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Spring Break in Chicago

Baptist Campus Ministries: Brad Simmons
Monday, April 25, 2005

For the second year Wichita State Baptist Campus Ministries went to Chicago to work with Kids Club. Kids Club is an after-school program, sponsored in part by Moody Church, for the children of the Cabrini-Greene housing project. To call Kids Club an after-school program is to short change the work of the staff and volunteers that have given their lives to this ministry. Kids Club staff is involved in the children's school life, home life and most importantly their spiritual life. The children of Cabrini-Greene have very few places that are clean, safe & loving. Kids Club provides that place. We helped Kids Club in all three of those areas.

We spent an entire day cleaning their new building, which Chicago Housing Authority rents to them for $1 a year because of the "unparalleled" success of their program. We served as crossing guards on their several block walk to the indoor swimming pool at Moody and after a few hours of swimming we hung out with them and served them as they inhaled a couple of hundred McDonald's burgers. After the meal several of the girls performed their worship dance that they have learned at Kids Club and many of the guys played basketball with the kids in the gym.

As we walked the streets of Cabrini-Greene, knocking on doors, handing out flyers promoting Kids Club's 20,000 eggs Easter egg hunt, children popped their heads out of windows...smiling. Older men and women, many of whom have literally never left Cabrini, opened their doors up, wondering what all the noise was and what all the "random white people" were doing there. When they heard we were from Kids Club, most of them mentioned someone...a son or niece, a granddaughter or cousin...who goes to Kids Club. They are truly making a difference in all of that community.

Because of their "unparalleled" success in Cabrini-Greene, the Chicago Housing Authority has asked Kids Club to open another center at Altgeld-Murray Homes, a place that some say is even worse than Cabrini. Kids Club is in the middle of a huge fundraising campaign so that they can get into the new center and be ready to go in the fall. Please keep Kids Club in your prayers.

For more information on Kids Club check out their website.

I would like to give a special thanks to Pastor Jerry Smith and the people of Faith Baptist Church in Andover for the use of their van and the generous donation of groceries, as well as the youth and college students from Faith who joined us on the trip.