women came by to check on us and help mop, sweep and clean.  Two of the five ladies had spent Saturday cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen for this week and it looked great until the water.  What a way to start summer camp.  A few of the children came by and helped clean and take out garbage.  It is amazing how we were once again able to talk with and connect with the ladies and how they came to check on us and help us.   We are exhausted and yet we are energized by the love of the community.  We will have summer camp even though the kitchen needs repairs and some supplies need to be replaced.  There may have been an over pouring of water, but there was definitely an over pouring of LOVE.

 

 

Deep Ellum Listening Project and Asset Mapping

This weekend Sherry and I took the hard task of going to Deep Sushi.  I am always looking for Yakisoba noodles and they had them.  We had to go!  We thought we would take in a show while we were there.  Deep Ellum is supposed to be on the decline, but there are over 20 venues to catch a live show.  Most of them are free.  We were looking at the La Grande, http://lagrangedallas.com/  and Adair, http://www.adairssaloon.com/.   Sherry grew up near La Grande, Texas, so we had to take a look at that place, The Adair had a cool group called Southern Drive that we could see for free.  We got all this great information at http://deepellumtexas.com/ , which is put up by DECA, the Deep Ellum Community Association.  I stopped by the office when a friend of ours took us to a great Deep Ellum pizza restaurant called Cane Rosso.

Deep Sushi was great.  Our waitress, Lisa, was really helpful and nice.  We had Moshi, which is a Japanese dessert and it was really great.  Yes, The noodles were awesome, we will go back.  We decided to take a walk around.  We paid 10 bucks for parking and we did not feel like reparking.  I took my new back and decided to walk around and look for our live music venues.  Elm street was jumping.  There were people everywhere.  We had a group of girls invite us to join a wedding reception.  They thought we were part of the group.  We had stopped to hear some live music from the street.  We found out that the reception was happening at the La Grange.  We had no idea we could rent it on a Saturday night.  The information needs to go in the memory bank.  We are on the hunt for regular space to use in Deep Ellum.  I remember that the Community Assoc. said we could rent their place.   I wonder if they would let us use it for free if we were community members?

We walked from the La Grange checking everything out.  In no time at all we walked from Deep Sushi nearly on Good Latimer all the way to Cafe Brazil, one of our regular spots.  I was shocked when I looked up and saw Cafe Brazil.  This neighborhood is very walking friendly, even at 10:30 at night.  We walked down to Main street and back towards Good Latimer.   Elm street was much more exciting than Main Street.  We do want to check out Monica’ Aca Y Alla, http://www.monicas.com/index…, on Main Street sometime.  It looks awesome and could be great Tex-Mex.  We really missed Tex-Mex during our time in Portland.  It is goooooood to be back in Texas!

We had a great night.  My back held up for this long walk.  It was better than I have done in a long time, thank you physical therapy and Jesus!  On our way our of the neighborhood we were looking for a coffee shop we found on the community assoc.’s website.  It was difficult, but we found Murray Street Cafe at the corner of Main and Murray Street close to exposition and Main.  We went on Tuesday and it is a great little coffee shop with great looking food and Wifi.  We have been checking this neighborhood for some time, now it is time to get serious about Deep Ellum.  There are so many store front for lease and Elm street and Main Street.  I would really be cool to rent a place on Elm street where the most people were hanging out.  Deep Ellum is a late night place, which works for me because I hate going to sleep.   It was a great first couple of days of Asset Mapping and Listening Project.  We can’t wait to do more.

DBD – Discipleship Based Development

Full Circle Communities Principles for Discipleship Based Development

Discipleship

1. Rescue      –         Cross
2. Restore                     –         Baptism
3. Re-Create    –      Discipleship

Discipleship Based Development

1. Rescue        –        Relief
2. Restore                     –        Rehabilitation
3. Discipleship   –    Development

Matt 28:18-20 Explains

We are rescued by Jesus, by his death on the cross.

We could not save ourselves

Only Jesus could save us

We were restored as children of God through our baptisms into the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit.

We had lost our inheritance in the fall in the garden

Jesus died for us

Forgives us

Gives a room in his Fathers house for all eternity

We are saved, have life eternal and live with Jesus now and forever.

Now What?

What do we do until our Father calls home to live in the city of God?

There is no Garden, we destroyed it.

Now we will live with Immanuel forever here and in the city of God, Rev  21

Now we are in the process of being transformed to be more like him, Rom 12:2

We learn everything he has taught until we are called home, 2 Tim 2:2, Matt 28

We Make disciples, Matt 28

We teach others everything he has taught us

Our disciples teach others, 2 Tim 2:2

The community is transformed by the love of Jesus

The city is transformed by his forgiveness and the work of his disciples, Jer. 29

The city prospers

We prosper as the city Prospers

The city become the City of God here on earth

Our dreams and the dreams of all the people in the city are fulfilled

We can only do this working together, John 15

Our strength comes from Jesus

Our strength comes from becoming a transformed community who serves Jesus

Serving Jesus is serving others

Worship is teaching and serving our neighbors

A Church is not a church unless it is serving its neighbors and making Disciples

Making Disciples transforms the world

Making disciples bring peace and prosper to our community and the world.