A Season to Celebrate!

Our first class of seniors are graduating next Saturday which calls for an epic celebration! We have 25 kids who received mentors in the 4th grade who are either graduating from high school or receiving their diploma over the course of the summer. This means they have mentors who started walking with them 8 years ago and have watched them grow from silly little kids into intelligent young men and women. We had a sweet time honoring them at our graduation celebration last Saturday at Mercy Street.

Uncle Bill and his two students: Larry and Broddrion

We're getting excited about the LeCrae concert at Mercy Street on July 16! He is one of the best hip hop artists in the world, and he is coming to do a concert exclusively for Mercy Street students and mentors. His sole purpose is to bless us and pour into us. It's going to be riveting! You and your student won't want to miss it. Enjoy a little taste of LeCrae in the mean time:  

Johnny will also be leading our Summer Work Crew again this summer if your student is interested in a job at Mercy Street. There are only 12 slots available, so we reserve the spots for those students who have demonstrated leadership qualities throughout the years. If you think this might be a good fit for your student, then contact Johnny, Carlton, or Julie for more information. 

Our Hope for the Summer

Fun times are in store for our high school students at Mercy Street this summer, and we hope this blog will be a way for you to stay up to speed with all the happenings. But more than that, we hope it will be a place for us to share our excitement and wonder over the incredible ways God is moving here in West Dallas. We are living in the tension! Our human experience involves so much pain and anger and beauty and laughter and grief and suffering and joy. It's the reality of redemption bursting onto the scene of a fractured world. We feel all of those emotions here at Mercy Street and we want this to be a space for us to share them; because the Spirit of God seeps into all those areas to display His beauty. He's bringing restoration through sanctification and transformation through purification. We're coming alive!

We have had a consistent group of high schoolers attending our Tuesday night Bible study and we hope to continue building momentum throughout the summer. How will that play out? Backyard Bible Study! We are praying for different families to host our Bible study on Tuesday nights during the months of June and July, and we would love for you to become more involved with our kids through this avenue. We hope to keep things fresh for our high schoolers by exposing them to new places and faces. Email Julie if you are interested in hosting us for a night this summer!

Our high school camp will be at Lakeview Conference Center in Waxahachie this summer from July 22-25. It is far enough from the city to provide gorgeous scenery but close enough for you to come hang out with us! We will leave on Friday afternoon and return on Monday morning, and we'd love to see you there. In order for students to attend, they must pay the $100 registration fee and participate in at least 2 work days at Mercy Street on May 21st, June 9th and 10th, or any Tuesday night.

Get to know some of our Student Leaders who are pictured above! From the left to the right we've got: Carmen Alvarez, Seville Smith, Timothy Thomas, T.O. Carey, Sharmonique Ellis and Adrienne Drake. You will hear more about these leaders over the summer, among others who are actively seeking to participate in the redemptive work Christ is doing in West Dallas. It is a tremendous joy to serve alongside our student leaders and we are humbled by their resolve to be counter cultural leaders in the midst of a world that is constantly vying for their affections. Please check in regularly to hear more stories and find new ways to get involved! In the mean time, may we all turn our eyes upon Jesus Christ, and just gaze into His face moment after moment after moment. Where else can we turn?

Last Day of Tours

Our last day of college touring brought us to Texas State in San Marcos and University of Texas in San Antonio.

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TEXAS STATE

One of our own leaders, Tara Worthen, gave us a tour of her alma mater Texas State.

Texas State is located in the beautiful hill country of Texas.  Tara was able to show us through the student center, classrooms, and around the campus.  The university also gave each of the students a Texas State t-shirt.

We greatly appreciated having Tara as our tour guide, not only because she is one of our leaders, but also because she was able to relate much information about the school.  She told the students about admissions, housing, student groups, sports, the surrounding city, and much more.  Thank you Tara, you did awesome!

More beautiful pictures of Texas State...

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The last university of our 2011 College Tour was University of Texas at San Antonio!

UTSA turned out to be a rather large school, educating over 30,000 students a year.  At UTSA we were given a tour of two types of dorms (including the inside), sports/fitness facilities, as well as the general campus.

We were also met on campus by one of Carlton's former students.  He is now a university student with a sports scholarship.  He stayed and encouraged our students to work hard and remember that your attitude impacts your life.  He wanted to show that you can accomplish the dream of going to school and pursuing a better future.

-Jennilee

To The Capital!

Today's adventure brought us to the capital of Texas - Austin!  We traveled straight away to the capitol building downtown.

After a quick tour through the museum...

...we made our way to the capitol.  Here we were given an official introduction during the House of Representatives session.  It was explained that Mercy Street is a Christian organization in West Dallas that helps the students who live in this area.

The young men and young ladies were then split up so we could each have an official tour of this facility.

A section of the capitol building was built underground.  Though it has skylights, these skylights are actually at ground level.

The most exciting part of this visit was our opportunity to meet Governor Rick Perry.  Gov. Rick Perry not only came out to meet our students but gave an encouraging and inspiring speech just to us for about ten minutes.

We were even given a state flag to bring back to Mercy Street.

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The University we toured in Austin was, of course, University of Texas at Austin!

First, we were met by the Strength and Conditioning Coach for UTA's football team.  He took us through some of their impressive sports facilities.

On the other side of the campus we were met by our student tour guide, Claire, who showed us the classrooms, cafeteria/student center, dorm buildings, and other parts of UTA.

After a long and exciting day, we are now comfortably in our hotel and basking in the fact that we do not have to wake up at 6:00AM tomorrow...woot!

The LORD is Good :)

-Jennilee

Prairie View/Houston

Day two of our College Tour 2011 adventure began with a visit to Prairie View A&M University.  PVAMU is the second oldest public university in the state of Texas, built in 1876.  Originally PVAMU was an African American university built where a plantation used to stand, and now boasts a diverse student population.

After a discussion about admissions and finances in the school's chapel, two student tour guides led us through the architecture building, media center, dorm area, and the cafeteria/student center.

PVAMU has a nationally famous school band that has played at the Superbowl, featured in the movie Drumline, and has been involved in many other exciting opportunities.

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Our second stop was at University of Houston. UH is a much larger university educating over 37,000 students a year.

We did not have much time to spend at UH, so the girls and guys were split up into two separate tours.

The girls and I visited the student center/bookstore and academic buildings, which were near the library.  It was a wonderful day to be walking on their beautiful campus. Of few of us noted that UH takes extra steps to be environmentally conscience.  For example, they had solar-powered recycling bins throughout the campus and a greenhouse attached to one of their academic buildings.

UH - good stewards of God's creation :)

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The last university we toured in Houston was Texas Southern University.

TSU is also historically an African American university.  They have an onsite museum to commemorate this history.
At TSU we were met by Admissions Counselor for High School Students, Alison, and two student tour guides.

Apart from the academic buildings, and sports facilities, at TSU we also had the unique opportunity to view the inside of the dorms and dorm lounge.

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At night we stayed in the luxurious Omni Hotel. Many of the students took the opportunity to swim in Omni's large pool before bed.