Carolina Panther's Game

I know we can't be credited with inventing the WAVE, but we defiantly kept it going around the upper deck today!

Maleck and one of his many posters for Jordan.
Demarcus doing a Panther's Howl
The boys taking in the game
The group before outside of Panther's Stadium

A couple of months ago we called in a favor to our Power Cross friend Jordan Gross, of the Carolina Panther's. We were hoping Jordan could help us with getting tickets to bring some of the boys to a Panther's game this season. I'm still not exactly clear how he pulled it off but he was able to send us 49 tickets and 3 parking passes for the Carolina Panther's vs. The Arizona Cardinals. When he first told us the good news Jeff and I were trying to think of some of the boys parents or siblings who might want to go with us so we could use all of the tickets. But if you've kept up with the Power Cross blog lately you'll know that our group has grown by about 15 kids since the school year started. You probably won't believe that we had exactly 49 people sign up to go. We had 5 adults(including me and Jeff) with us at the game, thank you Curtis, Mike, and Dad for your help! We had 44 Power Cross boys who were able to attend, and everything worked out perfect!

For about the past three weeks we have used the game as added incentive for the boys to work hard at their school work. At Power Cross Tuesday we passed around the sign up sheets and the excitement began to build. On Saturday morning we started getting calls to make sure we were still going to the Panther's game on Sunday. The plan was for us to leave from Coach Jeff's house at 9:30 on Sunday morning. I worked Saturday night and got home at about 11:00 PM. Jeff had been doing football all day with the boys. So we were both really tired. Unfortunately we both felt God telling us to work on something we have coming up for Power Cross. We didn't get to bed until about 2:45 am. I had my alarm set for 8:00 thinking we might get to sleep in a bit. The sun may have been up for about 5 minutes when our doorbell got pushed for the first time on Sunday. I would guess it wasn't 7:05 and Rudy is at the door! I was in my pajamas and half asleep but I got there quickly so everyone else didn't wake up. Rudy said, "Is it to early?" The boys were so excited about the day. We got to the stadium area and tailgated with our new friends Andy and Michelle of the Bonfire Crusades. Their children played football with the boys and fit right in with the group. It was a great time. We grilled up 150 hotdogs, which the boys had no problem putting away pretty quickly! One of our new boys Tevin was sitting in the sun, eating a hotdog in my folding chair and he said, "Today, I'm living the good life." I pray each day for these boys and that God will continue to lead and direct our ministry. I pray that we are able to help all of the boys, and many more we don't even know yet, to build a solid foundation in God for their futures.

We can't express enough thanks to our friend Jordan Gross for donating the tickets to today's game and allowing the event to even be possible. Jordan is a wonderful role model for any young man. He has a beautiful wife and family, faith in the Lord, an appreciation of his own life, and a desire to help those around him. It's a wonderful thing to see a young successful athlete who values his life's work not just in what he does on the playing field, but what he is able to do for other between Sundays.

Enjoy the pictures! We took up two complete rows all the way across.

Have a Blessed Day!

Nat

Power Cross receives a new van!!!!!!

PC Boys with our new van!!!



A few boys pose with the "Rolling Turd" over the summer. The Turd will still be in commission for a while longer. The boys would be to sad to see it go!

We have been so blessed over the past two years to share the words and message of God with over 50 boys in our area. Yesterday we were so very blessed to receive a new van to help us transport the boys to our home, their homes, practice, games, church, and all the other stuff we do! The van is perfect! So perfect it brought tears to my eyes. It's hard to actually even see the van with the load of boys we had over yesterday, but it's really behind them! The Jones Family from Maynardville, TN has really taken to the boys. They have blessed us with this van, because our good Lord has blessed them. Our building campaign is called, "Play it Forward...". We changed the original "Pay" to "Play" because of our ministry's basis in athletics. For the Jones Family this van will allow us to both Play and pay forward the love of Jesus to so many more young men in our area. We can't thank them enough, for their generosity. Steve, Brenda, Gabe, AJ, Blake & Julie, and Molly & David we thank you so much. Steve, Brenda, AJ, and David were able to drive the van up to Statesville yesterday to present it to the boys. Steve lead our Bible study and read from James 1:22 "But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.". We thank the Jones Family for being a do-er and sharing their blessings with us. An added surprise to the already wonderful van was a DVD player installed for our roadtrips to tournaments and misc events. Brian and Kristen Kitts, and their daughters, had a DVD player put in for us complete with 10 sets of headphones! Advil probably won't appreciate the decline in my business, but I will be thrilled to try the system out!

Our friend Jeff Nanney at LakePoint Screenprinters is going to letter up the van for us this week. We'll show you some pictures when it's ready to go!!

Have a blessed day,
Jeff, Nat, TJ, and The PC Boys

Power Cross visit Bonfire Crusades...

Hi Everyone,
This week we had the chance to take the boys to a local youth crusade. The Bonfire Crusades were held at the Statesville Fair grounds. We took about 40 boys and wanted to thank Curtis, Raymond, and Mike for all helping us get the boys there and home. It takes a bit of a caravan to get them anywhere! If anyone has an old bus or van they'd like to get rid of you know who to call. The boys all had a great time. We had pizza before we left, but when we arrived our Statesville Chick-fil-a felt lead to give everyone who attended a free chicken sandwich. Or in most of our boys cases about 4 chicken sandwiches. The crusade had a great speaker and a wonderful band. The boys had fun dancing and laughing all night. I always feel so blessed when I look at the boys really taking it all in. Some of them are really on fire for the Lord and that's an awesome thing to see in a young man.

One of our Power Cross boys mom sent me a sweet prayer the other day. It's kind of long but I thought I would share it with you.

A prayer for children

We pray/accept responsibility for our children
who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray/accept responsibility for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of shoes
who were born in places we wouldn't be caught dead in,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray/accept responsibility for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents die
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have a room to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on any one's dresser
and whose monsters are sometimes real.
We pray for our children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to get kissed in front of the school,
who squirm in church
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
We pray for our children
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry them self to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for our children
who want to be carried and those who must be,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance,
for those we smother and
for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.