GREAT LOVE: THANKSGIVING IN JAMAICA

GREAT LOVE FOUNDATION

Great Love Journeys

Great love teams form as caring individuals of various skill sets and talents emerge with a desire to give of their time and resources to serve another culture. The shape and focus of each trip is determined by the gifts and skill sets of the volunteers.

If a post hurricane building team or a medical team is requested by a children's home or other Great Love partner organization, a solicitation is made for specific volunteers to lend their services.

Great Love has facilitated relational teams, medical, dental, ob-gyn care, sports camps, disaster relief, counselors and construction teams.

Most often, it's the Spirit that stirs individuals to give up their vacations and give away their natural resources.

10.27.2009

THANKSGIVING IN JAMAICA

Our goals below for last Thanksgiving's trip were realized. It was a beautiful wedding!
WEDDING VOWS
A small group of Great Love volunteers will travel to Jamaica to help put on a wedding for Brother's
United, Jermaine Clarke and his bride to be. He will be setting a new standard, by being the first
person in his family of origin to ever get legally married. Jermaine wants to invite his little brothers
who he grew up with at the Mount Olivet Boys Home, his fellow Brothers United and the
parishioners of Ridgemount United Church where he and his fiance Catrine attend. Catrine will be baptized in early December. She gave birth to their beautiful baby boy Eric last year.
PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH
Great Love Foundation sponsors pharmacy accounts for orphans and at risk young adults. Your gifts
also sponsor crisis counseling with Jennifer James of Jamaica Family Life Counseling Service in
Mandeville and Kingston. Ms. James specializes in helping youth that have been institutionalized.
SCHOLARSHIPS / TUTORING
Great Love continues to encourage the pursuit of overcoming poverty through education. Your gifts
have provided many at risk youth the gift of literacy and educational opportunities. As resources
allow, we will register and enroll needy kids that are waiting to enter classes and training centers.
We will facilitate introductions to prospective teachers and guidance counselors.
BUILDING DISCIPLES
Pastors Dwight and Shanda Pinnock of Generations Church have invited our team to stay at their
home on this visit and cast vision for a Great Love - Generations Church alliance.
They have expressed a desire to work with our Brothers and Sisters United, raising up and equipping future leaders of Jamaica. It's been our prayer to identify Jamaicans that are willing
to invest, mentor and disciple kids that have no families. Generations is located in downtown
Mandeville and is a vibrant diverse community of believer who express compassion as worship.
Great Love team member Andrea will stay on and remain with the Pinnocks for a time. She is
sensing the call to pray over the land of Jamaica.
PAYING RESPECT
We will go to the grave of Kemroy Crawford who was struck and killed from a lightning
strike this past September. He had lived at Mt. Olivet Boys Home till he was 13 years old and
then fostered by the McDonald family for the last 2 years.
THANKSGIVING - JAMAICA STYLE
If resources allow we will host a Thanksgiving dinner for the ones we serve and include an
invitation to American missionaries living on island. http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/258/Caribbean_Jerk_Turkey_with_Rice_and_Peas23225.shtml
CAMP CURTIS - FOURSQUARE
We will meet with Sister Mullings for a tour of Camp Curtis. We are looking forward to hosting
camps and leadership retreats for orphans, at risk youth, and those who serve them, during Great
Love's 2010 summer mission. Camp counselors will be comprised of both Jamaican nationals
and Great Love state side volunteers.
We invite you to partner with us by sending your tax deductible donation to:
Great Love 1951 Escarpa Drive Eagle Rock CA 90041
or donate on line www.cdprograms.org

"Live as free men, live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone;
Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the King. 1 Peter 2
HAPPY THANKSGIVING FRIENDS AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!
Great Love is a project of Congressional District Programs TAX ID # 65-0970090

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How is Great Love funded?

Great Love is funded by private individuals, hospitals, organizations, businesses, schools, churches and other foundations who desire to equip grassroots organizations like ours. Great Love donors help the forgotten and marginalized of society both in the U.S. and to the nations.

Great Love is a project of Congressional District Programs.

All donated funds are processed through CDP for financial and legal accountability.

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Thank you!

Worship

As I have participated in worship to the local church and the nations, I've become aware that that responding to the character of God and His love for His creation is what we were made for. "God inhabits the praises of His people". This happens wherever true worship takes place. As people sense His presence, extraordinary things can happen. People let go of their fear, pain, anxiety and shame, releasing their sorrow to the Man of Sorrows.

The act of worship as compassion to the poor [loving each one as if it were the Christ Himself] in the presence of our gracious and forgiving God is an inspiring place to move in. Worship evangelism provides a platform to express God's love and the story of the ultimate sacrifice for each man, woman and child of the earth. My hearts desire would be that all could be given the opportunity to step into their rightful destiny with God, the Life giver.

Everyone is invited to this party with the greatest gift being more than earthy life, but life eternal. c.m.

Brothers United - A Halfway House for young people in transition - 2006-2009

In 2006 while on a Great Love Journey to Jamaica, several young friends of mine were at the end of their stay at various government subsidized institutions aka orphanages, aka children's homes.

Some were fearful and at the end of their rope.

There are exceptions, but often, these institutions lack meaningful teaching in life skills, civics, healthy conflict resolution, goal setting and emotional and spiritual support. There is a huge social gap for kids coming out of these homes. Once turned out of children's homes, many face homelessness and are prey for gangs, abuse and the unthinkable. Young men and women have told me first hand of their rejections, the experience of hopelessness humiliations and hardships that have thus far defined their lives.

This blog will be a platform to give voice to their stories.

Conflict resolution has often been resolved with the fist instead of mediation. Many have gone through the school system but are not fully literate. Some homes don't allow for ownership of things. Lack of trust is an ongoing issue. Growing up without parents or a support system is a lonely road.

Back to the December trip.....with just 36 hours remaining before our team was to return to Los Angeles, our young men and Great Love volunteers gathered in worship and lifted up heartfelt prayers that we could find a place for them to live. My small faith was met with a Big and Loving God. Rev. Andy came to breakfast the next morning and told us of a local resident Joyce Powell, who had a vacant home that was damaged during Hurricane Ivan. It needed allot of work, with holes in the floors and the roof, rotted windows and vines weaving in and out of the living areas. No Problem Mon! It had 3 bedrooms and a little cottage out back. The lease to own home had come right on time and was a godsend for our Brothers in need. We took a leap of faith and signed the lease. Local volunteers, the boys and our subsequent Great Love teams were willing laborers to make this house a livable home in the months following.

The boys voted on the name of their group and declared it Brother's United. Work began and funds were raised to buy supplies and fix the roof and floor. It was an exciting time.

Great Love invested in appliances, furniture, bunk beds, a punching bag and all the basics needed for the guys to move in. Some of the guys moved right in and lived at the house with tarps serving as their roof, and used a lantern for their light. They got used to stepping over the holes in the floors, just grateful for the shelter that God provided.

The Brothers United painted their house the colors of the Jamaican flag. Local Jamaican volunteers lent their time and talents as well. Andy McDonald served as a guidance counsellor and home's director though he lived off site.

The Great Love Brothers United House provided shelter from the storms of life. It was a season where a young man learned what it took to get employed, learned to save money, some learned to cook, share chores and food, go to school, live in community, and transition into adulthood with a hand up.

Though some embraced the ideals and code of conduct that they drew up and agreed on, others continued with an institutionalized mindset, waiting for handouts, not understanding how to self initiate.

Life choices.... all your life.......choices.

The property sat on 3 1/4 acres with banana, bread-fruit, ackee and citrus. There is always something planted in the field. Sometimes harvested before it was harvest time.

The Brothers were asked to: find employment, contribute to the gas for cooking, water, food and power. They were asked to commit to living in community with respect, attending house meetings, attending a church of their choice and setting educational goals are a part of this new journey. Great Love sponsored the rent and staple food of things like rice, peas and porriage.

The brothers built a dog proof chicken coop. They did a great job. Broiler chicks mature every 6 weeks. The brothers ate some of the chickens and attempted to sell the rest to buy more broilers. On one trip, they invited me to help them slaughter the chicken's but I didn't have the stomach to go down that road. This exercise in raising, butchering and selling chickens to buy more only worked to a point. Without a teacher/missionary living on the site, sometimes hunger and lack of self control, made for early butchering of the chicken's and tempers would fly.

The young men of Brothers United and our Brothers at large, are learning to have a voice and define their dreams and hopes.

"God loves us as we are not as we should

be for we'll never be as we should be" brennan manning

Lawrence's Story

When I was younger in a children’s home, church and Sunday school were compulsory. I remember learning the bible stories in pictorial form and acting out some of them in skits. So really I was taught the Christian rudiments back then. It was the same at Mount Olivet. I always had the chance to accept Christ from crusade and church service, but I felt I was not ready and needed to understand more. I always believed there was God and his son Jesus because it was the popular belief and what we were taught. I really wanted to experience Christ for myself.

I had no plans or place to go after my time expired at Mt. Olivet and I prayed about this. I was given a chance to live at the Cool Water Ministries which is Christian based. The Cool Water accepts young men who have a desire for Christ, personal growth and development. The curriculum includes bible studies, Christian leadership and personal development. I was exposed to so many people of faith, read great books and watched interesting series from Christian Speakers.

I am thrilled with the fact that Jesus accepts us as we are, no matter the background, possession, position or status. I was impressed with the way He lived; reaching out to sinners and being compassionate to what men considered “the outcast”. He is the only person who totally accepts me for who I am, and enduring the scars at Calvary for me. That is incredible!

Growing in Christ, I understand, is a life long journey and I always want to improve by reading His words, but more important doing the Word. As I approach my final year in university and looking forward to my future I can surely say that Jesus has been and will continue my buttress. I can sense Him working in my life developing me for the purpose He had uniquely created me for before I was conceived.