The Larson Community Group began serving at the Sol House recently, a homeless shelter for teens.  Tom Seagraves shares more about this ministry below.  Each Karis C-Group has an area of ministry service in the community as part of Shalom.  Note that names are changed below to protect privacy.

I made a brief blog entry last week about our C-Group at Karis going over to Sol House and cooking dinner and hanging out with the teens that live there. In case you missed it you can read it here.  Well, today I had a conversation with Barbara. She is the person who is in charge over at Sol House. She had only great things to say about our time there last week. She said all the teens told her how much they enjoyed us being there. They enjoyed us being there just to hang out with no strings attached. They all hope we come back and that we continue to come back. She also said she appreciated the way we were directing them and teaching them how to prepare a meal.

The most exciting part for me was the conversation I had with Fred, one of the teens living there. Fred has an interest in being an auto mechanic. He is a high school senior who will graduate in May. He doesn't really have anyone to give him direction so without knowing how to pursue a career in auto mechanics he was talking about joining the army. While there is nothing wrong with that path, it really wasn't what he wants to do. As "fate" would have it, I have a good friend who owns a successful local auto repair shop and he also is on the advisory board for Linn State Technical College.  I spoke with him this past weekend and he is very willing to bring Fred to his shop and show him around, and he even mentioned taking Fred down to Linn State one day. Linn State, by the way, has a great auto mechanics program.

I mentioned all this to Barbara today and I thought she was going to cry. She was so excited about this opportunity. She was going to immediately go talk to Fred and then they were going to call Bob to get the shop visit scheduled. Do you think we showed up at Sol House at the right time? Isn't God's timing amazing? I'm very much looking forward to going back in March to hang out with these teens. I can't wait to see what God has in store next.