Make an Impact Monday: Chicktime!

Today's Make an Impact Monday is especially close to my heart. Today we are talking about the national organization called Chicktime. Let me tell you how I became involved and why you should support this incredible organization.

I became involved with Chicktime over four years ago when my friend, Chari, asked me to open a chapter in our community. I was like, "What is Chicktime?". I found out that Chicktime is an organization made up of women who go and serve other women and girls who are in group homes, women's shelters, homeless shelters, or other types of transitional housing. I previously had no idea this was even a thing, but now that I knew what it was, I was a hundred percent on board.

I wasn't just on board because I thought the work they do is incredible. I was on board because I had a personal connection to women who have faced all kinds of struggle and adversity. I was given up for adoption at birth and was adopted into a home full of chaos and dysfunction. My story is similar to those in group homes, women's shelters, etc. At least initially. I am no longer in the same, broken place I was many years ago because God rescued me. The broken story of my past didn't define me. It didn't have to be the end of my story. And it doesn't have to be for these women who are in these places. That is where Chicktime comes in.

Once per month, the women of Chicktime go to a local group home, women's shelter, homeless shelter, etc. They plug in and teach the women who are staying there skills, have fun with them, and love on them. They make the women at these places feel seen, cared for, not forgotten. When that happens, transformation occurs. These women are taught about God's love for them and how He wants to help them. They have women who show up every month encouraging them to live out the purpose God has for them. You might be thinking, "How much transformation can occur when Chicktime only volunteers once per month?" I can tell you that I have witnessed incredible transformation after having volunteered with this organization for four years. One story stands out in particular.

I had been serving with Chicktime at our local group home for about two years. There was a teenage girl there who would not talk to us at all. She had been there for two years and would not speak to us. Then one day we go in and are setting up games for the girls. She walks in and excitedly exclaims, "Hey!", and runs over and throws her arms around me. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I was trying to hide my tears. It took two years for this girl's wall to be broken down. She had to see for herself that we weren't going anywhere, that we were there for her. She has been a different person since. She knows someone loves her and it shows. Incredible.

That's what Chicktime does. We love on women, speak truth to them, and watch them realize that God made them on purpose for a purpose. One they know that deep in their soul, they are unstoppable. Why wouldn't you want to get behind something like that. The best part is that Chicktime is a national organization, not just local. So there is a good chance there is a chapter close to you. You can sign up to volunteer, teach a workshop, or donate supplies. No matter your situation, there is always a way you can help. Check them out today. I will post the link below. My chapter is Chicktime Conyers if you want to see what we have been doing.

<3 Heather

Click here for Chicktime, Inc.

The Power of Words in Our Friendships

God has been putting the power of words on my heart lately. We have already talked about the power of words in our marriage and the power of words with our children. Today we are talking about the power of words in our friendships. I am sure we can all share stories of where we encouraged others and also times when our mouths seemed to be falling down stairs taking out friendships left and right. I know I struggled with friendships a lot over the years.

During my elementary to high school days, I changed school 9 times. 9 times in 13 years. I had very little experience in having long-term friendships, especially when it comes to conflict resolution. I was barely around long enough to make friends much less experience friendships that survived the drama that typically happens at school. My approach to conflict resolution (since I had little experience with it) was to cut my friend off. We weren’t friends anymore. As soon as they wronged me, they were out. And I didn’t just do this as a child. I did this as an adult. What I wasn’t acknowledging at the time is that no one is perfect. Not one person. Especially not me.

Eventually, friends hurt each other, either accidentally or maybe even on purpose. So it wasn’t a matter of how I would respond IF my friends hurt me, it was how I would respond WHEN they did. I was pretty lonely. I didn’t have close friends. I was all about people extending grace to me, but I wasn’t extending grace to other. I finally grew up and started realizing we don’t give up on our friends when times get tough. We work through it together and value our friendship over needing to be right. I began doing this while also setting healthy boundaries with people around me (I had never been really good at that- so cutting people out was like a defense mechanism). I created various levels of friendship in my mind to help me set appropriate boundaries. It has worked wonders for me. If you want to read more about that you can do that here. Since that time I have developed wonderful, long-lasting friendships with women. I have a very tight community now. There are times when difficult conversations have to happen with your friends and this is what this post is about. The power of words with our friends. I have had many many many opportunities to learn about how my words affect my friendships, but a few times stand out in particular.

First, let me say that my real problem was that I was terrible at conflict resolution. In fact, I just avoided conflict altogether. After multiple failed attempts at resolving conflict, I knew I needed help. So I sought counsel, turned to Scripture, and studied all kinds of strategies. Here is what I have learned. Maybe it can keep you from experiencing some deep hurts or causing deep hurts in friendships.

1.) Keep people’s stories, situations, and secrets to yourself. If you are privileged to know private things about people, or even public for that matter, don’t dishonor your friends by sharing that with others. It’s not yours to share. When a woman asks me about another lady, I always say, “Oh, you will have to ask her. That is not my story to share. She can probably tell it better than me since it is her story. I don’t want to dishonor her by telling it wrong.” Don’t gossip about friends. It just adds insult to injury, And I say friends, but you shouldn’t gossip about anyone ever. Even if it is your worst enemy. I have experienced the hurt that comes from being gossiped about.

I was having a really bad day; it was just a stormy season. We’ve all had one of those, right? I was feeling so low and what happened? This woman, who had always treated me unkindly walked into the same establishment where I was. She thought she saw me doing something wrong, which I wasn’t. This lady is a professing Christ follower. Instead of coming over to me and checking on me, she went out and immediately told many of our mutual friends things that were untrue based on what she thought she saw. So here I am in a very stormy season having to put out fires caused by someone who cared more about destroying my character and less about lifting up another sister in Christ. It was awful. Salt in the wounds for sure. It reminded me of Job’s friends from the Bible. They were not very adept at reading the room. In Job’s distress, they offered up criticism and reprimands instead of comfort. When Job needed someone to be there for him, they just made matters worse. Kind of like the woman I knew. Don’t be that kind of lady. If you even THINK your sister in Christ is walking in sin, the answer is not to tear down her reputation by spreading it all over town. This brings me to my next point.

2.) Speak truth in love. IN LOVE. Not in condemnation. Not in Judgment. Not in finger-pointing. Love. Check your motives before you speak truth to someone. Why are you confronting them? If it is not because you love them and you want to see them walking according to the Word of God, if it is out of pridefulness, then you might need to pause.

There are two situations that I want to share with you in which I had to confront women with the truth in love. I do not love having these conversations, but sometimes they are necessary. And when God calls you to have the conversations, you must be obedient.

The first was when one of my closest friends was teaching false doctrine to people in our church via small groups. She was a newer Christian and over time she revealed herself to be someone who did not care about knowing, understanding, or being obedient to Scripture. She was more concerned about the acceptance of the world instead of the acceptance of Christ. She didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings and so she promoted ideology that the Bible was clearly against. She did this in order to please people, to have friends, to be accepted. I took her aside and lovingly told her that she was in a position of authority and would be held accountable to God for what she taught to others. I told her that I loved her and that I didn’t want her to get into trouble for teaching false doctrine. I will honestly tell you that it was probably one of the hardest conversations I have ever had. I knew I was taking a risk. I knew my friend might reject me and cut me off forever (the way I used to do to people), but I loved her too much to be quiet. So I approached her in love. It is so important to approach people in love and not from a place of judgment and condemnation. And it is also important that you actually have the type of relationship in which you can speak into their life. If you are a

mere acquaintance you will probably be shut down and rejected. However, even when you are good friends, you still may not be received well. My friend did not want to hear me. She had her own agenda and truly did not care about the Word. So she cut me out of her life for good. I wish she knew how hard that it was for me to talk to her and risk our friendship. But in the end, I had to intervene on behalf of those who were under her instruction, especially since they were younger minds. Unfortunately, she ended up leaving the church. I pray one day she returns with a sincere love for Jesus and the Bible, and I can welcome her with open arms. This wasn’t the ideal situation, but I know God is over all. I was obedient to what He called me to do and that is enough. When you confront someone who does have a sincere love for the Lord, hopefully, things will go better. They did for me. This brings me to my second story.

It was when a friend of mine was hurt by the church and ended up leaving. Out of her hurt,

she was telling her story to anyone who would listen. Haven’t we all been there? When things feel so unjust that you just have to talk about it? But remember that in those times, God is still in control. What ended up happening was that my friend was starting to get a bad reputation. For gossiping. I knew that my friend would be devastated by that because she was an incredible woman of God and had always been described as such. So I gently went to my friend and encouraged her to just talk to me or one of her other friends because people who she thought were safe, were really not. They were spreading everything she was saying. Again, it was so hard to have that conversation, but God was calling me to have it. The burden became so great that I had stress all over my body until I finally had the conversation with her. She did distance herself for a time, but since she was a woman of God, guess what happened? She came back around after God brought her through the storm and we have reconnected and are wonderful friends. As hard as it is to speak hard things it is just as hard or maybe even harder to hear hard things because the hearer is usually carrying some hurt with them. Just remember that when you are holding your friend accountable.

Make sure to do it with the right heart and motives and with love. If I had done it any other way I would have lost my friend forever

So to recap, our words have power in our friendships. We have the power to build friendships and help women walk in their purpose, to encourage them to chase after Jesus, or alienate our friends or ourselves and miss out on the blessings of strong friendships with godly women.

Remember

1.) Tell your story and no one else’s (don’t gossip)

2.) Speak the truth in love (don’t pour salt in their wounds)

3.) Be a grace giver and overlook offenses (don’t point out someone else’s shortcoming and ignore your own.)

If you do these things, you will be surrounded by rich friendships. Go and speak life and love, using your words to build up the kingdom of God, not tear it down.

<3 Heather

Make an Impact Monday: Life Connection Mission

Mondays get such a bad rap. After the weekend who wants to see Monday? When you are having a bad day you might be said to have a "case of the Mondays". Poor Monday! So I thought I would bring a bright light to Mondays by highlighting ways you can make an impact both locally and globally. Every Monday I will highlight an organization that is doing great work whether it be stateside or abroad. I will also be raising awareness as to how you can partner with these organizations. Partnering with organizations and making an impact in the world... Not hating Monday so much anymore when such positive things are happening! This week I am highlighting Life Connection Mission in Haiti. This is an incredible organization with which I have had the privilege of partnering in person. They do so much for their community, and I honestly don't know how they do it. They have always worked incredibly hard to make a positive impact for the people of Haiti despite high levels of crime, but now that their president was recently assassinated and the crime rate and riots are continuing to rise, they need our help. Let me tell you about my experience with them.

I visited Haiti on a mission trip a few short years ago. When I arrived in Haiti via airplane, I wasn't truly prepared for what I was about to experience. Stepping off of the plane I was bombarded by people begging to carry my luggage in exchange for just a few dollars so they could get something to eat. We had an escort to take us to the Life Connection Mission compound which was maybe an hour or so from the airport. On the way to the compound, I was overwhelmed by the sight of garbage everywhere and the smell of smoke. There is no trash service in Haiti, so mounds of trash fill the street. The only way to get rid of the trash is to burn it, so the air constantly smells of smoke. People are selling water in bags on the street because regular water in Haiti is undrinkable. And there is so much poverty. Thank the Lord for organizations like Life Connection Misson.

Life Connection Mission is similar to Compassion International, but it is so much more. I sponsor a child through Compassion, so I have nothing against them. What I am saying is that Life Connection Mission not only sponsors children, they take care of their entire community which is nothing short of a miracle for this small organization. I actually had the opportunity to go and stay at Life Connection Misson for a week and complete service projects with them. And you can too. They allow groups to come in, stay at their gorgeous facility right on the water, and go out and serve the community with them. I got to see with my own eyes how they were using the donations they received.

One of my friends sponsors a child through Life Connection, so we had the opportunity to go to the child's house and meet his family. His house was a one-room cinderblock building with a dirt yard surrounded by other cinderblock buildings with dirt yards. Throughout the course of the week we met other children who needed sponsors, visited the school they attended, took food to a homeless shelter, took food to those who lived in the mountains and could not get to town, and took food to certain neighborhoods where the need was greater. When people saw the vehicles from Life Connection Mission driving through town, they started following behind them. They knew they were going to get to eat. There were so many people in need of food. SO MANY. In fact, there were more people than there was food and it almost caused a fight among the people. We must have served a few hundred people over the course of a week.

We also visited Life Connection Mission's medical center where they offered free healthcare to the community. We also had the opportunity to visit a few orphanages. I think this was the most heart-wrenching for me. I met the sweetest little boy at one of the orphanages. He was barely two years old. We didn't speak the same language, but we played ball together. He crawled up in my lap and played with my hair. I was in love with this little boy. Even today, years later, I get tears in my eyes when I think of him. Other children saw him in my lap and saw us playing ball, so they came over to join. He didn't want to share me or his ball with anyone. I encouraged him to share and he got so upset at me. Just look at his little face. He is not happy. He would not play with me anymore after that. I begged him to smile at me, but he was having none of it. I was so sad to leave that little boy when he was upset with me.

Over the course of the week, we helped so many children, adults, families. It was hard for me to leave knowing they would be continually in desperate need. I am so thankful for Life Connection Mission and the work they do. There are many ways you can support them from right where you are. You can donate funds for rice and beans, donate funds for school lunches, or even sponsor a child. The cost is actually quite minimal, comparative to Compassion International. Again, Life Connection is much smaller, so the way they stretch their funds to meet the needs of their entire community can only be an act of God. Get connected with Life Connection, support them, and then one day go and serve with them. Your life will never be the same. I am including a link to their website below. Please let me know if you make a decision to support them. I would love to celebrate that with you. What an impact you will be making!

CLICK HERE FOR LIFE CONNECTION MISSON