newsletter 2009

L i g h t h o u s e I n c . • 1 3 6 0 E a s t 9 t h S t . S u i t e 8 4 0 • C l e v e l a n d , O h • 4 4 1 1 4

Two young boys join our Heaventrain staff.This summer Lighthouse Inc. welcomed two new volunteer staff. Mike and Bryant are residents of Garden Valley and King Kennedy Projects. These communities have rival gangs that defend each territory, but on Heaventrain they have come together. Mike said, “where else can a kid from the Valley go to King Kennedy and feel safe, only on Heaventrain”. These guys represent hope.

BEACON OF HOPELighthouse Inc.

N e w s l e t t e rReality Check update

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Fall Events

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A Volunteer’s Day

What is a “typical” day on

Heaventrain like? One of our

volunteers speaks out.

Page 3

Updates

Some tough days lately, but so

much to be thankful for. And a

calendar note.

Page 4

FAILURE, IS PART OF REALITY!One of the tough things to realize is that in spite of your best efforts, the world continues to tear apart the lives of our kids.

At times you feel lost, and want to give up hope. How can you reach a child as the promise of hope fades?

For the last two years we have sponsored a basketball team. The first year, our boys went

undefeated and last year we fell just short. The whole point of the team was to build a

relationship with just a handful of the Heaventrain boys as they grew towards adulthood. I

wanted to get to know them and to see what we needed to do to help them at this critical

time. Over the corse of the two years, there were some real heart to heart talks about the

issues they faced and the real challenges that seemed too big to conquer. Most of the boys

were 16-18 years old and have seen more in their lifetime than two or three generations in

most families have. All of them have had friends killed. Most see drugs as a recreational

activity, and a possible job opportunity. Sex is a favorite pass time, and a way to prove how

manly you are. Many of these young men face unstable and often volatile home lives where

they are forced to earn money to put food on the table or to pay the heating bill. Only two of

the twelve have graduated and only two more have a realistic shot. With so many challenges

we are faced with the reality that something has to change, someone is going to have to

intervene. We need people who want to make a difference. But unfortunately we don’t have

time, the situation is at a crisis point. This past week two of our players were involved in a

shooting that left a 17 year old girl dead. The issues are much deeper than I can explain, but

in the end, it could have been avoided. After two years, there is nothing, but a feeling of

failure. We should have done more, we have to do more if this is ever going to change.


DeVos classmates becoming partners.

In 2007 Andy Batten entered a 15 month intensive leadership

training program. To date Lighthouse Inc. has partnered with

four of the 12 DeVos teammates. In 2008 Mildred (pictured

below) and her crew from Bethany Baptist Church joined the

Heaventrain team. In 2009 we have hopes of expanding this

partnership and others to better serve the children and youth in the

city of Cleveland. Together we can touch the lives of the young

people who can Change the world.

REALITY CHECK SUMMER 2008

LaShunda Lee is a special friend and partner. We worked together this summer to build friendships and to tear down walls in the community.

In 2008 a dream became a reality.This summer we planned to host two work teams as part of

a new pilot project. The idea was to combine a work and witness week, with an intense social justice emersion experience. For one week kids from suburban and rural churches would live

the life of a urban youth. Real life object lessons challenged the youth to see poverty through they eyes of Jesus and to better understand the challenges our Heaventrain Kids face. The

object lesson was followed up by a lesson from Jesus on how His Kingdom is supposed to be.

This idea got away from us this summer as we hosted 6

teams instead of the 2 we had planned. We had a very exciting summer and look forward to next year as we expand the program and implement what we have learned from this year.

In total we hosted 342 youth from 6 churches. We repaired

the porches and roofs on 12 homes on one Black on Cleveland;s East side tallying the neighborhood to build a model block club.

We also have begun rehab on two abandoned crack houses

to become home to tow ministry leaders for the Central Community. One will be ready sometime late October, Lord willing. One team focused on Victory church and it has

transformed over the past summer. In addition to these events the kids ate dinner with

homeless adults, tutored at rick children, and worked all day on Heaventrain. As the summer comes to an end, we have seen

the lives of hundreds of kids changed, and our community has seen God;s Kingdom as we share life together.

Building on what we learned for ’09.This past summer was as much a learning experience as it was a mission program.

We have tried four or five different approaches with the various teams based on what their youth leader felt would work based on what the other groups experienced. Today we have six slots open for groups of up to 40. The Reality Check experience will start on

Tuesday night and end either Saturday Evening or Sunday morning. The cost for the trip is $310 per person and includes food, lodging, materials, site seeing, etc. The only costs above and beyond this would be for fuel and recreation. The exciting thing, is that as this

program grows, it will prepare the hearts of future leaders so that they can better understand the challenges of poverty, and what our responsibility is in helping our neighbor. If you would like more information on reality check, please watch our online

information resources for the latest updates. We will be sending out information packs, in the next few months. Space is limited.


A SATURDAY FOR A H.T. VOLUNTEERWet Paper and PensToday was rainy and cold all day and

pens don't write very well on wet paper. So I tried to find out how to cover the sign-in

clip boards under an umbrella. Any suggestions how we can keep our papers dry when its raining? Sometimes the signatures are barely legible and require

being separated and laid out on the dash of the van. The bus holds 80 people so the first eighty five in line escape the

downpour. The second group waits patiently. There were not enough umbrellas for 150 people to be out of the

rain at each stop. The people of Heaventrain are kind of like the postman. Rain,sleet or snow they still come to church and wait patiently in line. Depending on

the stop this can sometimes be at least an hour.

I can learn a lot in an hour

Before a church service you get together and fellowship...well we do this on

Heaventrain too. One little girl starts singing and clapping her hands, I bend down and hear the familiar words, "Heaven is a wonderful place filled with

glory and grace..." Its a though she is practicing before she sings in the choir.

It is difficult to try to remember 1,500

names. Well, I'm still trying to master this feat and failing miserably. Imagine attending a church for 25 years and not

sure if anyone remembers who you are. So you know what we do we treat everyone like family! The staff also try to learn about three names a week at each stop

because we like to know our family by name.

Super Heroes

The children love to talk about themselves and how in their eyes they are

like "super heroes." They can now control

their own fingers and tie their shoes and proudly display their talent. No longer is the world a mass of strange colors for now they can say...red, white and black. When

this talent is shared the whole church shares in the excitement and the questions start coming. "What color is the van?

Grey" "What color is this hoodie? Black" "What color is your face? Dark skinned" For those of you who wonder the color of

my face according to a little four-year old is...light-skinned. Isn't it amazing how children don't see people in color they are either..dark-skinned or light skinned.

The Heaventrain door opensSuddenly the conversation stops as

their attention is now diverted to the bus door that has now opened. Pastor Phil was back and "the church" was so glad to see

him. Pastor Phil spoke on a message that he hadn't shared in 20 years. He talked about "Heavenly Super Heroes-Angels" The children listened intently an he spoke

about angels. There are 10,000 x 10,000 x 10,000 angels. In particular he shared the story of King Synachrid as he was on his

way to fight against Israel. He commanded 185,000 soldiers and in the morning his army was down to 1 person-himself. The

soldiers were killed by an angel in the night. Then Pastor Phil shared about a battle he experienced one afternoon on the road where he felt God's protection.

Peanut Butter M&M's

Today on Heaventrain we shared just a snack. Imagine the face of a little two

year old child as they are handed a large family-size bag of peanut butter M&M's. She looks up and her mother has one in

her hand too. One little girl asks,"Is this whole bag is for me?"

Goodbyes and Hugs

The service is finished and its time for the bus to travel and the staff to see our next church family. "I wonder if so and so

is gonna be there today?" Do you ever have this conversation as you are going to church?" And just like at your church...on

Heaventrain we sometimes never know if we will see our church family the following week. At one stop we have a little boy who

calls us his family. There's mom (me), dad (a senior volunteer), bro(a fourth grade volunteer), and then aunt and uncle's who are teens in high school. He makes his

rounds each week greeting his family with a smile and a big hug :)Now that's what I call a Heaventrain family..we're all part of

God's family. After 12 services the numbers are counted..we had 780 at church this week in the driving rain. If you live in or

around Cleveland you are invited to join us for church each Saturday on Heaventrain. We promise you, It will change your life.


FALL AND WINTER EVENTS

Christmas can be tough!For little ones that see the big difference between the haves and have nots, Christmas can be a difficult time. Try explaining to a little one why they did not get anything for Christmas, they wonder, was I bad this year. On Heaventrain we try our best to make sure everyone gets something for Christmas. Moms and dads are so appreciative that someone wants to help.

Candy, Coats, and Christmas .

Last year Lighthouse Inc. expanded our Heaventrain

Christmas to include coats,

gloves, hats, toys,

and candy. This

year we are on the look out for

toys for our

children. It is a

challenge to find

1200 gifts that are inexpensive and

yet nice enough to

make a little ones Christmas a

little brighter. This Christmas

we are hoping to raise $6000.00 to allow us to bring

Christmas to 1200 children. Thats right, for $5.00 per

child we can provide a coat, a

burger, candy, and a small toy

to bring a little Christmas

Cheer. If you have a group that is

looking to invest in a

child this year, then

we think the

Heaventrain Christmas is one of

the best investments

you can make. If

you have a lead on where we

can get 600 toys for boys and 600 for girls, we would love to

get any ideas. You can come

and help, it’s a blast.

HEAVENTRAIN CHRISTMAS 12/20/2008

Location # of Children Average age Time of arrival

King Kennedy 225 7 10:00 AM

Woodhill 150 12 11:00 AM

Garden Valley 225 10 12:30 PM

Cedar 400 8 3:00 PM

Outhwaite 300 10 4:30 PM


Issues with the mail:

A few months ago we changed our mailing address. There have been a couple people that have called about checks that did not get deposited. We have been having a problem with the post office box. It seems that the Post office has lost our box payment records (2nd time) and have held the box as locked. We have retrieved most of our mail, but it seems that some has been misplaced, and they are not sure if or when we can get it. We apologize to anyone that has experienced this, we would suggest canceling those checks to be safe.

NEEDS AND PRAYER REQUESTS

As we are growing we are also facing new challenges.

For years Lighthouse inc. has worked to stretch every dollar we can to impact the life of the children we serve. This has served us well, but todays world requires a more sophisticated

approach to not only keep our current ministry operating, but to expand to meet the ever growing need within the community. We have

been blessed with hundreds of dedicated volunteers, but need to add staff to cary the growing work load in the office and

administration of the program. This is a big step toward insuring Heaventrain and the other ministries are here for years to come. We are looking for help with this endeavor, so if you

have and office or admin background, or a finance./book keeping background and are looking for a ministry to invest your time, we

have a place for you.

Other needs:• Office equipment, fax machine, color copier

with document center etc.

• Safe reliable transportation (Our van has over 200k miles)

• Portable LCD projector • Toys for Christmas (600 for boys 600 for girls)

• Gas cards, fuel continues to be a huge expense• Airline miles, for travel to training and other

ministry development events.

• Drywall team (For ministry house)• Speaking opportunities• Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, cement

guys, etc. • Work and witness teams, we are getting dozens

of opportunities that could have a huge financial impact on the ministry. The harvest

is ready, but the workers are two....


Hamburger Update

Thank you to everyone that stepped up to

the plate to help with the Heaventrain food

shortage. Thanks to everyones kind gifts,

we should be good for the rest of the year.

Special Gift

We have a new (to us) bus that is the exact

match of our current Heaventrain. Plans

are underway now to renovate this bus as a

backup and to allow us to run a 2nd rout.

Christmas is coming

We are planning on another special

Christmas on Heaventrain Dec. 20th. We

will be delivering hats, coats, gloves and

toys. Come share in the fun.

The Goings Been ToughEphesian's 6:12 says, 'For our struggle

is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the

world forces of this darkness,against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.'

With that being said I want to thank

everyone that did battle this week in the spiritual realms on our behalf. It has been a crazy few weeks to say the least, but God

has been faithful and we are still standing. Many of you know that we had a

shooting at our first site on this past

Saturday at King Kennedy. It was a crazy scene as we had hundreds of children standing only yards from the shooting. We stuffed the bus with almost double our

typical 75 to keep kids safe. We had a youth group visiting that was visibly shaken by the events. Our staff jumped into safety

mode and made sure order was kept during moments of chaos that followed.

When the smoke cleared a 17 year old was shot in his backside and all of our Heaventrain kids and staff were safe. When our visiting youth group prepared to

head home, the community stood outside to make sure they were OK and to make them feel a bit safer. One mother

apologized to one of the groups adults saying, 'I am sorry that you had to be exposed to this, but my kids live with this

all the time and we don't get to drive away because this is home.' As we drove off our Kids were concerned that our staff would be too scared to come back. 'Is

Heaventrain ever going to come back?' they asked.

For the rest of the day we almost had

1300 children that came. Our staff, our kids, and our community kept moving forward with quiet determination that now

more than ever Heaventrain is needed. Thank you to all our staff who give up 40 Saturdays a year, to our donors who allow us to keep up the fight, to the community

for accepting us neighbors and teaching us so much, to our children who carry with them the hope of a bright future, and to our God who allows us to do the

impossible and see Him in the midst of it. The CMHA police work so hard to keep the community safe, for the rest of the day

they made sure our kids were protected. Please keep praying so that the battles

can be won, before we ever hit the ground.

We need it more now than ever because 10 foot angels don't back down to any fight.

Contending for Christ,

Rev. Andy Batten Executive Director

Online info @• www.myspace.com/heaventrain• www.heaventrain.org

http://www.myspace.com/heaventrain

http://www.myspace.com/heaventrain

http://www.heaventrain.org

http://www.heaventrain.org

newsletter 2009

Spiritual