Fall Stuff

Fall has arrived! It has been an eventful time here in New Orleans and at the Baptist Friendship House. In September we held our annual Back-to-School Bash in which we were able to give away over 100 bags of school supplies to our community. Some of the back packs came from New Orleans Homeless Children and Youth advocates. Of course there was food......what's a good party without hotdogs and nachos? We appreciate the volunteers and partners that helped us put it together and have some fun meeting a need in our community.
October included our Up2HOPE Fun Day and Fall Fest. The Fun Day is designed to be a time for us to continue building relationships with the girls from the summer. It is a time for them to just be girls and catch up with friends made during the summer. We also offer after-school tutoring during the week for those that need it.

Fall Fest is our annual event that we do on Halloween night. This year's theme was "Who Dat Got Talent?" We had a stage for karaoke and several games for the kids (even big kids) to play. We were able to provide a safe place for the community to have fun.

Thanks to your support through prayer, giving, volunteering, etc., we are able to offer these events to our community. We are able to meet with them where they are and as they are. We serve an amazing God that allows us the opportunity to serve Him by loving on people that other wise may not experience true grace and compassion.

New Website

Please be aware that we no longer will have the website at bfh.lifewaylink.com it is now www.baptistfriendshiphouse.org. Please also understand that we are adjusting to a new way of keeping the website updated. Stay tuned to Facebook or Twitter for the most current news. Thank you for your continued support and prayers. Thank you for choosing to be a part of the ministry in New Orleans and around the world.

Blessings Through Hard Times

Below is a testimony of one of the many ladies that we assist through the ministry here in New Orleans:

Circumstances may have landed me in the situation that I found my self in, but it was the consequences of choices I made. I have the option of having a "pity party" because of what's not going right in my life or I can look at the positive and learn from them. For example, a little over a year ago, I found myself at a New Orleans bus stop after fleeing from a bad situation out of state. When I arrived in New Orleans, I knew no one and had no where to go. As I stepped off the bus, I had a mini stroke that landed me in the hospital for a couple of days. However, I had a full recovery with in 72 hours and was given rehabilitation services. Everything was paid for, however, I lost everything at the bus station. I was in a big city with no family and no ID and only the clothes on my back. I was able to get to an emergency shelter which housed me and also referred me to another program to help me find a job. It was there that I found a flier advertising for Baptist Friendship House. It stated that Friendship House was offering snack packs and hygiene kits. I went to see what this Friendship House was about. I was given the snack pack and hygiene kit but was also allowed to take a shower. You see, at the emergency shelter I was staying only had 2 showers for 30+ women. At Friendship House, I was met with hospitality like no other. They fed me, clothed me and gave me my dignity back. Only God can open such doors if I allow Him the opportunity and I keep my eyes open. As the old cliche says, we cannot out give God. James 1:5-15 tells me I will be tested and face trials of faith, what will I do?! Stand on faith in God.

Summer Recap 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYWrbuScibM

Above you will see a brief video summarizing our summer with girls from the community. This year we called the summer HUMAN using Natalie Grant's song, Human. The acronym that we used was Helping U Meet A Need. We used curriculum from Woman's Missionary Union's Project Help. The materials cover all aspects of Human Exploitation. We discussed bullying, trafficking (labor and sex), pornography, exploitation of natural resources, and media exploitation. We discussed God's plan and our role as children of God to combat our culture and its demand on our resources and on each other. Our girls also completed the Act 1:8 challenge. They covered exploitation as it appears in our culture at home and internationally, they made prayer squares for our military that will deployed around the world, and they collected money to support a young girl to go to school in India. They also helped us give out Feed the Children boxes in their neighborhood which included food and personal care items. Please prayerfully consider your role in supporting the above ministries and the families here in our community.

Baptist Friendship House Newsletter

Due to the rising cost of postage, the summer 2011 newsletter will be published here on our blog. To view our newsletter please copy and paste this link into your browser. Let us know if you have any questions or problems accessing the newsletter.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/57922610?access_key=key-22dharp8q6czo5sdxvy5

The Beginning of Summer

The temperature is definitely letting us know that it is summer time- which means UP2HOPE starts in just a few days- June 6! All five of our summer missionaries have arrived and they are gearing up to work with the girls who attend camp. We are looking forward to sharing issues that fall under WMU's Project HELP which include: bullying, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, pornography, media's exploitation of families and children, and exploitation of natural resources. Other activities at camp will include: devotion, dancing, crafts, games, team building exercises, tae-kwon-do, and nutrition/health education. Please be in prayer for all of the summer missionaries, staff, and campers throughout summer.

We would also like to share information regarding a Christian Women's Job Corps training that will be held at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church June 20-24, 2011. If you would like more information regarding how you can attend this training please visit the National WMU CWJC website at:
http://www.wmu.com/index.php?q=blog/ministries/cwjc/starting-site-training

Due to the expense of sending out newsletters our next one will only be sent electronically to everyone on our email list. If you would like to be added to our email list please send an email to bfhjobs@aol.com with your contact information. The newsletter will be sent out this week!

Please remember Dr. Duane McDaniel's family in their time of loss. Dr. McDaniel meant a lot to our ministry as he was the Executive Director for the New Orleans Baptist Association. We are so thankful for his service and how he helped further ministry in New Orleans. The Kathleen McDaniel Children's Educational Fund has been set up to aid in educational expenses for their four children, Mallory 15, Matthew 14, Keanu 8, and Abby 7. Contributions can be sent to The Kathleen McDaniel Children's Educational Fund c/o Russell Honeycutt, 223 Pebblebrook Lane. Macon, Georgia 31220

Family Time :)

At Friendship House we consider ourselves to be one big family. This comes complete with fun family outtings such as the events of the past two weekends. Oftentimes when people think of the transitional housing part of our ministry, job searching, housing, childcare, resume building, life skills, and other things come to mind. These are all very important priorities in our ministry and it is true that we do all of these and much more. We thought it would be good to also show some of the relaxing and family oriented times outside of the house that we are able to do with our families on some weekends. When a woman is stuck in the cycle of homelessness it is sometimes difficult to find time to spend outside of just surviving, so we find it important to allow the families to have fun just spending time together doing things that most people take for granted. The pictures posted are from a day touring the Swamp last weekend and at the Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula this past weekend. Please let us know if you would like to help sponsor one of our family events.