The Green Hood

For the next 11 weeks, I will be volunteering with the Kingdom Kids program at Urban Hope Church. This is a high-energy and highly focused Ministry to young children in the Kensington Philadelphia area. Tonight's story does not have so much to do with the excellent program itself as it does with an amazing moment that occurred while we were picking up the children to bring them to the program. 

Volunteers and staff spend about one hour before and one hour after the program going door to door to find children to bring to the program and then dropping them off afterwards. Today was a particularly cold day and at one point I put the green hood of my Urban Hope sweatshirt up over my head. That simple movement was observed almost 2 blocks away by a little girl of about 5 years of age. She called to her mother and said "They're here! They're here! I want to go to Kingdom Kids! 

In the meantime we were starting to walk in the opposite direction of this child. After several minutes we turn back to head toward our van and this mother and child were sitting on a wall waiting for us. This little girl had never been to Kingdom Kids before but was aware of the green shirts that go around the neighborhood every Sunday when Kingdom Kids is in session to pick up children and take them to something that has become recognized has a really exciting and worthwhile Ministry experience.

This little girl was excited to go but very shy as well. Within a very short time however her great big smile was back and she was having a wonderful time and has promised to come back each and every week.

My mind could not help but consider the possibilities. Statistics are extremely high for this young child to grow up to become any number of not so pleasant roles in her life.  She could be a teen mother, a drug addict, a prostitute, and anything else. While we will never know for sure, it is an interesting thing to think that this one visit to a Christian Ministry in her neighborhood may put her on a track which will introduce her to our Living Christ and keep her away from all those alternative paths.