Now is the Time to Help a Child, Not Later

WOW Kids Outreach runs a tutoring/mentoring program on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4-6pm.  Like everything else we do, we have a ton of boys who come to our program.  The boys usually out number the girls in most of our programs.  We desperately need guys to come and invest in these boys who are going to grow up to be men one day.

The tutoring program is what I love most.  I'm in college to be a teacher, so it's a perfect fit for me.  I have volunteered at East Lake Academy for three years and I interned at East Lake Elementary.  I have been in these children's schools and they are broken.  Very broken.  Believe it or not, the elementary school is actually worse than the middle school. 

The city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County are letting us use the old Piney Woods Elementary school building right across the street from Emma Wheeler Homes for our tutoring program.  It hasn't been used as a school since 1992.  From the outside it looks abandoned, but the inside is very nice and full of potential.  Before we came in, it was a huge building that was underused with just a Family Resource Center.  Now it is full of kids every Tuesday and Thursday.

Our tutoring program is off to a wonderful start and every week we talk and tweak stuff to make it even better.  This is not your average help-with-homework-and-go-home tutoring program.  We split the kids into three groups: Pre-K, K-2nd grade, and 3rd-8th grade.  3-8th grade are put onto different colored teams and transition throughout five different classes in two hours.  The five classes are Math, Language Arts, Bible, Manners, and Drama.

We don't just have classes.  We also have a computer lab with twenty new computers that were donated.  We also have a library that has been organized and labeled with a ton of great books.  We even have a thrift store full of clothes, school supplies, and toys for the kids to go shopping when they earn WOW Bucks for good behavior.

It doesn't stop there!  The kids are able to earn Sunday trips every two weeks if they have good behavior.  These trips can be anywhere from the aquarium to the zoo to on top of the mountain to hike and play on the Pumpkin Patch Playground.  All of the places I just listed are places that these kids have never been before! These kids live in the shadow of the mountain, but most of them have never driven up it before.  Most of them have never been to a museum before.  Most of them have never been to the Chattanooga zoo or the aquarium.  One of our goals are exposing these kids who live in the projects to the wonderful world around them that they hardly ever get to see.

All of this is happening every week and we are still working on putting even more into our program.  We talked to people today about starting a basket ball program this June.  One of my biggest desires is tapping into every kid's potential.  Whether that is through a basket ball program, a jewelry making class, a knitting class, a computers class, etc.

What we desperately need is YOU!  We can do all this without you!  I can have all these wonderful ideas, but it takes you to kick them off.  If you just want to volunteer and be that one person who gives a kid the attention that they really want or you have a skill that you would like to teach them like computers, drama, music, sports, chess, photography, knitting, etc every little bit helps!

I recently went to a conference where a man was teaching a photography workshop with inner-city boys.  The boys loved it.  He shared that one day it hit him that he would die and all his knowledge would die with him unless he took the time to pass it on to the next generation.

We are working with Chattanooga's future.  The next generation.  You decide what kind of Chattanooga that you want your kids to grow up in.  Now is the time to invest.  We can't wait until these kids are grown or getting in trouble to help them.

Last week, I was dropping kids off at home in Emma Wheeler after our tutoring program took a field trip to Silverdale's fall festival.  It was late and the moon was already up.  We drove right past three cop cars that were surrounding a boy who looked like he couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen.  They had him sitting on the curb with his arms handcuffed behind his back.

When we drove past, he looked up at us and the expression on his face was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen.

"Just think." My mom said.  "If he has been with us tonight at our tutoring program, he wouldn't be getting arrested right now."

Who knows what talent that boy has.  Who knows if his talents will one day rot away on a jail cell because of a stupid decision he made as a teenager persuaded by some wanna be gangsters looking for something to do on a Thursday night.

(Newspaper article about Chattanooga's gang problem)

I sincerely believe that the only way Chattanooga is going to overcome our gang problem is by the Church being willing to go out of our comfort zones.  A lot of people have never been to the projects or been a minority before.  I know that I never had until we went to East Lake Courts to pass out clothes a couple years ago, but God opened up a huge door and now I help run an inner-city ministry.  Can you say WOW?!

Now I'm in the projects almost everyday and I love it.

Why don't you come down to the projects and check out our tutoring program?  We would love to have you visit (the kids love visitors!) and check it out.  Shoot me an email if you're interested (parisakins@gmail.com)!

Paris Akins is currently a college student pursuing a degree in Education.  She loves diversity, Jesus, and middle schoolers.  She spends most of her time at school, helping with Chattanooga's Urban WyldLife, and with her kiddos in East Lake.  She also blogs over at Attempting the Impossible.

Something Beautiful

(East Lake Academy's WyldLife club on Monday nights)

"Something Beautiful"

By Madison Akins

I'm writing this from the back of our fifteen passenger van after dropping off a load of kids.

On Monday nights I volunteer as a leader for Wyldlife, a middle school Christian club. The one I help at with Paris and Cecily is in the inner-city of East Lake, Chattanooga, TN.

Earlier we were finishing up the last game when my sister came up to me and whispered that a girl was crying.

I looked up and easily spotted one of the only white girls in the room, and yes, she was crying. This wasn't very unusual, considering that this young girl is often picked on by the other kids. She's the one they all make fun of, avoid, and groan when they hear that she's going wherever it is they're going.

Why? I don't know. Maybe it's because she is a different color then them.  Maybe it's because she smells bad. Maybe it's because she's smart, or comes from a crazy family.  For whatever reason, they just don't like her.

I've often felt sorry for her, and when I saw her crying, I felt the same. I walked over to try and figure out what was wrong, but she was hard to understand through all her tears.  Paris pulled her away from the staring kids, and I tried to talk to her.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

She sobbed and rambled on about something someone did thirty minutes ago, and honestly I couldn't understand half of it.  Finally I told her to calm down, stop crying, and we'll talk about it. It was kind of loud, so I took her into the hall.

She looked at me through red rimmed eyes and said, "I'm always bullied!  I was never bullied in New York! I've been bullied ever since I moved here." The tears started up again. "Sometimes I just think this is a mistake. I shouldn't be here."

We've all heard those stories of kids that were bullied. Bullied so much that they decided to end their own lives. It's so sad and tragic.  Now, I'm not saying that this girl was thinking that far, but to have an eleven-year-old girl cry and tell you she thinks part of her life is a mistake is just heartbreaking.

I felt the pressure of being the one to encourage her, so I briefly closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. "Lord, give me the words to say to her."

I took a breath and knew what I needed to do. I needed to speak life over her. Hope. Let her know that this isn't the end, it gets better.

So I did. I leaned close and said everything I knew was true.  "I love you. God loves you. Miss Akins and Mrs Kara love you. This won't last forever....things will get better. Just think about the story you're going to have. One day you'll be able to help kids who have gone through the same things. You can tell them what God has done for you..... the Bible says that God works all things together for the good of those that love Him.  God will make your life beautiful."

I just encouraged her, and told her her truth until I thought she heard. And prayed it was enough.

After talking with her, a song came to my mind. A friend of mine had sang it at her church before, and the words seem to fit this girl's life and what I was trying to tell her perfectly. I really wanted her to hear it.

As I climbed into this van to drop kids off, I asked her to sit by me. I told her there was a song I wanted to sing for her about trusting God to make our lives beautiful, even when we don't understand. She wanted to hear it.

I sat here in the back of van and sang:

"I lean not on my own understanding

My life is in the hands of the Maker of Heaven

I give it all to You, God

Trusting that you'll make something beautiful out of me"

Afterwards, she looked at me and said, "You guys always say the perfect things when I'm sad."

So God had answered my prayer and given me the right words. I know one talk won't fix her problems forever, and I know she will cry again, but I hope that now she has something good to remember and cling to. I was relieved and whispered, "Thank You, Lord."

Because when there's a young girl crying about her life, I don't want to waste the opportunity to let her know that God can make it into something beautiful.

"To all who mourn....He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair." - Isaiah 61:3

Madison Akins is a 16-year-old college freshman who loves God and people.  She enjoys being healthy and spending time with family and friends.  She's passionate about helping impoverished children and singing (which she does all the time).  More than anything, she wants to grow forever closer to her Savior.

They Keep Coming

"They Keep Coming" 

By Kara Akins

One of the greatest joys of WOW Kids is working with a variety of churches, organizations and volunteers. God has been faithful to keep a steady stream of people coming to the projects. It is nothing short of a miracle.

When we first began WOW Kids we knew our family alone couldn't feed and care for so many people. The first person I spoke to about church groups sending out crews from their own congregation told me that he doubted we could get one church to commit, much less several churches on a rotating basis. He could have been completely right. It's hard for someone with as little influence as I have to get anyone to do anything. But God. Only God has the ability to stir people's hearts. And He did!

God loves these children. He is father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). If we are willing to be used to meet real needs in their lives, then He is willing to use us. Any of us. 

And the thing is the children recognize His love. The love that compels us to go to where these children are, is the very love they feel when we are near them.

I was with some boys from our after school program the other day. They were brothers. I knew the younger one but not the older one. While we were waiting to go on our field trip I was allowing them to play with my phone. I know some adults don't like to see children with cell phones but I don't mind IF they are willing to practice sharing and it's not during class time, etc. But any strife means I take the phone away until they fix the problem.

Strife happened so I reached to retrieve the phone. The boy who didn't know me had a very negative reaction. He didn't understand that all he had to do was muster up some self-control, say some right words and the phone would be returned. So he started throwing around a very bad attitude. 

But it was what his younger brother said that touched my heart and completely changed the entire situation.

"She's not mean. She's different. She really does loves us. All you have to do is the right thing. She'll help you. When you do the right thing you get the phone back," were his words.

But all I heard was, "She really does love us."

Oh, I would give hundreds of iPhones for them to know it. But it wasn't the phone that made him believe I loved him. It was the love that made me want to share my phone, share my food, share my smiles, share my Bible verses and whatever else I could. That's what love tends to do.

"For God so loved the world that He gave..." (John 3:16)

God has placed people on my path that share a love for these children. Like magnets we come together at the most unlikely places: Chick-fil-A, Walmart, Fall-festivals, schools, FaceBook, churches. And we begin to talk about the children in the projects and in unison our hearts burn to show them that love. 

Because "the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13)

With so much coming against these children, nothing less could ever do. Love, after all, is the only thing that never fails (1 Cor. 13:8). When so many things tend to fail isn't it nice to bring these children something that won't?

And do you know why love won't fail? Because God is love (1 John 4:8). Not our twisted version of love. He is the real thing. And kids discern the difference. 

Kara Akins married Mr. Jack Stephen Akins III at age 18.  She is now the mother of six children, ages 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18.  Her "7th child" is her niece, Cecily, who also lives with the family.  She has one boy in the bunch who is spoiled rotten.  Along with being a mom, she also volunteers extensively with Young America Ministries and is a speaker for the Be Still, Get Real team.