For Him and Them by Dean Cowles, YPN President

A monthly message from YouthPartnersNET President Dean Cowles.

For Him and Them by Dean Cowles

September 2007

Bridges

Falling bridges and building bridges, that's what I experienced this past week. Your gift this month helped us build some more.

In May I met some urban leaders who came to my fundraising workshop in LA. They asked me to come to Minneapolis to share our Executive Director Leadership Training two-day seminar. Naturally after the tragic bridge collapse in that city I asked if we should postpone the training but they said, "No, we need it now more than ever".

Of the 29 murders in Minneapolis last year, 19 occurred in our hood.

When I landed, Chris shared his story and showed me around the hood. He has a PhD in genetics but got busted for drugs and spent three years in the Federal Pen. But God got a hold of his heart and now he's writing grants for these ministries and getting married next week.

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We had one of the best trainings I can remember and never made it through the full agenda because they had so many questions and some great discussions. After our Thursday sessions, Ron took me to see the fallen bridges across the river. It moved me. Then on the way back Ron said, "You know Dean, the collapse was a terrible thing and of course it got national press but last year in our neighborhood alone we had more homicides than those killed on the bridge. Of the 29 murders in Minneapolis last year, 19 occurred in our hood. That's the real tragedy."

The next day I led them in a simple phone/fun/fund raising exercise and Ron by himself raised $600. He was so encouraged and asked me to come back soon with YPN's training so that more of his network could take advantage of this critical need for organizational and leadership capacity building. I said I would.

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As I flew home, we circled the city. I didn't realize Minneapolis had so many rivers and bridges. A few were in ruin but I knew that a few more were being raised up as these grassroots ministries were bridging the gap between despair and hope, between physical and spiritual poverty, between gang members and God.

Thanks for your support of YouthPartnersNET where we're doing our best to build bridges of compassion, capacity building, success, and sustainability for our urban ministry partners.

For Him and Them,

Dean Cowles

PS Pray for us as we hold more Executive Director Leadership Trainings in the coming weeks in Johnson City TN, New York NY, Miami FL, Houston TX and San Diego CA. And pray for both Cheryl and I as we sent our first son off to college late August - 1500 miles from home.

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