Celebration of a Ministry

What hath God wrought?

As this stage of my ministry has drawn to a close, I have been reflecting on what God has been doing with me. It has turned out quite different from what I had been expecting. First, of course, came the biggest surprise—almost three years ago—that I was going to be the caretaker for an 8-year-old boy, whe we'll call Alex.

Alex, who was on the verge of being homeless, came to live with me while his mom struggled to establish a solid income and a home for him. I enrolled him in school in Ambridge, PA and helped him with his interest in martial arts. (Photo: Alex receiving his Orange Belt.)

Next came a gradual transformation in which I found myself ministering to not just Alex, but his closest friends. Out of the three "best buds" in this photo, two were relatively homeless. The second (after Alex) was staying at a friend's house after he and his mom were evicted from their apartment. T-Bone (we'll call him) got out of school each day at 3 pm while his mother did not arrive from work until 6 pm.


Alex also participated in activities offered at no cost by Ambridge Youth Ignite under Eric Geisbert. This included a new program offering the lacrosse sport, and a summer Arts Camp and Sports Camp. At the end of Arts Camp that first year, I volunteered to help supervise a trip by the kids to see a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, and snapped this group picture. (The Pirates lost, as usual.)

I also brought Alex and watched him participate in Little Bridgers Basketball for two years, as he increased his circle of friends. The first year his team won the championship, and the second year they were runners-up in the championship game. Some of these youth also participated in the summer Camp programs.
One of the high points for Alex was his participation with his friend T-Bone in the formation of Ambridge's very first lacrosse team. Although the new team (in blue) was soundly trounced by the more experienced and established teams in the area, they did manage to score a few goals and even to win one game. While I was attending these games, I became familiar to more kids with whom I would later develop deeper relationships.
Then came the initiative by Church of the Savior (COTS) in Ambridge to offer the Alpha program that teaches the basics of Christianity. By this time the Spirit had made me well aware of the needs of the pre-teen kids roaming the streets of Ambridge, and I strongly urged that the Youth Alpha program be offered also. Eric Geisbert also felt that need, and he volunteered to lead Youth Alpha alongside COTS.

My plan was to help supervise the Youth Alpha activities, and to teach a couple of the classes. I did teach the classes titled "Why Read the Bible?" and "Does God Still Heal?" both of which held the interest of all the youth attending. After the Bible class, I was able to hand out some really cool youth Bibles which were well received by the kids. During the Healing class, I was able to present a strong anti-drug message. (Alas, I have no photos of Youth Alpha, but from the same time period, here is the baptism of Eric's son at COTS.)However, God's plan included a bit more. I was bringing more and more of Alex's acquaintances from the street to the Youth Alpha meetings, and I found myself prowling the streets looking for kids to pick up and bring to the meeting. Sometimes the kids would come because Alex was going to be there, and other times Alex would come because most of his friends were going to be there. While each of the meetings began with a meal and some games, the presence of the street kids engendered some lively discussions and some challenges for the teachers to answer.

With summer came the Camps again, and I was fully involved with the morning Sports Camp registering kids, taking attendance, and helping to supervise their snack breaks. Here is a remarkable scene: Late in the Camp season, this unwieldy horde of kids, up to 40 at a time, became quite self-organized for a moment. While waiting for the supervised sports to begin, the kids formed themselves into teams and started up a well-disciplined game of kickball on their own. On Thursday evenings I would find myself prowling the streets again, encouraging the kids to join us for Pizza in the park. There they would hear Christian testimony (pictured) then chow down on Pizza and sometimes watermelon.

This would be after many of them had attended the five-day-a-week morning Sports Camp and/or the accompanying 5-day-a-week afternoon Arts Camp, with lunch inbetween, all free.

Arts Camp this summer centered around the production of a movie, produced, directed, acted in, and largely written by the kids themselves. The movie was titled The Youth Center, and portrayed kids who were attempting to prevent the closing down of their youth center by profit-hungry adults.

The ironic backdrop to the plot of the movie is that Ambridge does not have a youth center and desperately needs one. There is often no place to go other than on the streets for kids and youth at loose ends in Ambridge. A youth center for Ambridge has been sitting on the sidelines as only a dream, imagined by Eric and others at Rock the World headquarters, the parent group for Ambridge Youth Ignite.

Such was my experience in Ambridge. I came as a street evangelist trained in outreach to the homeless and the addicted, went through a new season as a single parent-substitute, and ended as a street evangelist to kids and youth.

But all things come to an end. In the second week of September I drove Alex—now 11 years old—to Georgia to be reunited with his mom in their new apartment. Then I drove back to Pennsylvania alone.

So now that this ministry phase is over, what's next? One possibility is a renewed interest developing in establishing the missing youth center in Ambridge. Long before the kids created their movie, I told Eric that what Ambridge needed was a youth center, and that if he was able to start that up, I would gladly participate in staffing it while it got established.

I'm also looking into other possible ministry tasks in California and Nevada, and was recently apprised of an Anglican priest with an evangelical background interested in planting a church in the less wealthy sections of Pasadena, where I spent several years putting down roots.

In the meantime, I'm alternating between being on vacation and taking care of my dear 95-year-old mother, assisted by my brother and sister. It is from her house that I write this overly long missive.

Keep watch here on my web log, where I hope to soon be posting the photos of my travels through Mount Rushmore, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Yosemite, and any more places I have a chance to visit while i'm on vacation.

Thanks for all the love you've poured out on me, and may God bless you.

Rolin

Update: Sports Camp and Testimony

Children's Ministry, Ages 6 through 13:

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I've been helping out this summer with the children's Sports Camp. A key event running alongside the Ambridge Youth Ignite summer camps is their "Pizza in the Park," a weekly afternoon gathering where the kids can hear Christian testimony from their leaders and coaches before chowing down on pizza and perhaps watermelon.

.This June 24 may have set an all time record for attendance at the event, but more importantly, most all the kids not only listened to the testimony, but had questions for God afterward and remained behind to be individually prayed for before making the mad dash to the pizza.

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This week's gathering was also notable, for it attracted some former Sports Camp participants, including 14-year-old Chris (upper right, with the Mohawk haircut) who stayed long after the pizza and watermelon was gone, asking questions about Life, the Universe and Everything.

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Please pray with me for Chris and the other street kids at risk. Chris claims that he prefers juvenile hall over his own home because at Juvie at least they have a television. He has become curious about all the illicit drugs that are talked about on the street. May the Spirit draw him into a relationship with Jesus and protect him from harm.

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Sports Camp is over at the end of July, and by the end of August I'll be headed to California to take care of my mother (who turns 95 this month) while my sister celebrates her 30th wedding anniversary in Hawaii. As I make my way west, I'll do some camping in Yellowstone and other scenic spots in the Great North-West. Alex will be headed the other direction (south) very soon to spend time with his mother and to start his next school term under her care.

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On a less positive note, I went to the bone doc last month and he looked at my hip xray and said, "It looks pretty bad." He's recommending a hip replacement if the pain I'm having walking (with a cane) gets any worse. That might be something I need to schedule early next year, and it will definitely put me out of commission for a few months. Perhaps it's time to start putting into print some of that book I've been assembling in my head.

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I seldom make a plea for donations to my ministry, but if the Spirit has moved you of late, now would be a really good time to send something along to help with my relocation back to the West Coast. The Lord has not yet revealed to me how He plans to handle all my relocation expenses, and the time is getting short.

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To donate to this ministry, you may mail your tax-deductible check to Church Army USA, Post Office Box 178, Leetsdale, PA 15056. On the memo line of the check, write Rolin Bruno Ministry.

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Thank you all for your interest and your prayers.

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Rev. Deacon Rolin Bruno

Captain, Church Army USA

Spring into Summer: SPORTS CAMP!

Youth Alpha was a great success! The final session was well-attended, and left many (especially the leaders) wondering what we could do for an encore.

For my part, I was able to take Alex and two of his friends from the neighborhood (Prince and Blueboy) to the school "picnic" held at Kennywood Amusement park south of Pittsburgh.

That turned into a quite contemplative day for me, while the kids rode every ride--several times. Day's end was a bit tougher, as they closed the park down early in the face of severe thunderstorm warnings, and I had to negotiate my way home in fierce weather with three active kids in the car. The bonus was the free tickets they gave everyone on the way out to come back for an evening session of the park.

But--about summertime: The Lord has called me to assist Ambridge Youth Ignite (AYI) in producing their annual Sports Camp and Arts Camp, a free event for ages 6-13 that begins June 21 and ends July 30. Sports Camp in the morning lasts 3 hours, and will focus on one sport per week: Soccer, Basketball, Baseball and Lacrosse; with the final week bringing in one-day rounds of football, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and a "water day." After a free lunch, two hours of Arts Camp will explore various craft and performance arts while the kids produce a movie of the whole season to be presented to the parents at the end.

On Thursday evenings, AYI invites the kids to "Pizza in the Park," where they will hear testimony from a Christian youth before digging into pizza and watermelon.

All this activity has required a change of plans on my part. I had thought that I would be leaving Ambridge for the West Coast near the end of July, but now I will need to delay my departure until the end of August. Alex will be returning to his mother, and I will (finally) be going on a well-deserved vacation before spending a few months with my mother in California.

In the meantime, I'll keep picking my strawberries.....

Please pray for me as I discern God's will for the future of my ministry in the west.

In Christ,
Rolin

Street Kids at Risk

Straight F's!

Baxter had just got off the bus. His bus arrives later than all the other ones, because it comes from the elementary school way out of town, where they send the kids who have been having trouble in school.

"I got straight F's on my report card!" he exclaimed, while showing it to T-Bone, Monty, Blueboy and Alex. "I'm proud of it. I'm going to try and do the same thing next time." Word soon spread to the other kids on the street. "Did you hear about Baxter's report card? He got straight F's and he's proud! I wish I could do that!"

"Me too," said another kid, "but my mom would kill me when she got home." Mickey and Midget weren't impressed. "I could do that, no problem. My mom wouldn't care." "Yeah," said Prince, "but watch out if my dad finds out about it. He and I have the same dad."

These are some of the kids that have been coming with me and Alex to Youth Alpha. We picked up Prince, Baxter and Blueboy one Thursday and stopped by Baxter's house to get permission for them to come. Prince came back out and said, "It's all right. My mom and my other mom weren't there, so I just told the next person in charge of the house."

We're using the "active" stream from the Youth Alpha manual, which is a bit rough-and-tumble with an emphasis on games and getting-acquainted exercises. Eric and I are most always there (though I'm always late from picking up kids), and we're usually helped out by Stewart and Cyndi when they are available. We've been joined by seminarian John, who has taken up the task of cooking for us so that all the kids can eat together.

Most of the burden falls on Eric, who has a lot of street "cred." I heard one boy, Wilson, on his cell phone begging his mom for permission to go to Alpha: "But Mom! Coach Eric is there!" A couple weeks later, Wilson was able to come and he brought his lacrosse team-mates Joey and Michell. That was the week that most of the boys asked to be prayed for to receive the Holy Spirit. The girls were in the other room with Cyndi doing the same thing. The prior Saturday, Eric had led the entire group in the Sinner's Prayer.

On March 25 I did the Alpha "talk" on "Why and How I Should Read the Bible." I showed them what the original Hebrew and Greek looked like, and told them about the 'lost verse' in Psalm 145 that was rediscovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. All 14 kids and youth actually paid attention, and many were delighted when I distributed some cool youth Bibles at the end. This coming sixth of May I'll be doing another Alpha "talk" on "Does God heal today?" I'll be including a strong anti-drug message in the talk.
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Eric's ministry, Ambridge Youth Ignite (under the umbrella of Rock the World), played their first lacrosse game ever a week ago. It was the first time most of the kids had seen just how large a lacrosse playing field really is. It was touch-and-go for a bit, but ten kids showed up by game time, just enough for a team. The last of the remaining four straggled in during the third and fourth quarters, barely in time to get out on the field and play. The Google directions to get there were more or less correct, but without street signs (typical for Pennsylvania) the GPS was the only thing that got me, T-bone and Alex there on time. I would have been out there wandering around with the other lost parents.

The game began as a blowout, seven to zero. The other team was experienced and could field 30 or 40 players (they had two games that day). But after the first quarter, the Ambridge Warriors had hit their stride, and gained two of their own goals to the opponent's three goals in the next three quarters.

Eric's been working on lining up another game for us, and the team has been practicing--in the rain. Eric has cobbled together enough equipment for the boys so far, but word has been spreading on the street about the neat stuff that you get to bring home when you play lacrosse. If all the kids show up that said they would, it will be a scramble. But at least by the next game the team will have its own jerseys, and won't have to borrow them from the other team.

Please continue to pray for our Youth Alpha ministry team; for new games to play and for new moves of the Holy Spirit. It is a surprise every Thursday to see who the Spirit is going to bring that day. And pray especially for the at-risk street kids, that they will latch onto the right kind of role models and graduate not only from the street but also from their schools.

In Christ,
Deacon Rolin

Youth Alpha: Prayer Request

UPDATE: You may keep up with the progress ot our Youth Alpha class by clicking on the 'comments' link below/

Dear Friends,

I usually post here to tell how I have been doing and what the Lord has been doing with me. Today I post for another reason: I and my friends here in Ambridge are taking on a major challenge over the next four months, and I need your help.

The Lord has moved me to help lead a Youth Alpha program which will run this spring in Ambridge. For an overview of the program, see here: http://www.alphana.org/Group/Group.aspx?ID=1000042013



I covet your prayers.

The program, along with adult Alpha, will be hosted by Church of the Savior (Anglican), a congregation of four to five dozen folk taking on a historic challenge to reach out into their community. You may see their website at http://www.cotsambridge.org/
Please pray for this faithful church.

The Youth Alpha segment is being directed by Eric Geisbert of Ambridge Youth Ignite (AYI), whose website is at http://ambridgesportscamp.blogspot.com/
They have just returned from a successful short mission trip to Peru, where they presented their Sports and Arts Camp to the children there.

My young charge Alex has attended the AYI Sports Camp for the last two summers here in Ambridge, and I have been thoroughly impressed by Eric and his organization. I invite you especially to watch the short video of their summer camp experience, located here:

http://ambridgesportscamp.blogspot.com/2010/01/ayi-video.html

Our Youth Alpha team is small: Eric, myself, Cyndi, Stewart, and Joe and his wife, plus John, a high school age boy who has accepted the challenge to lead worship. Please pray for all of us. We are praying for more young people to come forward to do one or more of the 'Talks.' We are inviting children from grades 5 through nine: please pray for young folk to come and to be blessed by the Alpha program.

I will be doing two of the talks: the one on Reading the Bible (my specialty) and the one titled "Does God Still Heal Today?". I trust that my experience taking the Alpha course at Saint James Anglican in Newport Beach will prove valuable to me, but I am relying primarily on the Holy Spirit to carry me through.

Recruiting people to come to the programs has been tough here, as we've had one of the worst storms in many years. Church of the Savior was forced to cancel Sunday services that week, along with their Saturday walkabout to invite participants. But our hope is in the Lord.



The photo above is of Alex measuring the snowfall from the "big one", when I had 16 inches of snow stacked up on my porch railing. In the last week we've had a few days of balmy weather (clear up into the low 40's!) and some rain that has tamped down a lot of the snow.

We kick off in earnest this Thursday February 25, and continuing most Thursdays through May 20. I look forward to what the Lord is going to do for youth here in Ambridge. I will keep this post updated in the comment section below; come back to check up on us!

Thank you for your prayers.

Rolin

Winter Update: Two Years on the Job

Ah, Pittsburgh: the museums, the shopper's 'Strip', the Cultural Center, the sports arenas—so much to see.

#1
Actually, I've seen little of it, although I did take young Alex to the National Aviary and a Pirates game.

When my Bishop invited me up here to western Pennsylvania, I thought to take about 6 months helping him develop some ministry documents and perhaps help out at Church Army headquarters. I've done a bit of both, but I'm still here two-plus years later.
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#2
I arrived in Ambridge on Christmas Eve 2007. Three days prior I had met a friend who was working as a long-haul trucker and living in the truck with her 8-year-old son Alex. Then on January 4, she called to ask if Alex could move in with me until the end of the school term.
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#3
By January 25, Alex had arrived in Ambridge as a small and insecure bundle. Before long I discovered that the "end of the school term" was not to be June 2008 but 2009.

Then the recession hit—and it did not spare the trucking business. I volunteered to keep Alex until the end of school 2010, which was a prescient move, because his mother ended up spending some three months in the fall of 2009 not only homeless but also unemployed.
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#4
So here I am, a substitute "single mom" at age 65-plus. I've been on the job 24/7 for two years, with four days off to make it to my daughter's wedding. I feel a need for vacation coming on.

Although some days seem to drag on while Xavier is at school, at other times I have to move the camera in my brain so fast to keep Alex in focus that the rest of the world seems like a blur.

Besides extra-curricular basketball (where his team won the championship last year), Alex has participated in football, martial arts, chorus, band (saxophone), and the summer programs of Ambridge Youth Ignite.
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#5
He's a head taller now than when he arrived, and headed for an eleventh birthday in March. He's also showing early signs of thirteen-year-old syndrome, wherein a boy begins to believe he can do a better job running his life than his adult supervisors.

Like control of the ball in basketball, he'd like to have more control over his own life.
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#6
Alex has adapted well to the winter weather, and has to be watched lest he go out in the cold under-dressed.

He lacks no friends to play with, and counts some 5o numbers of friends on his cell phone. His phone is our safety connection and my leash to draw him back in for dinner.
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#7
Alex's mom does not celebrate the Christmas season, and I take a dim view of its shopping binges and pagan accoutrements. Alex was having none of that attitude.

He came home from a friend's house with a fully decorated Christmas tree in tow, and set it up in his room. He was highly doubtful that he would see any presents under it come Christmas morning, and had convinced himself of this so securely that he had been up for an hour that day before he discovered them.
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#8
One of our pastimes during Christmas vacation was watching the Disney movie UP!. I think we saw it eighteen times.
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#9
The movie is about a crotchety old home-bound dude who dreams of going out adventuring in the high country. He achieves his dream, but it comes along with a young boy who he must reluctantly care for.
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#10
So here's the goal of the Old Dude in the animated flick: "Paradise Falls" in South America. But what he won through his friendship with the boy surpassed what he achieved by finding his wilderness dream spot.
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#11
I sent my last post in early fall, before the autumn colors reached their peak, so I'll share some photos showing the march of the seasons here in frigid Pennsylvania.

This red-orange tree is on a street in Ambridge. There was another tree that was even more brilliantly florescent red, but when I got back to it a week later with the camera, all the leaves had fallen.
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#12
These yellow-orange trees were blazing in all their glory on the hillside a block from my house in Ambridge.
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#13
Looking north from my porch in October, all I can see are maple leaves.
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#14
Looking north from my porch in December provides an unobstructed view of the neighbor's back yard.
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#15
Although we did have a nasty bout of freezing rain, the ice curtain hanging from my back fender continued to grow daily whether it snowed or not.

We had two weeks of weather when the temperature was never above freezing, even in the midst of sunny days. We're headed into another bout of the same right now.
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#16
I have a gym membership that comes with my health insurance, and I've been visiting the treadmill two or three times a week.

The view out these second-story windows overlooks the Ohio River.
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#17
And here is that Ohio River in December (behind the trees), clogged with ice floes. For a while there was even an ice jam downriver that was causing concerns for flooding.
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*18
While I walk the treadmill watching ice floes move down the river, folks in Australia are stretched out on the beach for a mid-summer tan.
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Watch for another posting soon: Kid's Alpha is coming up and we're going to need prayer support.


PHOTO NOTES:
1: Pittsburgh sits at the juncture of three rivers. This photo shows the point where the Allegheny river on the left joins the Monongahela on the right to become the Ohio river headed for the Mississippi.
2: Freddy is an adult male chimp in Africa that has taken over the care of baby Victor, who is motherless.
3: Alex already had computer skills when he arrived. Now that he has his own Playstation 2 and DVD player, we spend less time tussling over who gets control of the computer.
4: I was trying to follow Alex with the camera as he dribbled down the court during a fast-paced game and ended up with this.
5: The baskeball season is short: they practice during December, break for Christmas, and have their games during January and the playoffs for the championship in February.
6: We got about 4 inches of snow that night. It's been a long and bitter winter so far.
7: The tree came with lights and ornaments.
8: This is Angel falls, which served as the model for the falls in the movie UP!.
9: This is wilderness scenery in China, which may have inspired backdrops in the movie Avatar.
10: Combining #8 and #9 gets us Paradise Falls, the adventure goal of the old dude in UP!.
11: An Ambridge street in autumn.
12: A street near my house this autumn.
13: Looking north from my porch in October.
14: Looking north from my porch in November.
15: The snow melted off but the ice curtain stayed.
16: This is a rehab gym that also has programs for the elderly.
17: The view from the gym.
18: Sidney, Australia, January 25.