Update on the Philanthropy Team

The students on the Philanthropy Team, along with Mrs. Chelsea (Philanthropy Team Leader), are hard at work getting things in place for their upcoming fundraisers.

There are students on different teams working together to get jars made, stickers designed, and a presentation together. They have been very productive and have worked hard at each task. The coin jar team is working to design labels for the jars which will be placed throughout the Bible Club classrooms as a way of getting the younger students involved with the raising of money for the Friendship Home Playground project. On February 14th, the Philanthropy team is planning to present to the ILA student body to let them know what and why they are doing this and how everyone can be involved. They will also be presenting the coin jar idea to the Bible Club students shortly after. The Philanthropy team also hopes to place jars at places like McDonald’s, each Wal-Mart, and various gas stations.

The Philanthropy team has continued to work on a dress down day. There are currently seven Schools whose staff has agreed to participate in the dress down day. Schools involved are Park Middle School, Scott Middle School, Culler Middle School, Mickle Middle School, Lincoln Southwest High School, Lincoln Northstar High School, and Lincoln Christian High School. There has been a team hard at work getting packets together for each school. Each student is a campaign manager for their school. There is a team of girls working together to design a sticker, which will be worn by each participating staff, at each school to show that they are in support of the fundraiser for the Friendship Home. The date has been set for February 19th as the official dress down day.

There have been exciting things come from this and everyone has been working hard using their own gifts. North Star has already stated that, along with participating in the dress down day, they would also like to work with the Philanthropy Team to do another fundraiser, separate from the dress down day! The Philanthropy Team will be hard at work this month getting all these tasks completed so they can move on to additional fundraisers. April is Child Abuse awareness month and the Philanthropy Team hopes to have everything together so they can do an even bigger fundraiser, something like a run for awareness! I can’t wait to see what happens next!

High School girls Apply

I really enjoyed my time in the High School girls’ room on Sunday. It was a blast getting to listen to them go over verses in the bible and see how interested they were with soaking it all up. With very few interruptions the lesson time moved along very smoothly.

The girls were looking at verses in Matthew 5:38-41. “You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[a] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”

Previous to reading the verses Mrs. Mollie (High School girls co-leader) had been up at the chalk board writing two things; the first being “eye for an eye” and the second “Jesus”. After reading the verses she drew a line between “eye for an eye” and “Jesus”. Then she asked the girls to focus on “eye for an eye”, then go up to the board and write a word or phrase of what they thought this meant. I would like to share with you what the girls came up with.

Diamond- revenge

Cequoia- face to face

Jessica- getting back

Anisha- Doing something in return

Patty- punishment

Mrs. Mollie was excited to see what the girls had written and agreed that all these things go along with eye for an eye. Anisha raised her hand and with a confused look on her face started to question the verse in Matthew where it talks about if someone slaps one cheek you should turn and allow them to slap the other. She was confused and said “doesn’t this go against an eye for an eye?” You should have seen the smile on Mrs. Mollie’s face! She was just tickled to hear the question because it provided a time for Mrs. Anna (High School girl’s teacher) and Mrs. Mollie to discuss what Jesus would do and how we want to reflect God daily. Following the discussion each girl was again given the opportunity to go up to the chalk board and write what they thought Jesus thought, would do, or be like.

Patty- forgiving

Anisha- Kill with kindness

Jessica- love them

Diamond- pray for them

Cequoia- bless them

The High School girls asked some great questions and gave Mrs. Anna and Mrs. Mollie some great opportunities to share their own life experiences and the love of God with each student. It really is neat to see God working through these young women; using the Bible lessons at the Impact Leadership Academy to shape them into the women He wants them to be.

Commitment to Learn

When I visited the High School boys’ classroom last Sunday, I was not expecting to walk out blessed like I did. Not only did I get to share in the wonderful prayer time with them, I got to talk to Mr. Ty about an asset goal they have all set together. You see, all the boys in the classroom found that after taking the assets survey they all were deficient in the area of “Reading for Pleasure”. So they have all decided that together, they will work on their commitment to learning (which is part of the internal assets) and read the book Holes. It was so fun to see Mr. Ty’s excitement because he said that even the volunteers and leaders were going to read the book. How wonderful to see everyone working together to accomplish something.

Upward.Inward.Outward

On Sunday evening, when it came time to pray, the High School boys switched things up a bit. They decided that each one would take one of the kinds of prayer and focus on that for their prayer time. TJ decided he would take outward, Victor took inward, and Tyree finished up with upward. Read below to see what each boy had to say, it truly touched my heart to hear teenage boys talk to our savior like they were.


TJ- “Ask for prayer for VaDoll (high school boy) as he is giving his speech. Pray that he does well. I pray that he will walk out and be proud of himself, I also pray that he will make it home safe.”


Victor- “Thank you for all the things you have given me, I just pray that the relationship I am in will go well.”


Tyree- “Thank you for all the things You have done for us, thank you for sending Your son to die for our sins. I just want to let You know You are so amazing, You are awesome God.”



I walked out of the room feeling very blessed that I had the opportunity to be a part of a heartfelt prayer time. You can really see the passion for God building in these boys.

Relationships Develop

From: Tyree (High School Boys)
To: TJ (High School Boys)

“When can we hang out? I would like to do more Christian raps with you, that last one with you was awesome, we should do it again.”

Meet Mrs. Miriam

I am 26 and currently attending Doane College. I am married and have one daughter who is 2 years old. I was born in Chicago, IL but raised in Aurora, NE. I now call Lincoln my home. I am the second oldest of five children. My mom was a single mother. My favorite color is red and my favorite food is Indian. I love to read, sew and crochet in my free time. I became connected with City Impact when a friend of mine from college volunteered with City Impact and knew I was looking for a place to get involved. Growing up in a single parent home I can relate to a lot of the kids that come to City Impact. If my family had lived in Lincoln while I was growing up we probably would have attended City Impact programs and shopped at the Gifts of Love store. I feel that my background has helped me connect to the kids on a different level. I also spent a year in New Orleans at Urban Impact Ministries and fell in love with inner-city ministry. My favorite memory from working at City Impact would have to be the summer I worked with the Job Club students. At the end of the summer a few students spoke at the volunteer banquet and it was a great way to watch all their hard work pay off. It was also a small glimpse of where City Impact was going and what led to the ILA leadership teams. I began volunteering 5 years ago, but was hired 3 yeas ago. First I worked with IRC, and then I was hired as the Social Justice Team Coordinator. I am currently the 6-8th grade girls ILA teacher as well the Social Justice Team Leader. In Social Justice Team I introduce the kids to different areas of injustice in the world. I show them what God’s view of justice is and give them practical ways that they can participate in righting the wrongs they see around them.

Spiritual Gifts

It has been a long while since I had the opportunity to sit in on the 6-8th grade boys’ class time. I was pretty excited to be in on the interaction during their Bible lesson time, and Mr. Todd (6-8th grade boys’ leader) always does such a great job teaching, I think it’s one of his spiritual gifts! Speaking of Spiritual Gifts, the Impact Leadership Academy students started a new study on Sunday. It focused on learning what Spiritual Gifts are and which ones God has blessed each person with.

I really enjoy the way Mr. Todd is organized with his lessons and how smoothly they seem to go. When I joined the class they were in the beginning process of going through each Bible verse together and then picking out the Spiritual Gifts listed in the passages. Here are the passages they read through Romans 12:6-8, Ephesians 4: 7,8,11,12, I Peter 4:9-11, and I Corinthians 12: 4-11 and 28-30. Mr. Todd had each of these verses written on the chalk board. He also left room to write up the Spiritual Gifts listed in each one.

After reading the verses and writing the gifts on the board, Mr. Todd took some time to ask some questions and look intently at a few of the verses. Mr. Todd asked the boys out of all the gifts written before them which one was the most important and which was the least important. I could sense a bit of confusion in the boys at the questions, but soon they all agreed that there was not one more important than the other and God has gifted each person differently. He also asked “If God gave you a gift, what does he expect you to do with it?” He expects us to use our gifts to serve others and to serve and grow His kingdom. They also learned that all the gifts they have come from God, and no one else. So there is never any reason to try and credit ourselves for the gifts God has given us. Mr. Todd told the boys that throughout their time learning about the different Spiritual Gifts they would be learning what those gifts might be that God has given them. Hear from some of the 6-8th Grade boys as they tell us what they learned from the lesson.

Kenneth – “We all have gifts.”

Icky – “We all have special purposes in life.”

Zach – “I learned that we are supposed to use our gifts to show how God affects us and teach people about him.”

Dylan –“I learned not to judge people by appearances, but judge them by their inner selves.”

All in all I was so impressed with the 6-8th grade boys’ participation and willingness to read, and raise their hands to answer the questions Mr. Todd was asking.