InterHigh Fellowship » Current Events

Angel Tree of Prison Fellowship: Sharing God’s Love

Admin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:30:47 +0000

Hope you guys have wonderful plans for the upcoming holidays!
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Being Aware of Need

As thanksgiving and Christmas nears, many of us find ourselves so thankful for all the blessings we have in our lives. But of course we should always be aware that there are many who are in circumstances not as fortunate as ours. There are many, even living right among us who are growing up in broken homes, who are unable to spend time with their parents, and sometimes unable to afford the luxuries of Christmas gifts.

Angel Tree by Prison Fellowship

A Christian organization started by Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship holds a program called “Angel Tree” during the holidays to help share the love of God to families with parents in prison. Many of the children in these families do not get to celebrate Christmas with their mother or father who are in prison. 1.7 million children this Christmas will have a parent in prison. Here is a description of Angel Tree straight from their website:

Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree is a ministry that reaches out to the children of inmates and their families with the love of Christ. Through partnerships with churches across the nation, we connect parents in prison with their children through the delivery of Christmas gifts. The kids receive a message of love from their parents along with the Gospel message of the true meaning of Christmas—Jesus Christ!

Prison fellowship was found in 1976 by Chuck Colson. It is the world’s largest outreach to prisoners with the mission to seek the transformation of prisoners and their reconciliation to God, family and community through the power and truth of Jesus Christ. Angel Tree was formed to help maintain the fragile bond between a parent who made a serious mistake, and his or her innocent children. It gives the parent a chance to show concrete love to their children and a chance for the family to experience the love of God.

An Angel Tree Story

Check out this sweet Angel Tree story: [from breakpoint.org]

In Gastonia, North Carolina last Christmas, 14-year-old Joshua Moore was sitting in a car, crying-not for himself, but for other children.

Joshua, his dad, Paul Moore, and his dad’s friend, Todd Gilreath, were delivering Angel Tree gifts to 25 different children on behalf of their incarcerated parents.
They were now about to visit a child living on what Paul Moore calls “the hardest street in Gastonia.”

When Paul, Todd and Joshua arrived at the house and knocked on the door, they found eight children inside. In a corner was a tree the kids had cut down from the woods. There were no presents beneath it.

The mother explained that each of the eight children had a different father. The father of only one of them-a ten-year-old boy–was actually in prison. Joshua handed him his Angel Tree gifts.

But he couldn’t help noticing the sadness on the faces of the other seven children. That’s when he went out to his dad’s car and began to cry.

But God works in mysterious ways. Just the day before, an auction house had donated a great many new toys to the prison ministry. “Use the toys anywhere they’re needed,” Paul, Joshua’s father, was told. He had put the toys into seven bags according to gender-three bags for girls, and four for boys.

These were exactly the genders of the children who had not received gifts at the home they’d just visited. And the bags were now in the back of their car.

“All we have to do,” Joshua’s dad said, “Is go home and put some batteries in the toys.” So, that’s just what they did. And then they returned to the home and knocked on the door again. I will leave it to you to imagine the screams of joy over those unexpected presents.

When Joshua’s father, Paul, went home and told his sister about the kids, she lost no time in taking them some food. This year, Joshua’s family plans to take Angel Tree gifts to nearly 300 children. They’re going to bring a few extra gifts just in case they encounter a similar situation to last year’s. But don’t even think of giving them credit for caring. The Lord provided the gifts through His servants, Paul told BreakPoint; they’re just His delivery guys.

So What Can I do to Help?

There are many children who are part of the Angel Tree program that can use our help. Many of the InterHigh Staff and Students will be involved with Angel Tree this year as it is one concrete thing we can do to show God’s love to others. If you’d like to do help out, you can still register your church! The deadline is December 8th. You can go to AngelTree.org for more information. Or if you are unable to sign up as a group, you can donate whatever amount you’d like directly on the Angel Tree Website. Every little bit helps!

‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ – Matthew 25:40

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. – Hebrews 6:10

Let us know what your thoughts in the comments below!
Have you participated in Angel Tree before? How was it?

There’s Nothing “New” About the New Atheists

william — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:01:33 +0000

Sean McDowell, our first RISE speakers, exposes the New Atheists for who they really are. Here is a short excerpt of his post.

Renowned British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once said that all news is nothing more than new people experiencing old things. Things may appear new, but that hardly means they really are new. So, is there really anything new about the “New Atheists”? Surprisingly, none of the New Atheists have uncovered any fresh scientific, philosophical, or historical truths that undermine Christianity. It’s all old news. In fact, most of their arguments are recycled from older atheists such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud.

Ironically, one of the reasons the New Atheists have lashed out so aggressively is because atheism is losing the rational higher ground. In the 1960s it may have seemed acceptable to argue that religious faith is blind. The cover of a 1966 Time magazine story captured the prevailing attitude of the time: “Is God Dead?” Yet, as philosopher William Lane Craig has observed in a cover story for Christianity Today, news of God’s death was premature. In fact, says Craig, “atheism, though perhaps still the dominant viewpoint at the American university, is a philosophy in retreat.” This trend was powerfully portrayed by the recent conversion of Antony Flew, one of the most influential atheists over the past five decades. In his book Why There Is A God, Flew cites the burgeoning scientific evidence for a divine intelligence as the prime reason for his change of mind.

Click here to read more.

A Christian Parent’s Responsibility

william — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:11:05 +0000

Here’s a good article published by CNN. More than ever, Christian teens need powerful role models in their parents and youth leaders. Read the story here.

Bubble-Bursting Trip to Mexico

kenny — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:10:08 +0000

By Steven Chang, InterHigh Mentor, Sophomore @ UC Berkeley

Over winter break I went on a mission trip to Tecate, Mexico. The team was there to minister to the community by showing God’ s love in very practical ways – we worked on repairing houses, a kindergarten, and played with the kids in sports, song, and arts and crafts. We went into the trip knowing that Tecate was an especially poor area. In Tecate, much of the population is made up of people who have spent all their money to get to the border, only to find that they don’t have enough money or any way to cross it. So, they stay in Tecate and try to make a living for themselves.

Everyday when we drove from our living quarters to the work sites I was stunned by the way people were living just across the border. Most of the houses were smaller than my room back home. They were dirty, cold, vandalized, and mostly made of cardboard, rough cinderblocks, and plywood. There was trash everywhere; I remember playing soccer with one of the children when he almost fell into some trashed barbed wire while chasing the ball.

It was a struggle for me to absorb all the details of poverty and then let them shake my soul. Prior to this trip, serving the poor was just another good thing to do, and so I did it – but I was simply going through the motions. With the little bit of social justice activism that I encountered in high school, the proliferation of such clubs in Berkeley’s campus, and an even further growing trend of people picking up on social justice issues, “social justice” become just another cliche to me. I was really tired of mantras about poverty and homelessness.

I found that in Tecate, faced with such a real picture of poverty, I could no longer allow myself to become numb or to respond by simply going through the motions. I found that I really didn’t care for the people in poverty, and that I just wanted to get the job done. Working with the children of the community everyday really connected people and people’s stories to my mental image of poverty. And so I realized that I had to continuously fight my emotional inclination to revert to a numbness towards the very examples of poverty in front of me. Then, working on the roofs of the houses, on refurbishing the fencing, on painting the kindergarten became acts of God’s love to people – not just another job or duty but helping someone who really needed God experience God’s love.

The people in Tecate responded to our work there with abundant gratitude. Every “thank you” I received and the food that the residents cooked for us felt like undeserved praise and too much to give to me, a comfortable Asian American in a upper-middle class family. I felt bad – like I didn’t deserve it at all.

I realized during one of the reflection times that the feeling of undeserving came because in the face of the poverty in Mexico, and in the face the people who lived in the midst of that poverty, my sins stood out clearly. I was living in comfort and not giving a thought to those outside my little bubble. And usually, when receiving gratitude from those less fortunate than I was, I would inappropriately respond by feeling sorry because they were serving me generously despite their poverty. It was a selfish and shallow, “I feel bad” response.

The appropriate response to their gratitude was to understand the depth of my depravity – just as God’s unconditional love towards me, an ill-deserving sinner, shows the depth of my sin. I am just another sinner saved by God’s grace doing God’s work – I don’t believe I should receive gratitude, and yet I do. The only person who deserved gratitude was God, and I realized that God was bringing their suffering and our work to His glory.

When I returned home, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the tremendous earthquake that had hit Haiti. The pictures of poverty in Tecate were fresh in my mind, and I found myself praying for Haiti and genuinely concerned for that country – when before I would skim over any sort of tragic story I found in the news. It was a reminder for me to not simply let my emotions drive my actions. It was a reminder for me to cling onto the Word of God and to let God remind me and form me into the Christian He wants me to be.

Now that I’m back in Berkeley, the temptation to slip back into my little bubble is a little overwhelming. But I keep myself reminded by faithfully reading the Scriptures and allow their truth – and not my feelings – decide how I should act and continue to be molded by Jesus into His likeness. It’s about following God into uncomfortable and difficult situations so that I can be reminded of the hardships and suffering that other people go through and continuously pray for them.

Lost Children

stephensun — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:42:51 +0000

This year, I decided to take a health class that our school offers and requires all students to take. Though at times unbearably boring, we recently watched a documentary produced by Frontline which piqued my interest. This particular documentary followed the lives of several teenagers from a small, well-to-do town. These teenagers had everything a they could possibly want and need: lots of money, the latest in clothing or gadgets, cars, and a few were quite popular at school. However, the makers of the documentary discovered that most felt very lonely and often unloved. Most of these teens had parents who worked full time jobs and were not home very much, so their relationships were shallow. Other parents just did not seem to care very much about their children and set few rules. Consequently, these teenagers turned to things like smoking, drinking, drugs, and relationships in order to pass time and to ultimately fill their desire to be loved and approved. One of the teenagers even went as far as to pay people to hang out with him, just so that he could feel accepted and that he belonged in someway.

It was this part of the documentary that caught my attention. This same teenager, desperate for answers and a solution to his perpetual emptiness and longing, decided to start attending the youth group at his local church, hoping to find what he wanted in religion and faith. He described how, as soon as he got there, he experienced and really enjoyed the sense of community that he felt there and the security that he gained through his faith. Soon, this teenager made the decision to become Christian and thought that he had finally found a place where he could find comfort and belong. However, he began to wrestle with different questions and doubts that he had, related to the existence of God, and sadly he was unable to get any satisfactory answers. He began to grow more and more unsure of his faith, and without anyone who could answer these questions he had, he attended the youth group less and less, eventually leaving and falling away from his belief. Without basis for his faith, he decided that it was ultimately pointless and turned back to paying off his so-called “friends” and spending his time with them drinking and smoking.

As the documentary ended and I looked around the classroom, I felt a sense of concern, pity, even, wondering how many of these people were just like those teenagers in the documentary – lost, alone, uncared for by their parents and unloved by peers, seeking just to be loved and accepted. It hit me how privileged I am to be a part of Interhigh, a community where I can not only experience a true sense of love and belonging among my fellow peers and mentors but where I can also learn to defend my faith and create a foundation for what I believe in. It saddens me that if that one student from the documentary could have had access to a ministry like ours, he could have remained faithful rather than falling away and turning back to drinking, smoking, and accumulating false relationships in order to fulfill his sense of longing.

We who are a part of Interhigh fellowship are truly blessed to have this kind of ministry where teenagers from all over can get together to bond and deepen our relationships and our faith. However, as Jesus said in Luke 12:48, “from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” We need to steward the blessing of this ministry that we have been entrusted with. There are many more people like this student who may be may not be entirely firm in their faith, and all they need is someone who can answer their questions and help them get over their doubts. It is important that we do not sit idly by, watching fellow Christians one by one lose interest because of their doubts that remain unanswered. Through Interhigh we are becoming better equipped, and with this entrustment to greater knowledge comes the duty of reaching out to our friends who may not have a strong foundation for their faith. Now that we have been and will continue to be trained in this way, NO individual should ever experience what this teenager went through. We need to take the initiative and take advantage of our resources by reaching out to fellow Christians who may not have access to groups like Interhigh; helping them to better understand what it is we believe and working to strengthening our faith together.

Written by Stephen Sun, Alameda High School, Class of 2011

Money Game

Ben Kim — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:53:11 +0000

How much is a touchdown worth? According to the New York Giants, about $762,000. Earlier this month, the Super Bowl XLII Champions signed quarterback Eli Manning to a six-year, $97.5 million contract, which equates to about $16 million a year. Manning threw for 21 touchdowns in 2008, good enough to make him the highest paid athlete in the NFL. Statistics aside, the question remains, is he worth it? Does anyone deserve to be paid $16 million a year?

Manning’s lucrative contract is just one of many that have been signed by professional athletes this year. In July, soccer starlet Cristiano Ronaldo inked a six-year deal worth $176 million for powerhouse Real Madrid. Ronaldo played in 53 matches last season. Assuming he’ll play in the same amount this season, the 24 year-old is scheduled to make over half a million dollars a game. This is ridiculous.

I enjoy sports as much as anybody, but seeing players paid this amount of money is sickening. America is in a recession, the unemployment rate has reached over 9%, and yet professional teams are dishing out dollars faster than the government can bail out General Motors. According to the Census Bureau, the median annual household income in the U.S. is $50,233. Newly acquired pitcher C.C. Sabathia of the New York Yankees makes $90,900 for each inning he pitches.

Some people say that these players have earned their contracts and if pro teams can afford to pay players that much, then let them. However, these gigantic contracts have led to the deterioration of team loyalty. In the past, players stayed with their teams almost their whole career. Now, players change teams faster than I change socks after a pick-up basketball game. Sabathia has already played for three MLB teams in the past two years.

If this weren’t enough, the contracts above do not even consider the money athletes make from endorsements. Currently, basketball phenom LeBron James makes a modest $12 million a year. But add in the $28 million he gets from Nike, Vitamin Water, Coke, Bubblicious, and Costco (ok, I added the last one), and the man with no college education makes a whopping $40 million a year. No wonder they call him the King.

Professional sports are fun to watch and its fun to cheer for the home team, but it is time to realize that things have gotten out of control. What kinds of messages do these high salaries send the youth of today? That it is ok to make an obscene amount of money for dunking a basketball? Not everyone can run fast, jump high, or kick hard, but there are tons of hard working people in this world and the amount of money athletes make is a slap in their faces.

So the next time you see LeBron drain one of those ridiculously long three pointers, remember that shot is worth more money than most people make in a year. Somehow I no longer feel like cheering.

Joshua Linville