For Him and Them by Dean Cowles, YPN President

A monthly message from YouthPartnersNET President Dean Cowles.

For Him and Them by Dean Cowles

October 2005

This is the first chance I've had to write you since the hurricanes hit so I wanted to give you an update on what YouthPartnersNET has been able to do. Of course we can only respond to these unexpected disasters because of faithful folks like you that give each month.

Like you, we were shocked to see so much devastation. As the first hurricane rolled into Mississippi, I immediately thought of our partner in Meridian. I've know Pastor Gary Houston for 15 years. He has a great program in the deep south called YET -- Youth Excitement Team. Gary and his network were putting together some plans to have us come and present our Executive Director Leadership training, but obviously those plans are now on hold.

Gary and I talked by phone and I asked how YPN could help. Here's what he had to say:

We could use a grant to set up after-school programs for the 160 refugee children who want to participate, free of charge. Funds will support gas for vans to transport children to three locations in Meridian where they will receive assistance with homework, a little recreation, or just time to get out of the shelters and motels. This will take place Monday through Thursday 3:30-6:00 pm.

YPN mailed the grant that day.

A few days later I called him back and asked if they could use backpacks and school supplies. He said, "sure". You see, my church collected brand new backpacks and executive travel bags from a company here in Denver. We also filled them with new school supplies for the 500 refugees that relocated to Colorado. Packed full, they are valued at $100 each. We passed them all out and had about 100 left over so we shipped those to YET in Mississippi. So in addition to the grant YPN sent, we were able to help encourage these children with new school supplies and backpacks worth about $10,000. Isn't it amazing how God guides and supplies? Like my wife and I, I'm sure most of you have given to the relief effort in some way through your church, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, or others. Of course we did not have "disaster relief" in our YPN budget but felt we needed to do whatever we could.

So if you have a little extra lying around to help us replenish our funds, it would help us keep on target with the year-round support we give to ministry partners like Gary around the nation. God bless you and continue to pray for the long-term needs of these children and families.

For Him and Them,

Dean Cowles

• Visit the For Him and Them Archive