I don't know what the weather is like in your neck of the woods, but here in the Mile High city, contrary to the typical weather proverb, March is "going out like a lion". We had a blizzard here today, over 18 inches at my house and still falling. No school and no flights. We were supposed to be heading to Phoenix where I'm preaching this Sunday but now it looks like we may not get out until Saturday night, at best.

Fortunately I'm safe and snug by the fire. But for hundreds of families here and thousands more around the country, the lion of poverty and homelessness is tearing families apart. I experienced that to some degree last night. I was "on call" at our churches family shelter when the snow started to fall. At the same time my wife was "on call" at the hospital where she delivers babies in blizzards like this. Cheryl's an OB/Gyn. I like to tell folks "we're both in the delivery business". As a Doctor, she gets them the first time around. As a Pastor I get to see the "born again" deliveries. And I saw one of those again last night.

For 25 years, I've written "on call" in my monthly calendar when Cheryl is saving and delivering lives. She's usually "on call" at least 6 times a month x 12 = 72 nights a year x 25 years = 1,800. When you add medical school and residency that's at least another 200 nights. So 2,000 nights x 4 deliveries/night = 8,000 newborns. Pretty cool! Now it was my turn to be "on call". Every Christian should experience being "on call" at least once in your life or better yet, once a month.

I drove over to the church and waited for our guests to arrive from the free medical clinic. Destiny, a young mother of four, is homeless. Her story is typical. Deadbeat dad, teenage mom, couldn't pay the rent, got evicted. She spent all day yesterday at the Social Security office trying to get new cards for her kids. All of her documents were stolen. It's a mess. But when she walked into the church where we house and feed these families, she was all smiles. Tears started forming in her eyes because it was her 28th birthday and there was a cake and candles, balloons and some gifts all laid out on the table prepared by some of our ladies. We had a party.  As Tony Campolo wrote in one of his books, "The Kingdom of God is a Party". It was a blast. Kids running around kicking balloons, new friends sharing and caring for each other. Hope was alive that night in spite of the pending storm. Destiny and I talked. She told me how she had a new lease on life and was grateful and hopeful. I think she was "delivered".

Then I turned my attention to two young teenage boys, Isaiah, Destiny's son and Randy, James' son. We started a new game, "Balloon soccer". The goal was to keep the balloon off the floor without using your hands or arms. We got up to 45 "touches". Then it hit me, not the balloon but how I and we could help these boys.

Earlier that day we sent off a proposal to my church which has a "Kingdom Fund" that matches donations by our small groups to do something Kingdom minded for our community. Our goal is to raise $2000 which will be matched to send at-risk youth like Isaiah and Randy on a short-term mission trip to experience life outside our city. Our small group is having a garage sale May 9th to raise those funds. Maybe you'd like to help sponsor an urban youth to go to a summer camp or a summer mission trip. If so, let us know.

Oh and one last thing. I got so caught up in the storm and "on call" story that I forgot to thank you for recent gift. As you'll see in the following page, your donations are helping us sponsor an outstanding urban youth conference here in Denver next month. I pray May will roll in like a lamb and stay that way.

Have a wonderful and blessed Easter because it's all about "deliveries" and "resurrections".

For Him and Them,

Dean Cowles
YouthPartnersNET
President

LIVE COMPASSION

Your Donations at Work:

Over the past 10 years, Urban Youth Workers Institute (UYWI) has been hosting its annual conference in Azusa California. This event draws thousands of urban youth leaders from across the country every year.

In an attempt to further their reach and give youth leaders a boost in the middle of the year they developed RELOAD, one day training events that focused on 23 cities throughout the country. 

The current economic crisis has become a catalyst for UYWI to make the transition now by shifting away from their single west-coast national conference in May to multiple national events in several regions. Denver is the hub for one of those regions. This event will be led by Life Development Institute (LDI), one of YPN’s ministry partners.

We are excited to co-sponsor this year’s event as it will be the first “RELOAD” to take on a regional focus as they market the event on a national level. They are using this event as a catalyst to launch out a regional RELOAD tour to smaller cities in the region as well as to launch several Learning Communities.

This regional event will expand to two days and is scheduled for May 22-23 where they expect over 400 leaders to attend.

(Picture is from RELOAD Denver 2008 co-sponsored by YPN)

Prayer Request:

Please pray that God brings the right people to this event and that those who come will experience the blessing of the Kingdom.  They don’t want this event to be an LDI or UYWI event but an event that is used by God to provide training and support to the many workers and leaders that dedicate their lives to serving at-risk youth.