A few samples of UYWI. The conference for urban youth leaders.

Now is the kingdom Podcast General Session of UYWI 07.
+Voice of Hope Video

Voice of Hope from UYWI on Vimeo.

About UYWI the conference for urban leaders:
>> CONFERENCE DATES:
May 15-17, 2008

The Legacy you leave depends on the life you live. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks and many others lived with their eyes focused on the great crowd of witnesses presented in Hebrews. These men and women of faith lived and died without seeing the fruit of their faith on earth and yet, continued to believe. We continue their Legacy as we walk by faith.

Remember, the youth and families you serve may not know these past heroes, but they know YOU! God has given you the time and place to re-write the Legacy that these youth will leave. UYWI08 will challenge and inspire you to LIVE THE LEGACY.

Sample workshops: This year
+Leadership Excellence—Good Governance, Glen Peterson, Executive Directors
+Reaching All People With The Whole Gospel, John Lewis, Suburban Urban Blend
+Beginning With The End In Mind: Setting Your Ministry Up For Success!, Romanita Hairston, Executive Directors
+Bad Leadership: The Bad Examples Of Leadership In Ministry, Anthony Flynn, Leadership Development
+No Child Left Behind: How Does It Affect Your Center?, Joseph Parker, After School Programs
+Programming In The Schools: More Than A Ministry, Abel Lopez, Campus Life
+Helping Communities Heal From The Wounds Of The Past, Marvin Jacobo, Community Justice Issues

Join many kingdom urban leaders from West to East coast next week. Register info HERE

“and He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers,…” Malachi 4:6Malachi 4:6
English: World English Bible - WEB
6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

WP-Bible plugin

A picture of a generation being raised fatherless….(Will come to this laters.)+Children in
+Fatherless children
+Children growing up in a single-parent households are at a significantly at-risk
+More like this here

Boys in the Fatherless hood

 “Saying that single women could be ‘punished with a baby,’ is not only a slap in the face to every child born to a young mother, but it diminishes the great joy that children bring to their families regardless of the circumstances in which they were born.”

Read more here

“In America, we should be working to help young babies that are born in challenging situations and offering assistance and hope to their mothers. We should not be condemning them by saying that somehow it has now become ‘punishment’ to have a child in this country.

“We call upon Senator Obama to issue a public apology for these profoundly misguided statements and also address his anti-child and anti-compassion mind set. Mr. Obama talks about change and justice for the weakest and most vulnerable of our society. However, by saying women are ‘punished’ by having children shows a rigid values system from 100 years ago, one that offers condemnation to those struggling instead of hope.”
The Christian Defense Coalition calls Senator Obama’s comments insensitive, misguided, harsh and insulting to every single mother and their children.
Read their response here

+My Comments

I am not at all condoning the actions and involvement of premarital sex among youth and the unwed. “Those who are without sin shall cast the first stone”, and I am not about to pick up any…Panch and I are examples of this, we got married (May 3, 1997) when Panch was 4 months pregnant with our oldest son Uriah, 8. He was not a “Punishment”. Although, we both mutually have come to terms that there should have been some restraints, which we greatly regret now. The greatest advice that we can offer is, yes, there will be consequences, your plans will be altered, and you may well find yourself raising a child single, but as young parents you have no other choice but to accept personal responsibility for such actions. I do however, sympathize with the many young girls that we have known over the years, whose babies fathers have not stuck around to share and take on that responsibility. I commend them, and thank you for loving and dedicating your self to your children. They are a reward and a blessing!

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants. Lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that could mean suspensions for students with droopy britches.

It won’t become law unless the House of Representatives passes a companion measure.

Florida could join several southern U.S. towns and cities that have passed “saggy pants” laws aimed at outlawing what some teenagers consider a fashion statement — wearing pants half way down their buttocks, exposing flesh or underwear.

Despite being the butt of jokes, the bill’s sponsor, Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin, a Democrat, has said the fashion statement has a back-story — it was made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.

Read the full Article here

Theme song for this post is that commercial ” I want it now, I need it now!”

Resource: In 2003, teens spent an average of $103 per week — a total of $175 billion, according to Teen Research Unlimited. That’s $169 billion dollars more than the budget for the state of New Mexico, which is $6 billion, and $36 billion more than the 2006 budget for the state of Texas. And the numbers will keep rising, according to The Census Bureau, which estimated the U.S. teen population at 33 million individuals in 2003 and predicted the population to continue to grow until 2010.
However, for some teens, money is taken for granted because the cash is coming from parents and relatives — they spend money, but are not always aware of how to save money.
When items like iPods, cell phones and even cars are tops on a teen’s wish list, it is important for teens to learn good money habits.

Delayed Gratification - Self Control is the Key to Success.
Young people who can delay gratification can sit through sometimes boring classes to get a degree. They can perform rote tasks in order to, say, master a language. They can avoid drugs and alcohol. For people without self-control skills, however, school is a series of failed ordeals. No wonder they drop out. Life is a parade of foolish decisions: teenage pregnancy, drug use, gambling, truancy and crime. The ability`to delay gratification, like most skills, correlates with socioeconomic status and parenting styles. Children from poorer homes do much worse on delayed gratification tests than children from middle-class homes. That’s probably because children from poorer homes are more likely to have their lives disrupted by marital breakdown, violence, moving, etc. They think in the short term because there is no predictable long term.
Read the The Mischel experiment here in full

Read the Article Here

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

View the study here

More on this later…..

Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry recorded an interview with Larry Acosta back in June of 2006. Kara Powell interviewed Larry about strategies for fund development.That recorded resource is still available at their website by clicking hereLarry has been a personal friend, mentor and big brother to me.Thanks for your coaching, mentoring and generosity to the ministry of Hope for Youth Alliance.UYWI BlogUYWI.ORG

GREAT FOR URBAN TEEN OUTREACH-

The much talked about new edition of My city, My God (2008 version), has just been printed, and a box was FedXed to Hope for Youth Alliance. Our goal is to distribute over 100 copies to local youth. My blogger friend RudyCarasco wrote the Introduction. Also Pictured on the front cover is A.G.E (Center of cover looking upward) AKA “The General”, you may remember him from the duo Preachas in The Hood featuring A.G.E. and his younger brother Flow from Denver, Colorado. Within its contemporary cover are 32 color pages of photos and testimonies of teens from large cities that have chosen to live their lives for Christ, a dictionary/concordance, and a gospel presentation. The easy-to-read NIrV translation makes it perfect for teen outreach!

 

Give the Word. Change a Life…Hope for Youth Alliance is accepting donations to provide youth from local public schools with a copy. If you would like to contribute to this cause please send a donation to Hope for Youth Alliance PO Box 2458 Espanola, NM 87532. OR order a box here an have it shipped directly to HYA at 919 N. Riverside Dr Espanola, NM 87532

Report: N.M. still ranks among worst states for kids
Santa Fe New Mexican reports: “NM still ranks among the worst states for kids. On measures of child health and welfare, NM now ranks 47 of the Nation.” The report concludes “New Mexico has some of the worst rates in the nation for child deaths, teen deaths, teen births, high-school dropout, insecurely employed parents, child poverty, single parent families, idle teens; too many teens are twiddling their thumbs. They are neither in school nor working.
(Source: SF New Mexican July 25, 2007)

HYA was birthed out of a desire to reach out to youth through mentoring relationships. Youth are in trouble because they have no significant attachments to caring adults who can empower them to hope and have higher expectations for themselves.
Children and youth are a product of who they are connected to and disconnected from Hope for Youth Alliance believes that mentoring is the best back up plan for children and youth that come from broken families, and single parent homes. Children and youth need caring adults during their early development and so often they have been left alone and isolated to figure out things on their own. When caring adults are absent from young lives, they will turn to their peers, which in most cases leads to negative and unhealthy influences and lifestyles. It is my hope that youth will connect to a healthy and positive adult mentor who makes themselves readily available to them through HYA..

Make this a better place for children and youth! Become a Mentor
Mentor Training
Thursday, August 2, 2007st 2, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB

The Next Mentor Training!
August 2, 2007st 2, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB

When we removed the Bible as our text book from all our public schools we imposed biblical illiteracy on many of Americas students, as once before prior the reformation of the Jonh Luther.

I thank God that where my children attend school (a private Christian academy), we are blessed to start them off with a reading from the sacred text, and prayer.
We live in the land of biblical idiots - Los Angeles Times