In mid-January, the youth group from MacArthur Park Church of Christ in San Antonio was in town to attend Winterfest, a regional youth event held each year in Arlington. Most youth groups spend Saturday afternoon at malls, movies, and other entertainment venues. MacArthur Park decided they’d rather spend the time doing a service project, and they contacted us to see if we had anything they could do.
The timing was perfect, as they were planning to be here just as we were recovering from a rodent invasion, and just days prior to the kickoff of FLC’s spring semester. We planned for them to do a floor-to-ceiling deep clean of our building.
The group, led by youth minister Kody Speer, had never been to Fortress before. After giving a brief overview of our organization, I launched into the day’s agenda. I wish you could’ve seen the faces of each teen as I spoke the words “mop” and “rodents” and “dumpster”. One by one, their mouths dropped open, their eyes grew large, and they glanced side to side to see if anyone else was freaking out. I looked at Kody and said, “You didn’t tell them ahead of time, did you?” He just laughed and said, “All they know is that they’re here to serve.”
Supervised by Aundrea Torres, Dorothy Waites and myself, they jumped in and started cleaning. We didn’t hear a single grumble or complaint. The two young men who offered to clean out and reorganize the scrapbooking/crafts closet barely even flinched when they pulled out a rack of paper to discover piles of multi-colored mouse droppings. (One thing I’ve learned at Fortress is that mice love ink!)
After each group completed their “To Do List”, they gathered in the front room and wrote notes of encouragement to our each one of our students and staff. Here’s a sample letter:
“Dear Mrs. Stacy,
Thank you so much for giving me and my youth group the opportunity to come and serve you. We had a lot of fun cleaning together. 
The Fortress is such a wonderful place! I know these kids’ lives are being changed by y’all blessing them daily. God bless you!
Love, Jordan”
We wrapped up the afternoon with group photos, a few comments about the day’s experiences, and a prayer. The group was FABULOUS—great work ethic, beautiful relationships, and such service-centered hearts.
Thank you, MacArthur Park! May God bless each of your for your service to others.
My name is Christy Blevins. I’m sixteen years old…well, seventeen in a month. I was born and raised fifteen long hours from Fort Worth in Knoxville, Tennessee.
In mid-June, a number of high schoolers from my youth group at RiverWalk Church of Christ traveled to Fort Worth, Texas for a mission trip. We weren’t really sure what we were going to do or what would be expected of us. We just knew that we wanted to make a difference and have some fun. After the 6 hour drive to Fort Worth, we settled into our hotel rooms and prepared to attend the orientation that would inform us on what we would be doing throughout the course of the week. We had the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the children we would be spending the week with and what our responsibilities would be. The kids we would be working with don’t have a lot. In fact, they have nothing compared to all of the conveniences we have.
Another opportunity we were given was very unique. We were divided into three different groups of about 4 or 5 each to have an Urban Experience. Basically, one group would go out into Fort Worth every afternoon and do different things that showed us how people lived in the area. The group that experienced the activity would come back and make a presentation to the rest of the group. Each group experienced something different. The first group went out into urban Fort Worth and met and talked to people living in the area. The second group created a budget for a single mother with 3 children. The third group used that budget to “grocery shop” for food for a month. It was an amazing opportunity to experience what these people go through every single day.
I will never forget the people I met at the Fortress ministry. They taught me so much. They taught me how to love, how to serve, and how to be a Christian example. I will never forget the awesome impact that was made on my life and I will never forget the relationships I established there.
Today was bittersweet for the volunteers working with the pre-k students. Some of the girls played with my hair for a good bit and then had lots of fun at the creative center dressing up. We took tons of pictures for our mission scrapbook back home, and the Fortress kids loved posing for them. It was probably the most fun and behaved day, but it was also the last day we’ll get with the children. 
After centers we watched Elmo’s nature video to remind the kids that Abraham had to live on his own out in nature.
