Ministry Site

This is not an easy transfer. I know for me, I have a hard time going from hating someone to healing that relationship and trying to live a Chirst like life.

Well, this is a story of a 14 year old boy by the name of Tony Hick and a 20 year old man named Tariq Khamisa.

The story talks about Tony in the beginning being pressured into holding his gun against Tariq and pulling the trigger. Talk about a tough situation. A 14 year old boy, lets start with that. Tony Hick is 14, what is he doing around guns? Why are the children today capable of getting their hands on not just weapons but Drugs and much more. It isn’t hard to get these things. Well, Tony as he was being pressured he finally pulled the trigger.
Now, in an alley was a 20 year old college student lying dead in the front seat of his car.

This story was written by the father of that 20 year old man. The father that had to deal with all the pain of his son being killed. But unlike many fathers or many people in general, the father took a different route then most. He took himself and forced himself to go from “Murder to Forgiveness”. He was making himself available to forgive the man that did this.

Amazing. It is so amazing that a man could do such a thing. It reminds me of our Heavenly Father “God”. God sent his one and only son to this earth for us. We beat him, mocked him, hated him, blamed him. In the end we killed him. But the story doesn’t end there, God “Forgives” us for the sins we had commited, for murdering his son.

This man took time to prepare himself to show the love and forgiveness towards a boy who murdered his son.

We all need to show this kind of love towards eachother. The bible says if someone is to hit us we are not supposed to react back in a harsh way, but to turn our cheek to the otherside. We need to show the Love that the Lord shows for all of us.

We must learn to go “From Hatred To Healing.”

Father Flanagan opened up his first boy’s home on December 12th, 1917. The first home he had opened started with five homeless boys. Not long after opening, he found himself with 50 boys in a single home. This began to be an issue as you can imagine. Most of us have a rough time with 10 kids and adults in our houses let alone 50 kids.

But Father Flanagan wasn’t ready to settle with it, in 1918 they had moves to a bigger home that held up to 150 boys. One of his goals was mainly to give them the education that they needed. They obviously weren’t getting it off of the streets, so someone needs to help. Father Flanagan always said “There is no such thing as a bad kid.”

By the time October 22, 1921 they were moving again. They had outgrown their second home and were now ready to find something bigger that held more kids. By March 1922 Omaha residents had raised enough money to start a Boy’s Town structure which would not only be a place to stay but would hold a gym, classroom dining hall etc.

By 1930 Boy’s Town now had about 240 boys living in it. It was a very big facility and was growing imensly. They also had a new $400,000 building to hold the trade school, offices and gym.

Father Flanagan was a man that had a very big dream. But not only did he dream it, but he fulfilled it. He made his dream a reality, something many of us need to learn from. We shouldn’t be afraid to take on something that may look bigger than we can handle. We need to have faith, and believe that the Lord is walking with us all the way, and that if what we are trying to do is in His will, He will find a way to make it possible.

It will not happen with my strength alone, or yours. But the Lords.

God-Bless

I got to spend my day in the gym with about 100 or more kids. It was crazy, the kids were all really really energetic, we had balls flying every which way, this kid wanted to play catch, this one wanted to play dodgeball (with 2 people). They were great, they shared the balls with eachother, didn’t seem to really have many problems.

It was a great way to end our time with the community visits. Wouldn’t have chosen a different way even if I could have.