As a front row sitter at the 11 o'clock service at The Church at Brookhills, Rick was given the opportunity to meet and pray with a boy named Ricky from the Alabama Youth Home to accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour last year. This 18 year old young man has no mom or dad, has grown up in foster care most of his life, has one real sister a few years older, a brother in Tennessee who isn't his real brother, many health problems, no concept of real life, no clue on how to take responsibility or provide for himself, has repeated the 9th grade 3 times, has lived in every southeast state as foster families passed him on, has lost every job given and all of his stories are exaggerated or fantasized. Ricky has been given a new opportunity to go back and live with a former foster parent in Remlap, Alabama. It is a single divorced man named Commander. Ricky went to Remlap for Thanksgiving and fell off of a 4 wheeler and hurt his arm. After he was returned to the Youth Home, he was playing basketball with the other boys, tripped and fell hurting his arm again. To the doctor - Broken Arm from the 4 wheeler accident. According to social workers - Ricky will be leaving and going to live with Commander forever. Ricky just wants a family and to be accepted and loved. We will see Ricky one more time before he goes to his forever family.
Beyond Blessed
Seven of us left for the Black Belt at 8:45 am. It was a beautiful day and we were off to be the hands and feet of Jesus in LA (lower Alabama). We met the social worker at the York drug store to follow her to the Ethridge's with 5 children. Ms. Lisa Ethridge was so sweet and she had written us a card of thanks. We left the middle of nowhere and headed to the Bolden's.
Ms. Bolden has six children - stair steppers - up to age 10 and no running water. She looked so young to be a mother of six and was so thankful for the food. All of the children came running out of the house when we arrived to help carry the items. As we loved on the children their little hands were so cold, but their smiles were so warm.
Back in the car to travel to Board of Education Office to reach Ms. Jackson before she got off from work. We arrived too late, Ms. Jackson was already gone. Kesha began a man-hunt to find her. In the meantime, we drove to the Butler Piggly Wiggly to see Ms. Nora Compton. She has just started a new job at the Pig after new management at the KwikMart laid her off. Ms. Compton was a short round faced lady with a genuine heart of thanks. She is working so hard to make ends meet with two teenage children.
Ms. Jackson called Kesha back and she was at a friends house around the corner from Ms. Compton waiting on a ride home. We delivered Ms. Jackson's food to the front porch. A nicely dressed lady who requested prayer for her husband and his unspoken situation. She expressed hard times making ends meet and thanked us so much for the help.
Last family was approximately 5 miles away. We drove up to this nice house, with Christmas lights strung across the front porch, a two car carport that was as neat as a pen, a nice grass front yard and a shy little girl (9) peeking over the rail. Ms. Carrington greeted us with a hug in her velour sweat suit and her hair tied up in an Aunt Jemimah scarf. We entered this super clean house with new floors, a nice futon sofa and a table and chairs. Mom and daughter appeared very cowed, but very thankful for our generosity. As we left the house, Kesha's eyes were filling with tears. What! This precious little girl had come to her office last week hungry and told her that she had been eating syrup made from sugar and water due to hard times. Kesha explained that this nice home was an old daycare that has been empty for some time and Ms. Carrington had acquired it trying to get back on her feet.
My heart is heavy and my mind is racing on how to help these people - --------
IT IS SO MUCH BETTER TO GIVE than to receive! We are beyond BLESSED!
Choctaw Social Worker
Today I talked with the social worker in Choctaw County, Alabama. We were mapping out the delivery of meals for Thanksgiving to several families next Tuesday. Kesha has been such a blessing to the people of Choctaw County. She is always helping these families with every day life. She is being used by God to help the poor. She is the angel who has been sent to see the needs of the people in this community. I am so thankful that we can be a part of this process. Lord, go with us to this community and help us to show Your love and compassion for those in need. We thank You so much for the abundance of food that we can share.
"Dressing" Day
Today is Dressing Day. Mom and I will be making Thanksgiving dressing for our family and 4 families in Choctaw County, Alabama. Mucho cornbread, loaf bread, celery and onions. This dressing is a recipe that has been handed down from my paternal grandmother. It is SOOOOO delicious and it could be the only thing on the menu as far as I am concerned.
A small group Bible Study will deliver Thanksgiving Dinner to 4 families in Choctaw County next Tuesday.
Secret Church
Rick and I are so excited to be able to spend this weekend with our new sons from Mundri, Sudan. Manga is 25 yrs old and Snowman Tawil is 23 yrs old.
God brought us together in 2006 when they visited the United States for the first time. We were privileged to hear their testimonies, visit with them in our home, eat Dreamland ribs together and pray with each other before their return to the Sudan. I was mesmerized by their stories, my heart was melted by their love and I longed to spend more time with them. Rick and I continued to communicate with them in Uganda while they were in school with computer access. Rick was given the opportunity to go into the bush (Sudan) and visit Mundri in November 2006. Rick and Manga prayed as they walked in Mundri for God to bring them together again for His Glory.
Six weeks ago we received an email from Snowman Tawil. They were in the United States. They were in Alabama. They were in college in Wadley. Wow! This could only be accomplished by one person - Our Creator, Father and Savior. We give Him all of the praise!
The four of us will be participating in Secret Church. We will study God's word for 6+ hours just like the persecuted church in many parts of the world. We will learn about the Holy Spirit and pray for Africa, China, India, Ecquador and all of the other parts of the world where they do not know the name of Jesus.
Choctaw SUN
Here's the article I wrote on your ministry here in Choctaw County. I am pasting it into the body of this email. Great to hear from you again! Hope all is well with the awesome work you do! Thanks, Dee Ann
'It's what angels do'
By Dee Ann Campbell
The Choctaw Sun - BUTLER, BIRMINGHAM, Alabama
This is what we think angels do,? says Lisa Mitchell of Birmingham.
Last Thursday, a truck filled with gifts arrived in Choctaw County, destined for the homes of 11 needy families. The gifts were part of an outreach to bring Christmas to those who needed it most. Through the efforts of Social Worker Tikisha Brooks-Graham of the Choctaw County School System, and a Birmingham-based ministry team called Angel Friday, needy families in the area were given a hand of encouragement and love for the holiday season.
For Graham, it is a way to extend her work to touch the lives of local families who need extra help. For Mitchell, it is simply a way to put feet to her faith.
And for the families who have been touched by the outreach, it is a welcomed extension of Christian love at Christmas.
Based through Brook Hills Church in north Shelby County just outside of Birmingham, the Angel Friday ministry got its start following a mission trip to Guatemala that spurred Mitchell into action. Some friends of mine and I met during a foreign ministry trip to Guatemala, Mitchell explains. We worked in the orphanages there, and when we got back to Birmingham, we did some work with a homeless shelter called Bethany Home through The Church at Brook Hills. Since Friday is only day that we don’t work full-time, we began to just practice a random act of ministry that one day. That’s where Angel Friday came from.
We’ve gone back to Guatemala and taken books to a school without books, helped Katrina victims, taken homeless ladies to get their hair done, continues Mitchell. We’ve paid power bills for families who were about to have their power cut off, and given people rides to the bus stop. Those are the kinds of things we feel like God wants us to do. Working through the Angel Friday ministry, Mitchell and members of her group have been reaching out to fill the needs of low-income families in a variety of ways in their own Birmingham area and beyond. This year, beyond included Choctaw County. Their first experience in the county occurred around Easter, 2006. We heard about the problems in the Black Belt, she recalls. So we called the Governor’s office and asked for contacts in Greene, Choctaw, and other counties to do some mission work there. Through the Governor’s office, Mitchell was put in contact with Pennington native Billie Jean Young, who serves on a committee with the Black Belt Action Commission.
I met with her (Young) at Judson College where she teaches, Mitchell says. She gave me the name of a family in Choctaw County. The father had gone to fight in the war, and their young son was trying to pick up work here and there, but they were eating what they could kill in the woods around their home. Mitchell came to Choctaw County just before the Easter holiday and put together Easter baskets and a special holiday meal for the family, which included 8 kids, age 4 to 20. The Angel Friday ministry also provided tons of food items to help the family through the following months. The provisions allowed the family to use their limited income to purchase a part for their car that had been disabled for some time. After that, says Mitchell, we knew that was where God wanted us to be.
With Choctaw County on their hearts, Mitchell and her group began to look for other ways to help the needy in the area. They got their opportunity when Hurricane Katrina hit. We had collected schools supplies for Katrina victims, Mitchell explains, and we had a lot of supplies that the schools here couldn’t use. That’s when I connected with the Choctaw Board of Education. I called Kesha (Graham) and told her we had some things to bring there for people who needed them. She contacted me over the summer, recalls Graham. Since then, we’ve been in contact on a regular basis. Graham says that the Angel Friday outreach has now become a vital part of her work with the school system. It is, she says, a way to ensure that the children within the school system are cared for in every facet of their lives. Since their first trip to the county, the Angel Friday ministry has been working alongside Graham to pursue every avenue open to them in order to help Choctaw County families. We’ve provided school uniforms, backpacks with school supplies, and we came back right before school started and brought more supplies, says Mitchell. It’s an ongoing thing with some of these families. In November, with the holidays approaching, the opportunity to help presented itself once again. The ministry grew during Thanksgiving, Mitchell says. We picked up 4 more families in the Southern Choctaw area then and provided them with Thanksgiving dinner. This time, the Angel Friday ministry was joined by another ministry team from Brook Hills.
The MOMS group is made up of mothers at Brook Hills, Mitchell explains. When we told them what we were doing in Choctaw, they wanted to help. They made the boxes that we delivered on Thanksgiving.
Altogether, Mitchell -- along with the Angel Friday team, the MOMS group, and Graham -- helped 10 families during Thanksgiving, giving them non-perishable food items that would last, as well as items they could use for a traditional Thanksgiving meal.
"We came Monday before thanksgiving, and went to each house and delivered it to them," Mitchell says. "Kesha had contacted them before we arrived so they knew we were coming."
"It was an eye-opener," she adds. "One house had no windows, and they had turned the eyes of stove on to heat the room because they had no other source of heat." Mitchell admits that, for some families, their gifts were a little difficult to accept.
"One lady drove to the school while we were there in August delivering school supplies," she says, "and saw us loving on her two children, telling them that Jesus loved them. She came in and said she thought we were there for a tax write-off. I told her I was there to love her and her children, and when we came back, she welcomed us with open arms."
With Christmas approaching, Mitchell and Graham began to plan another outreach for the families. Through an angel tree project at Brook Hills, gifts were purchased for the families, with delivery set for just before the holidays. On Thursday, as Mitchell, Graham, and the group from Birmingham gathered in Butler to deliver the last of the Christmas gifts, they paused to pray with one needy family who had met them at Board of Education office. The moment was a tender display of emotion, and an opportunity for the group to say "thank you" to the God whom they credit for the outreach.
This is something we do in order to walk with Jesus everyday, Mitchell says. We have been so much more blessed than these families have been, just by being able to help them. "We want God to get all the glory," she adds. "We are just His hands and feet."
Black Belt Beginning
My heart has been longing to do some work in the "black belt" of Alabama. There are several poor poor counties (Green, Choctaw, Perry) in southwest Alabama. I contacted The Church at Brookhills, who passed me to MRay at Student Life, who had not had any contact in the black belt in the last year. I then contacted the governor's office, Carol East, to get the name of a contact in these counties. I was given the name, Billie Jean Young, a professor at Judson College, who sits on the committee for the black belt at the capital. I contacted Billie Jean, made an appointment to see her on Friday. Tonya Heartsill, Missions assistant at Brookhills, and myself left very early and traveled to Judson College in Marion, Alabama.
As we arrived in Marion and began to look for the address - there was this huge old plantation type house with giant columns, acres of manicured yards. I called the cell phone number I had been given only to find out that we should park in the back yard. As we entered this beautiful old house (a little dated carpet and furniture), a nicely dressed brown lady with long braided hair welcomed us to Judson. We were offered tea and fruit at a large dining table (would seat 20+ people). We introduced ourselves and told BJ we just wanted to help out in the black belt.
Jay Langhorn
I heard this story below on the 6pm news station in Birmingham. At the time, my son, Wesley was in school in Tuscaloosa. I put money in his bank account and sent him to find Mr. Langhorn. This was an adventure to say the least. Wesley went to the hotel where Mr. Langhorn was to be staying and asked the front desk to ring his room. According to hotel, Mr. Langhorn had moved just this morning to another hotel several miles away. Wesley ventured to this hotel and found Mr. Langhorn. We offered to purchase food and art supplies for him as he was recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Article published Sep 13, 2005
New Orleans portrait artist says he’ll make his mark in Tuscaloosa
By Katie Porterfield
Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA | When his 25-year-old daughter in New York heard that he was thinking about staying here, she thought he’d lost his mind. But 80-year-old New Orleans artist Jay Langhorne assured her that he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I told her to cut it out," he said. “I said, 'Before I met your mother, I was traveling and living all over the place by myself. I’m capable of living somewhere where I don’t know anybody. You just gotta get out and talk to people.’ "
Jay, who hadn’t even heard of Tuscaloosa before Hurricane Katrina forced him and his wife, Marie, to evacuate New Orleans, is looking forward to starting over in Tuscaloosa. In fact, the Jackson Square artist, who has been sketching portraits with charcoal and pastels for about 50 years, said he was bored with New Orleans.
“I had been wanting to leave for some time, but I didn’t know where to go," he said. “But then Katrina came and didn’t give us a choice."
Jay, his wife, his 19-year-old daughter, Ophelia, and their two dogs evacuated after Jay convinced his family, who wanted to weather the storm in New Orleans, that the Katrina threat was real.
“He saved our lives," Marie said. “We’re definitely grateful that he scared us into leaving."
The Langhornes jumped in the car and headed north with few belongings. Like many evacuees, they said they thought they would be able to return home after only a couple of days. They stopped first at a Jameson Inn in Birmingham because it allows pets and then continued to the Jameson Inn in Tuscaloosa.
Just days after their arrival, more than two weeks ago, Marie answered their hotel room door to find a stranger, Tuscaloosa resident Steve Mills, willing to help them. Mills and his wife, Teresa, wanted to assist evacuees, so Mills contacted the Jameson Inn and asked the hotel to direct him to a family.
At first, Marie said they didn’t need anything, but gradually, she and Jay let the Mills help. The Mills have provided the Langhornes with food, clothing and other items.
“The people of this city will always be No. 1 in our hearts, because they have been so good to us," Marie said. “Teresa and Steve Mills have given us everything we needed and more."
They even took Jay to Michaels to purchase art supplies.
“I told him, 'Now I’ve been feeding you, you have to draw my family’s portraits,’" Teresa said, laughing. “And the more he draws, the more he brightens up."
Before the football game Saturday, the Mills got permission for Jay to set up on The Quad, where he sketched at least six portraits.
“I loved it," he said. “It was great. People were all over the place."
Although Ophelia left last week to attend college in Boston and Marie plans to return, for at least a year, to New Orleans, Jay is here to stay. The Mills found an efficiency for him in Clara Verner Tower, where he hopes to move by the end of the week.
They’re trying to get him into Kentuck Festival, and he’ll continue to work The Quad before football games. He also wants to start drawing landscapes again.
He’ll keep drawing as long as he’s able.
“It’s the only thing I know how to do," he said, “And it’s the only thing I want to do."
After all, it’s all about what attracted him to drawing in the first place.
“Two chairs, paper, and an easel out in God’s blue sky," he said. “This is it."