All Star Flag Football Game!

John Ribbing and team did it again.

We had another successful all-star flag football game at Brother Rice on Halloween. Even though it was windy and cold, everyone seemed to muster enough warmth to have a great time. Minus a few scuffles everyone played with great sportsmanship and the army of volunteers really made the day happen. We are so grateful for this program and that the main emphasis is on reading and having good grades. Though it’s called flag football league it has little to do with how good you are or how many W’s you have. But, it combines the importance of education with an enjoyable game resulting in a great day of football. The kids always love going to the real field and running for a touch down by the uprights.

Thank-you John and team from the bottom of our hearts for making this season yet another success of sharing Christ’s love, educational values, and the love of the game. We appreciate and love you!

Raking Mission

It's a half day of school today at City Mission Academy.

These children and their teacher are still at school raking leaves to make

the mission look even better. The children could be doing anything today.

They chose to go home, grab some lunch and then come back to rake leaves with their teacher, Mr. Bob Globke.

This is the kind of effort that is going to change Brighmoor for the better!

At City Mission we don't just teach educationally we teach practically as well.

Harvest Party

Today was the Harvest Party at City Mission Academy. We had a genie, a baby and a fairy. All very true even in real life.

We made pumpkin makes, and harvest shaped cookies and there was a parade to show off costumes.

Another fun day at City Mission Academy.

4 Sistas

WOW! It has been a while since I posted. Since we are only weeks away from the fall gala entitled "365 days at City Mission" I thought I'd better blog everyday until then or at least give it my best shot!
These four girls have know each other since they were born. They all go to school together. They live a couple houses away from each other and here they are at Wiard's Orchard together. They are feeding the bunnies together. We also went on a hay ride, picked pumpkins and ate cider and donuts. We didn't bring Angel and Ashley to the cider mill. My sister Carrie did. They have just become a part of our family and extended family.

Here at City Mission we live out life together.

The Fall Gala is November 14th 6:00pm at the Silver Garden of Southfield. Go to the website to get your tickets. www.city-mission.org

Girls Night!

Picture this: 6 junior high girls, Miss Jessi, one small house, brownies, pizza, cookie dough, movies, music, dancing, crafting, and just a little bit of sleep.

Yep, that's what it was. Girls night at Miss Jessi's house. We spent the night laughing and dancing and eating enough for three days. All the mentoring girls were invited over for a pre night of fun before the big event the Girls Matter conference on Saturday. They slept little, I slept much (fortunately, I can sleep through anything!). But, come 7:00 on Saturday morning we were moving much more slowly than the dance moves I saw the night before.

We had to be out the door by 7:45 to pick up the rest of the neighborhood girls to head out to Novi for the conference. The conference was a day all about girls and empowerment. The keynote speaker reminded us that the way we play games is the way we live life. We had a blast with her and were inspired to wake up each day and remind ourselves, "I am beautiful, I am smart, I am legendary..." and so on.

Though we were sleepy from the previous nights fesitivies but the weekend was a success and there were so many beautiful moments shared with these incredible young ladies.

Stay tuned for girls night #2- if I'm really that brave!

Flag Football Season is here!

There is an incredible volunteer named John Ribbing who felt like he was called to start a free flag football league for the children in our neighborhood. Years ago he used to pick up one of the kids and drive them out to the suburbs but thought it was time for him to stop picking up kids but rather pick up volunteers and come down here. Each Saturday starting at 9:30 the fields begin to fill-up and footballs begin to get thrown. There are three age groups and about 100 kids (that number grows each week) that join the league. It's great fun for the kids, but also great experience for the coaches, refs, and down markers who are all volunteers. During each half time Coach John shares the message of Christ to the kids as well has including his own story which is quite powerful. We are so grateful for John and the army of volunteers that join us in the fall each year for flag football.

Here are a few photos for you to enjoy...

The huddle!

Jay and Derek- set, hike.

And this is what the girls do...Miss Karen is under there getting her hair braided. Stay tuned for cheerleading next week for the ladies!

Basketball Camp 2009

August 2009 Tim McCormick Basketball camp!

A community service event completely organized and ran by these two incredible young men. Way to go boys!
I think Byron found a new friend. Rex was a trooper and even found himself at the swings part of the time!

Serious about the game...

Mr. Mike and Terry

The whole group. We had 80+ kids show up for this afternoon of skills, fruit, water, fun, and of course basketball!

Thanks Xavier for making this event such a success and working so hard. You did an incredible job!!

Stay tuned: Saturday, September 12 Flag football season starts!

This is what we've been up to the last few weeks...

This is what we've been up to the last few weeks...

We had the CMA back to school parent meeting held by this incredibly beautiful and talented teaching staff. Kelly (2nd-3rd), Dana (principal extraordinaire), Debra (K-1), Bob (4th-5th and ROBOTICS man!!)

All of the academy kids got these personalized cuter than ever bookbags that say City Mission on them. The boys just say City Mission with no cutesy bow. Love them! (Apparently Dana in the background loves them too :)

Tiana and McKayla getting some love (and giving as always!)

Rows and rows of backpacks. We were able to sponsor and deliver uniforms, backpacks and school supplies for about 140 kids. Praise God from whom all blessings flow for truly making this happen (it really was miraculous, down to the dollar amount!)
Hope you are well!!

Bad Tomato

To the untrained eye this looks like bad tomatoes on the sidewalk of City Mission...

24 hours before this people were lined up to get food from the

City Mission Harvest Food Ministry...


To get much needed food.

We hope that the outcome is more than just food. We hope that the people that line up for the Harvest get spiritual food. And that one day they will know better than to toss the tomatoes, but to eat them.

End result: Eat Spiritual food to break the chains of generational poverty.

In the mean time: Keep loving & keep feeding the needs.

That is what Jesus would do.

I want to see the people and not the tomato.

I hope you do, too!

Violin Concert!

The beauty and talent of the children in these pictures speaks for itself!

The fabulous Miss Z that helped create this beauty!

Putting it to Good Use

We had a garage sale here at City Mission on Saturday. Although my mothers says technically it it was not a garage sale because we did not have a garage. But we argued that most of the items at the sale came from some one's garage.

ANYWAY...

Here are a few pictures of folks that put their items to immediate use. Above is Tony. We have known him since he was born. He purchased the shorts at the sale in the morning and then came back to the sale with them on later in the afternoon. He is swinging on the swing set at

City Mission.

These beautiful ladies were rolling down the street after the sale. They purchased their roller blades at the sale earlier in the day. I had to stop and speak to them. They are new to the area and just assumed that City Mission did a sale every Saturday. I said "Lord, no that is too hard of work, we are a school with tutoring and mentoring programs". She said "we need to know more." I said come on up and find out on Monday.

Precious in God's sight I'm sure.

Sorry I have missed a few days. I have two more in the hopper so keep a look out.

Nic

Family Camp

Most summers we take a trip up north with some of our family friends from the neighborhood. Because of funding this year we coudln't make it happen, but we made something else happen as these relationships are so important to us.

Thanks to the generosity of some of our biggest fans we had a familly BBQ night out in the suburbs. These friends opened up their home stacked with a pool, tennis court, basketball hoop, and excellent hanging out space to our city mission family for a night.

We ate really good food, played bingo, swam and dove, played basketball, hit the tennis ball, swang on the swings, broke the pinata (of course with a few tears) and just enjoyed each others company. We even made it on the news that evening. We had such a great time and are so grateful for so many people like these friends that make things happen at City Mission.

Enjoy a few pics of the fun!

Working Hard

Angels Sanders is working hard to break the chains of generational poverty.
Angel Sanders is a 3rd grader that is going to repeat 3rd grade. She is just a bit behind in her school work. But not for long if Beverly Bailey and City Mission have anything to say about it.
Beverly has spent hours with her this summer. In addition Angel has attended summer semester at City Mission Academy. She has also had homework and brought it all done.
Beverly says that Angel's light went on last week.

It just went on...like that!

We know that our God is a God of miracles. This is one of His miracles. Angel Sanders and Beverly Bailey "doing the work".

Communion

It has been a really tough couple of weeks. We have been mad crazy trying to raise money to keep City Mission Academy open in the fall. There has also been some very difficult personal issues that we as a family have been going through.

This morning Caci, my 10 year old announced that she has prepared communion. She used the bread and juice that someone had given to us for dinner the night before. We as a family had communion together. Caci did the whole things. She had it set up. She put the "blood" in her cup from her birthday...it is a tiki cup from a summer theme birthday party. And then she put the bread safely between two plates. She lead us in prayer and then encouraged each of us to make sure we each had accepted Jesus into our hearts. She said "this is serious, really think about it."

Then she served each of us one by one and then she served herself.

After such a week communion was very welcome and appropriate.

"Let the little children come onto me", Jesus said.

I say indeed.

We can learn so much from children and how they think of God if we would just follow their lead.

Cass and Elizabeth

Thanks to many generous supporters we often get to go to different sporting events in the area. This particular night we had Tigers tickets and I was excited to spend an evening at the ballfield, without children. Well, like most events in my life a few of them manage to sneak in. So, I loaded the Bonnie up with the two interns (who I adore and am not considering them the children :) and two neighbor girls. I thought they had been to a game before but they acted like they had never even seen downtown! We weaved through the streets and found somewhere to park amidst the baseball fans and Aretha Franklin fans that were also attending an event downtown. The girls had the job of remembering the streets we parked at. One remembered Cass and one remembered Elizabeth. They practiced the whole short walk to the ball field. On the way in we saw a homeless asking for money and one of the girls was so sad she had left the three pennies on the floor in the car, she wanted to give him money so badly. This, from a child who most would consider poor. Clearly, she is not poor, but rich in spirit. We can learn so much from children.

Another beautiful thing about taking children on outings with you is seeing them discover things for the first time. We were walking (all the way!) around the stadium and one of the girls stopped in her tracks. I thought from the shoe that had broken about 100 times on the way in. But, after I picked her jaw up off the ground I realized she was marveling at the amount of people. She said, "there are 4 million people here", she had never seen something so large before! After she picked up her jaw, she also found a nickel on the floor. She was so intent on keeping that nickel safe and that we walked back the same way to cass and Elizabeth to give the homeless man her nickel, and she did. What a testimony to us all.

We didn't make it through the whole game, and mostly played with each other more than watched but they got a round of Take Me out to the Ballgame in and that's all that matters in my book. So, after we did the 7th inning stretch we made our way back to the car, gave the nickel to the poor man, and ended with a drive through the McDonald's drive-thru. Successful night indeed.

This is church

City Covenant Church We had church last night, and it was beautiful. As we stood at the door and greeted folks they came in all shapes and sizes from all locations. This picture doesn't do justice as to what happened last night but it's the beginning of something new. As Pastor Semmeal said over and over, isn't something new so great. Yes, indeed, it was. We started with dinner, of course. Then we had a meeting to share passion, vision, and need of this something new we are about to embark on. Everyone needs to at least experience this something new and the beauty of starting a church in a place such as Detroit, such as Brightmoor.

Isaiah58:6

Beauty in the Brightmoor

There is so much beauty in my neighborhood.

This picture is the City Mission Garden. We grow fruit in vegetables, the kids help in this process. They love to go out the garden at recess and eat a bunch a peas or berries. On Saturday we had a barbecue in the garden. It's like a slice of heaven.

The City Mission garden sells it's "goods" at local farmer's market in the neighborhood.

This is a tree a drive under everyday to get my kids to school or to go for a bike ride. It amazes me how it has bent to cover us all. Just as Christ's covers us all. This tree has adjusted to living in the neighborhood. I'm sure at times it wishes it was in a forest, but I'm sure God sent it to live with us to show us His Beauty.

This is my daughter, Caci. She loves horses. And last year the buffalo solders came into the neighborhood and opened a horse camp. She is a volunteer there. She cleans stalls & feeds the horses. Yes, you read this correct. We can ride our bikes to the stables. God chose to bless Caci with a stable in her own back yard.

"In that day the Lord almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of His people." Isaiah 28:5

Buggy Friends

This morning on the way into City Mission a saw an interesting happening. The picture of the happening is above.

Since I knew the woman in the buggy I said "What are you guys doing?" She said "I got a nail in my foot and I can't walk. So my friends are taking me around the corner." When I asked her if she was planning on going to the doctor she replied "No, I got shot last month and they gave me a tetanus shot, so they won't do anything for me now." I encouraged her to see a doctor and then asked if I could take her picture. She agreed. And then they made sure to get their beer cans and the like out of the buggy and not in the picture. They said "this is for City Mission we can't have that stuff in the picture."

This woman comes to Bible Study at City Mission each week. She knows her Bible. We at City Mission want to continue to love her. What a picture of love her friend pushing her in a buggy. What a picture of Christ's love people welcomed in Bible Study when they are still in their "stuff".

"No greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." John 15:13

Summer Fun in Detroit

Today I thought I would share some fun things that we have done at City Mission over the last couple of weeks. These fun things happened right in the City of Detroit. I think the city gets a bad rap. There are so many great things to do in this city.

Belle Isle. The children can play for days at the playground at Belle Isle. We didn't even go to the beech or rent a paddle boat. We did get a bit wet at the fountain, however.

The Rouge Park Swimming Pool. It is free and it is fabulous! Last year we took the kids there for swim lessons. Many of them could not swim. They were scared to get into the water and just stood in the pool. This year the kids were kicking around, getting wet and having a grand time!

Chandler Park Aquatic Center. This is a great place for anyone. I want to go without my kids so I can just float around on my own tube in the wave pool. Again, it is very inexpensive and worth every penny! We had to drag the kids out of the pool and off the slides.

If you have not experienced any of this greatness of the City Of Detroit I challenge you to do it this summer!!

Welcome to City Mission

For the next 365 days I, Nicole Aikens (Executive Director) want to share with you what it is like to live, breath, eat and love "the Work" of City Mission.

Isaiah 58:6-12

This picture is of Jamila (Jami) Aikens, my daughter with her very best friends. They had their first "Friendship Meeting" on Saturday at my house. They took an oath to always be friends and to be nice to one another and to others. They had to dip their two promise fingers in water and then put them over their heart.

There was a lot of giggling. It a blessing to hear these children laugh together and love one another.

I should also mention that Jami announced last week that she is officially "Brown". At City Mission the kids call us "Cream" and they are "Brown". She announced it to us as her family and then to her classmates as they are her family as well.

We are family around here. I hope that you will get to know us as your family as you read about the exciting things that happen everyday at City Mission.