Agapé Corner Has a New Vocational Building

For the last three months, Agapé has been introducing vocational instruction in areas such as carpentry, welding, plumbing, automotive, and various other occupational studies. It has been a very positive experience for our older students. The majority of our students are not interested in attending a full four-year university, so we feel they need early exposure in diverse vocations to prepare them for the future. Please come visit and check out our facilities.

We have just finished this great cat-condo. To recover the expense and begin to purchase materials to build more, we would like to sell this one to you for your feline friend. Because we did not purchase the materials in quantity to build this first one, it cost more than we initially planned, so we are forced to ask $85.

Please call Clint Jones, our Vocational Administrator, at 919-698-9147.

Keep visiting our website for future projects. Thank you.

A Former Student in Need

A graduate of Agape Corner recently moved back into the area with his wife and newborn baby. As they get settled in and try to find employment, they have some needs that we want to bring to your attention. Below is a list of things that they could really use, and if you have it in your heart to assist them by donating any of these items or providing money or gift cards, it would be a tremendous blessing for this young family.

• pots and pans
• baking dish
• baby stroller
• microwave
• queen bed and mattress
• shower curtain
• diapers

If you think you can help, please call Clint Jones at (919)698-9147

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun!

We’ve been really bad at keeping our site up-to-date, and for that we apologize. We had a busy Summer followed by a busy Fall, and somehow our site fell by the wayside. Lots of things have been happening here on Holloway Street, and with the holidays upon us, it is sure to only get busier.

The Lord continues to bless and provide for us, and we want to celebrate and give thanks with our family and friends at our annual Thanksgiving banquet next week. The kids have been hard at work preparing for a play to entertain our guests, and there is sure to be lots and lots of great food.

All we have here we owe to our great God and to the countless volunteers and donors that He uses to make this ministry a reality. Thank you!

ServeRDU

A camera crew from the Summit Church came out to Agape the other day to film a short video that was shown during the service a couple Sundays ago. It’s a beautifully crafted video that tells a little bit about what we do here at Agape Corner, and to tell about volunteer opportunities as part of the Summit’s local mission project called ServeRDU.

This year ServeRDU (formerly called Week of Hope) will be held from July 14-17th, so be sure to check out the church’s website for more details and to sign up. Even if you don’t come and help out here at Agape, we would love for you to help the Summit bless the Raleigh-Durham area in some form or fashion.

Check out the video below. Agape never looked so good!

Untitled from Josh Sliffe on Vimeo.

Working the Garden

The kids, including Joshua and Kalvin shown above, got outside the other day to put in some work in Agape’s garden. They worked for about an hour weeding, collecting soil samples, and getting really muddy!

The garden has been a tradition at Agape for years, and we hope to have a lot of success this year in providing fresh fruit and vegetables for us to eat throughout the summer. Mrs. Jennifer and her husband Andrew have been hard at work leading the gardening effort this year. They, along with Sergio, one of our high school students, tilled the ground in preparation a few weeks ago. The next steps include adding lime and gypsum to the soil, getting horse manure from NC State to serve as fertilizer, and building boxes to hold the rows of plants.

If anyone out there would like to donate some knowledge, time, or supplies to our garden this year we would love to have your help. We could even compensate you with some nice, fresh vegetables as soon as they come up!

Global Youth Service Day!

Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is a day dedicated to helping your community and is being celebrated all over the world. The students at Agape Corner have decided to serve our community by helping the elderly people in our neighborhood. We plan to do this by cleaning up their homes, yards, and also spending time with shut-ins.

We will be updating you more about what the students are doing for GYSD later.

For more information on Global Youth Service Day, which takes place on April 23-25, visit their website at http://gysd.org/.

Field Trip to the Planetarium

Mr. Brian’s middle school science class and Mr. Stuart’s elementary school science class were able to take a trip to the Morehead Planetarium on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus today.

The students participated in a activity where they built mini space landers out of things like rubber bands, plastic bags, and pipe cleaners that would protect a glass ball as it crashed to the surface of an “uncharted planet” – all of the designs were successful in protecting the cargo as it fell to the ground.

After that, we were treated to a presentation in the main dome of the planetarium where the stars and planets were projected on the ceiling. We were transported across the solar system, learning about each planet along the way. It was a very fun and educational experience, and the kids all had a good time.

Afterward we got to enjoy the beautiful Carolina weather and had a picnic on the quad in the middle of campus. It was a great day, and we are very thankful to the planetarium staff for being so friendly and accommodating!

A Winter Wonderland

Durham was hit with a major snowstorm this past weekend, and the kids that stuck around this weekend had a blast trying to find hills to go sledding on and throwing snowballs at one another. We even broke out a snowboard and took turns riding down Spruce St., right down the block from the school! In all we had around 5 inched of snow – so much snow that we had to cancel class on Monday because the roads were not yet cleared [Apologies for not posting that info on our website - we're still getting used to having a website that we can keep up to date]. The snow was a nice surprise and an awesome reminder of God’s creative power and majesty. We hope that everyone stayed safe and warm over the weekend, and that you got a chance to get outside and play!

So Far, So Good…

We are now in our third week of holding classes in the new schoolhouse, and things have been going really well. The teachers and students have adjusted nicely as we continue to finish up some minor projects and work out a few kinks. We are trying to instill in the kids a sense of ownership and responsibility over the building as they attend classes in it – it isn’t always easy, but so far it seems they are excited to be there and they have put in the effort to keep it clean and intact.

We’ve had a few new students join the Agape family since the beginning of the new year, an old student return, and seen some others move on to other schools – such is life around here. For the new students, we pray that the Lord would use us in their lives to help bring them to Himself. For the old students, we entrust their care to the Holy Spirit that He may watch over them and lead them to live lives that are pleasing in to God.

Everyday we are in that school and with these children, we are reminded of God’s faithfulness and grace, and are in awe at the way He has blessed and provided for this ministry! Thank you for your prayers!

Welcome

To go along with our newly renovated schoolhouse, we’ve gotten ourselves a newly renovated website! With a blog and calendar and several other new features, this new site will be updated regularly so that people can see the ways that God is moving in this ministry. Thank you for your support and come on back as we work on getting this thing up and rolling!