Garden Spot Middle School Principal

“See you at the Cross” was a phrase that I heard often in my first year as Principal of Garden Spot Middle School. Although I was unsure at first exactly what this meant, I knew that it was an expression that represented a place where kids wanted to be, and something that I wanted to find out more about. I visited Cross Con-nection and was inspired by what I discovered. Young people milling around both inside and outside of the campus genuinely fellowshipping with staff and with one another, and engaging in good clean fun. This resonated with me specifically because I struggled as an adolescent with succumbing to peer pressure and trying to form my identity. Seeing students building positive relationships with each another and with caring adults has revitalized my faith in the power of transformed lives.

I also witnessed the heartbeat of the ministry that is dedicated to meeting the resource needs of the com-munity with families stopping in for help with food, clothing, toiletries, and financial assistance. What came through to me in crystal clear terms by watching these exchanges was the grace and tenderness that was shown to each family in each unique circumstance. There was not even a hint of elitism or judgment; every person that came through the door was granted that same welcom-ing smile and afforded that same care and support. The Cross Connection staff recognizes that we all are just one or two decisions or circumstances from being in distress, and they effectively live out the Gospel’s call-

ing to meet the needs of those who are less fortunate. Although they meet material needs wherever they arise, the Cross Connection staff also realizes that “the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.” They work tirelessly to build relationships with student and their families to encourage mental, social, emotional, and spiritual growth.

From my position as Principal of Garden Spot Middle School, the Cross Connection Ministry is a vital re-source to the ongoing success of our school. The min-istries and mentor programs serve as a conduit for what we are doing at the school to meet the academic and social-emotional needs of our students. Cross Connec-tion functions as a liaison between the school and the families that they serve by opening lines of communica-tion and by curbing cultural barriers. As partners in our learning community, we are able to team together to coordinate community outreaches, parent resource ses-sions, and promote the message of hope. I have also had the privilege of getting to know some members of the Cross Connection Board of Directors. They too possess the same regenerative vision for the students and fami-lies in the ELANCO community. Most recently, I have become a Cross Connection mentor. I look forward to the time that I will spend with my mentee and the fun that we will have learning and growing together. I encourage anyone in the community to get involved in this life-changing ministry.

Summer 2014 Newsletter

A Message from Jeffrey S. Starr

Bethany Christian Services

New Holland YMCA

Garden Spot Village

Coby’s Family Services

Susquehanna Valley Pregnancy Center

ELANCO Social Service Network

ELANCO School District

ELANCO Library

Cross Connection Board & Staff

Partnering Organizations

Cross Connection Ministries Board Members:

Board Chairman- Deb Reimers (Christian Fellow-ship Church)

Vice Chairman- Bryan Naranjo (New Holland Church of the Nazarene)

Treasurer- Greg Hostetter (LCBC)

Secretary- Maria Buck (Petra Christian Fellowship)

Arlene Andrews (Christian Fellowship Church)

Bruce Eberly (Bethany Grace Fellowship)

Eugene Horning (Weaverland Mennonite Church)

Sara Kauffman (LCBC)

Carol Lehman (Christian Fellowship Church)

Galen Newswanger (Bethany Grace Fellowship)

Tim Stauffer (Weaverland Mennonite Church)

Gerry Weaver (Christian Fellowship Church)

Lynda Weaver (Christian Fellowship Church)

Advisory Board Members:

Chief Donald Bowers

Thomas Fanning

Dr. Robert Hollister

Wilber Horning

Titus Kauffman

Stephen Loewen

Duane Miller

Andrew Zimmerman

Staff

Executive Director- Meredith Dahl

Program Director- Kevin Keltner

Office Manager- Lisa Kerstetter

Youth Center Overseer - Ryan Forbes

Summer Lunch Program Overseer- Caitlin Musser

Prayer Coordinator- Jacqui Ivey

Why we exist: To offer help, hope and support to youth & families in the ELANCO community. How we do it: Through the work of the Church and partnerships with the community, businesses and fami-lies, we offer a variety of programs to meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs of both youth and families.

YOUTH CENTER:

OPEN DOOR: Students are able to come to a youth center for fun, caring and safe connections with adults- plus free food provided by churches and families. Lots of activities and events are always provided.

iSERVE: Exists to provide flexible internships for seniors or graduated young adults. iServe offers oppor-tunities for young adults who show a genuine interest in serving others to help shape a generation to meet positive goals. iServe interns learn how to lead through service, influence and care.

MEAL PROGRAM: The Meal Program is offered all year long. We believe that meeting physical needs of youth is an impactful part of the ministry of the Church and at CCM. Meals are offered 5 days a week- both lunch and dinner in the summer!

GUYS & GIRLS GROUPS: Through the summer the girls and guys of CCYC will travel throughout Lancaster County learning skills and experiencing new activities!

CROSS JR: Kids in grades 2-5 can come to CCYC after school for homework help, games, snacks and support by caring adults.

RESOURCE CENTER:

MENTORING: Caring and safe adults meet one on one with students to build healthy relationships and teach life skills. The purpose of mentoring is to be an emotional, stable support in the life of a student.

TUTORING: Tutoring assists students so they are able to excel in their assignments and complete their school work. Tutoring encourages youth to stay in school and graduate.

CROSS CARES: There are needs in the community that are often unmet in the lives of students and families. Cross Connection Ministries helps to connect local and county resources to families and helps support them in life’s dif-ficulties. Cross Cares encourages the Church to reach out and meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

SAFE FAMILIES PLUS: In partnership with Bethany Christian Services, CCM seeks places where students are able to receive a lasting support system or temporary housing.

POWER PACK PROJECT SITE: CCM, in partner-ship with ESSN, the ELANCO School District and GSV offer families healthy meals to be prepared on the weekends. This occurs weekly, with pick-up at CCM throughout the school year.

PARTNERING WITH PARENTS:Quarterly parenting classes by Cobys are offered at CCM. Meal & childcare included in these free work-shops.

Upcoming New Program! Getting Ahead Workshops will be offered to families in our community starting in the Fall of 2014. Getting Ahead is a facilitated group discussion that takes place over 16 weeks. Participants engage and explore the impact poverty has had on their personal and economic growth while investigating other life possibilities. Each participant creates personal plans for taking steps out of poverty after assessing their own personal and commu-nity resources. Participants also plan for the future and help one another discuss the impact of poverty on their community. CCM, in partnership with ESSN, will work together to facilitate these classes. Our goal is to have these run at least three times a year. With the partici-pants’ weekly commitment and discussion, a gift card for food or gas will be earned and gifted. CCM is seeking gift cards for $25 to local grocery stores. Please contact office@newhollandcross.org if you are interested!

Programs

Update on Cross Jr!

Cross Jr was a wonderful addition to CCM! Each Thurs-day, kids in grades 2-5 would run into the youth center ready to play games, do homework and grab a snack with a caring adult. New Holland Elementary School Princi-pal and teachers participated in this program to see kids be more successful in the classroom and in their social skills. We asked one Cross Jr student why she came each week. She shouted, “THE STAFF!!” The students loved to give hugs and talk about their days while playing chess or checkers with an adult volunteer. Elementary kids participate in Cross Jr for a safe and enjoyable after-school environment for homework help, exercise and comfortable social interaction. Through the summer, Cross Jr kids will be getting together for a few fun activi-ties including a movie and pool party. The program will start again in the fall. Please contact the office at CCM if you are interested in volunteering once a week at Cross Jr!

Free Summer Lunch Program

The Summer Lunch Program has started again! Due to the increase of low-income, poverty families in our commu-nity, we felt it was necessary to expand our Summer Lunch Program to areas other than New Holland in the ELAN-CO School District. Last summer we served over 5,500 lunches to kids primarily in the New Holland community. This year, we are serving approximately 160 lunches per day for 10 weeks in 3 different locations. This will increase the preparation and distribution totals to 7,500 at CCM in New Holland, Terre Hill and East Earl. The low-income/poverty level for ELANCO) School District is 35.8%, with New Holland Elementary close to 50%. We understand there is a real need for kids in ELANCO School District to receive food. Our desire is to not only meet this need, but offer healthy options as well.

If you are interested in volunteering please see the infor-mation below:

How to sign up for Summer Lunch Program - here’s how it works in 3 easy steps:

1. Click this link to go to our invitation page on Volun-teerSpot: http://vols.pt/E5Msws

2. Enter your email address: (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot)

3. Sign up! Choose your spots - VolunteerSpot will send you an automated confirmation and reminders. Easy!

Upcoming Events 1. Golf Tournament 2014- Thursday, September 18, 2014 at Foxchase Golf Club. Register a 4-some by September 11, 2014 to join us in this amazing event raising funds for CCM! For more information visit www.newhollandcross.org.

2. Squireside Give Back Days! - Visit Squire Side Cafe the week of September 7th - 13th and 15% of your total bill will be donated to CCM! Print a flyer at www.newhollandcross.org!

3. Parade Night at NH Fair- Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Stop down at CCM for a tour of our facilities and get a great meal (best prices at the NH Fair!). We will of have pork bbq, whoopie pies, baked goods, baked pota-toes, drinks and a lot more! All proceeds benefit CCM!

4. Next Mentor Training – CCM is seeking caring adults willing to spend time with a child, teen or adult two times a month. Our next training is Oct. 7th & 14th. Contact Meredith for more information at Mer-edith.Dahl@newhollandcross.org

5. The Extraorindary Give – November 21, 2014. Please mark your calendars for this 24-hour day of giving! More info to come.

6. 2015 Banquet- March 31st, 2015 at Shady Maple - You don’t want to miss this evening as we have Darryl Strawberry as our guest speaker! Mark your calendars!

• We currently have a big need for youth center volunteers. Youth Center volunteers help at the YC once a week. They build relationships with youth and spend time in recreational activities! Please pray and consider be-ing a Youth Center volunteer!

• Mentors. Consider investing in the life of a youth, teen or adult twice a month! Mentors shape a child’s future or walk alongside an adult in their life. You and your mentee can share all kinds of activities. You could play sports together, go on a hike or be an inspiration! (See article below.)

• Join the Cleaning Team! We are seeking volunteers to sign up once a month to help with our cleaning needs!

• We are seeking families, small groups, Sunday school classes, etc. willing to bring a meal to feed approxi-mately 40 youth.

• Join the Cross Cares email list to re-ceive current needs in the community and help meet a need!

• Pray for the ministry on a regular basis. You can learn ways to pray by contacting our office to be added to the prayer email list.

• Financial support! Please consider supporting CCM on a monthly basis! You can designate a monthly gift by automatic withdrawal. Visit www.ne-whollandcross.org to sign up with your credit or debit card.

• Join our email list! We are going to have more updates coming about the future youth center in the warehouse across the street. Please contact our office to be added to the email list to receive updates. We will have more information in the next few weeks!

Please contact office@newhollandcross.org or 717-355-2454 (Press Option 2 for the Resource Center) if you are interested in any of the items above.

CURRENT CCM NEEDS:• While school is out, we are look-ing ahead to our fall programs. We are currently accepting school supplies! The following items are often needed to help students as they go back to school. Assisting with these items helps families financially. Consider picking up items when you do your own back to school shopping this year: Mechanical pencils, binders (1 in or 2 in), calculators, notebooks, paper and book bags

• Pool sticks

• Couches in good shape

• Donations of gift cards for Get-ting Ahead Workshops (see previous article)

• Paper products- specifically 8 oz paper cups and large paper plates

A couple of years ago one of my friends told me about an unforgettable day she had with her children at the New Hol-land Park. A 7-year-old girl came up to her, handed her a bottle and asked her if she could watch her 1-year-old sister for her so she could go play. My friend was blown away that a 7-year-old was watching a 1-year-old alone. My friend asked the little girl, “Where is your mom?” The girl replied, “I don’t know. We’ve been here at the park since 11:00 am.” My friend checked the time and it was 3:00! That little girl was watching her baby sister all day! My friend was shocked and subsequently called the police.

That story really touched me. You hear of stories like this, but you always think things like that surely couldn’t

happen here in “New Holland.”

The Lord used this story to pierce my heart. It was as if He were saying, “Jodi, these children need help! How much closer do they need to be for you to help them?” God gave me the idea to be a mentor through Cross Connec-tion. I met with Meredith (CCM exec-utive director) and she said I needed to take a mentor class. And, thus began my journey with Cross Connection! At first, I was very scared about who I would be matched with.

Part of being a mentor is just coming alongside someone that doesn’t have the support they need. Just being there to listen and give advice is what a lot of these kids need. Just showing them that someone cares for them and just loving them. When I was matched with a teen, I began taking the mentee out for dinner or for coffee. One time my mentee and I even got manicures! This mentor/mentee experience has really taken me out of my comfort zone, but the more I did it, the easier it became.

Some of the mentees I was matched with ended up moving out of the New Holland area. So I thought I would take a break. My husband and I have 3 active children of our own and are very busy with them. So I decided to tell Meredith that I was going to take a break from the mentor/mentee program. Well, shame on me! I didn’t even ask the Lord what He wanted before I talked to Meredith! Some time passed and then I got an email from Meredith. She said she thought of me when Garden Spot High School contacted her to get

Story from a VolunteerMentoring Added to

Our Family by Jodi Sensenig

A Special Thank You To

WaltmanAccounting

Payroll, Bookkeeping & Income Tax Services

some help for a young 10th grader. The 17-year-old was pregnant with her second child! Wow! I emailed Meredith back and told her I needed to pray about it. I asked my husband, family and friends to pray about it, too, to see what the Lord wanted me to do. After praying about it, my husband told me, “Go for it. We all support you!” I still wasn’t sure about it, but my mother-in-law encouraged me, “Jodi, you have a lot of support. We will all help you.” I knew I could do this!

When I met my new mentee, we hit it off right away. After meeting with my mentee several times, it became clear to me that she needed to have more attention and she needed help with her 2 little ones. So my husband and I prayed and prayed and prayed to see God wanted us to have my mentee move in with us. It became very clear to us that this was exactly what the Lord wanted us to do. God opened many doors for us to do this and our 3 children and extended family were very supportive of this, too. Not all mentees move in with their mentors, but we felt strongly that this is what the Lord wanted. It has been an AWESOME experience for our family. There are more mouths to feed, clothes to wash, and schedules to figure out, but our mentee is such a blessing to our family. She tells us that we bless her even as we tell her what a blessing she is to us…it just keeps going around and around. Recently she thanked and thanked us for helping her. I told her, “I just obeyed God’s calling and He is taking care of the rest!”

If you are considering whether or not you should be a men-tor, really pray about it. Say YES to this opportunity and God will take care of the rest!

Sensenig Family

The CCM Banquet was a wonderful celebration and testi-mony to God’s faithfulness. Over 900 guests packed Shady Maple Banquet Center to hear what God is doing in our community. The evening consisted of an Executive Direc-tors update, encouraging student testimonies, a story from Dr. Hollister and our special guest speaker, Joel Sonnen-berg. Joel encouraged us to live each day intentionally and to invest in the lives of others. He encouraged listeners to be generous not only with financial donations but with their time as well. We praise God for a night to give Him Praise and update supporters on lives changed by Christ.

CCM raised $73,595.85 (which included all of our Ban-quet Sponsors, Table Sponsors and donations raised that evening). Thank you to all who donated generously to the ministry at CCM!

Please take a moment to watch two of the video’s shown that evening. You can view our CCM video that shows our programs here: http://youtu.be/j0s4lxH0Yt4

You can also view the story of two students from the banquet here: http://youtu.be/7dEp4la6YkU.

Please mark your calendars for our 2015 Banquet! We are very excited to announce that Darryl Strawberry will be our speaker next year! The date is Tuesday, March 31st.

Darryl StrawberryBanquet Speaker 2015

Story from a Volunteer (continued) Banquet 2014

In 2013, the community came together to make sure that over 400 students received Christmas gifts! CCM will again oversee this project. If you are interested

in participating by sponsoring a student or family or helping to deliver gifts, please contact office@newhol-landcross.org.

Help! with Christmas 2014

Program Director Update - Congrats on 1 year at CCM!

My Dad often said to me growing up, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. As I sit at my desk and think about these words, I cannot help but see it more clearly now than ever before.

Looking around my office, I see objects that attest to this statement including my college degree that is sitting on a shelf. Never once has a student looked at that degree and told me how smart I am or how they wanted to hear what I had to say because of my diploma. Likewise, I see a bookshelf full of books. Besides calling me a nerd, students have never once commented on all the number of books that I have read. Rather, the only objects of interest to them are the mini fridge in the corner and the miniature basketball hoop that hangs on the wall.

As I think about all the kids that walk in my office it occurs to me that all they really want is something to drink. Maybe they’ve been out riding their scooters for hours, sadly because they just don’t want to be at home. Realizing that offering them a cold drink may be more meaningful to them than anything I could relay to them from any one of those books.

I recognize that these boys are truly craving attention and just want some of my time. Possibly to play a simple game of horse on a mini basketball hoop. Or to have the chance to show off their creative new dunks. Reality is, when people know how much you care, there is oppor-tunity for ministry.

This is the essence of the ministry at Cross Connec-tion Ministries (CCM). I have the privilege of seeing this happen on a regular basis at the Youth Center. I see students happy to have a safe place to go when it feels

like there is nowhere else. Here the students understand that the volunteer staff gave their time to be at the Youth Center for them. Solely so that they would have a place to go and to belong. They know they are cared for because they are greeted with a smile and a free meal when they walk in the door. When they know people care for them, it is awesome to watch ministry happen organically.

I have had the privilege of seeing an 11th grade boy opening up to one of our staff members about deep pain from his past. And another one opening up about never having his birthday celebrated by his family. Witness-ing a teen girl talking to a female staff member about her insecurities and the struggles she is having at home. Amazingly, in the midst of each student’s sharing their hurt and pain, I observe something beautiful. As our volunteer staff showed love and support to these stu-dents by offering advice, prayer, and sometimes as simple as a hug. I realize that I am seeing ministry in action. It is a person willing to let God use their life to touch the life of another.

It has almost been a year that I have been working at CCM. And it is awesome to look back and see the relationships that have been formed, the memories that have been made, and many positive changes in the lives of students. I feel blessed and privileged to see how God has used our staff and volunteers in the lives of the youth in our community. These are ordinary people who are willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus; opening up their lives to share it with others. Because of so many people who are involved with CCM in a variety of ways, we are able to offer help, hope, and support to many in our community in the name of Jesus Christ.

Cross Connection Ministries would like to thank the following 2014 Banquet sponsors:

Thank you to all the Volunteer Staff, Mentors and Tutors for spending time with students and helping to change lives!

A special thank you to the churches, businesses and individuals who continue to support the ministry at Cross Connection. We are blessed by your faithful generosity!

Chuck Lehman

Anonymous Donor

CROSS CONNECTION MINISTRIES

P.O. Box 154New Holland, PA 17557

www.newhollandcross.com

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