These Streets Are Holy

30/08/2024

The roof replace t is really coming along! Done by next week.

16/08/2024

TSAH’s ED John Ludwig used his engineering background to conceptualize, initiate and assist in a project installing a large solar array to the roof that will save the ministry almost a half million dollars over its lifetime. Phase 1 is underway.

13/08/2024

Among other fun at the Workstudy Showcase was a fashion show the kids put on, along with Shawn and son JPop laying it down

03/08/2024

Playing my rewritten Mustard Seed song at the Workstudy Enterprises Summer Camp Showcase. What a finale evening to a marvelous time with these children.

Turning to God first we promote peace through music, mentoring & urban gardening -a spiritual revival

26/07/2024

My >10,000 step a day record stopped at 54 a couple days ago……
Part of what fueled the step streak is what you see going on in this video. Since June I’ve been with 100 children. The good Lord has a sense of humor sending this old retired engineer off to be his messenger. Ala my Mustard Seed song in the video, we are planting seeds,sown via God’s word in God’s world. I prob won’t get to see the harvest. That’s OK, not what I was tasked to do.
Feel free to subscribe to our These Streets Are Holy page and YouTube channel too - thanks!

A glimpse of the going-ons at the Roseland and Matteson summer camps.

21/07/2024

Friday was a super getaway for the ‘city’ kids of Roseland to a small farm in Frankfort. After some initial trepidation, goats, cows and horses were being hand fed and there were hay rides for all.

18/07/2024

Part of camp opening at Roseland Christian Ministries

13/07/2024

A cool thing happened to our ED John Ludwig on Thursday as he was wrapping up the days programming at the Workstudy Enterprises Inc. "It takes a village" summer camp in Matteson.
He noticed 4 people looking at the bucket garden and stopped to talk with them. Representatives from the village and América in Bloom were most interested in TSAH and our youth programming.
As John noted, “It’s nice to be appreciated!”


https://americainbloom.org

09/07/2024

Our dog Oreo made a surprise visit to the Workstudy Sumer camp while Mercedez was doing a program on cicadas

29/06/2024

TSAH’s John and Mercedez were glad to attend CPR training with all the other staff/volunteers who will be starting summer camp on Monday.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to learn CPR we highly recommend it. You hope you never have to use it but…….

25/06/2024

Mulberries from Mr John’s backyard were popular. Someone might be nicknamed Mulberry going forward😝😝😝

17/06/2024

Take a tour of our new bucket stand. Thanks much to the Home Depot Foundation and Frankfort Team Depot for partnering with us 👍👍😇

08/06/2024

Welcome to our summer 2024 intern Mercedez! We are so looking forward to you being a part of camp season that starts this Tuesday in Matteson and sharing your sunny disposion with the children.

06/06/2024

Summer camp season starting Tuesday with our 501c3 These Streets Are Holy. My nice sounding title of Executive Director gets traded in for a more important one, Mr John.

Check out songsbyjohn1’s video.

29/05/2024

15/05/2024

Great bunch of kids we get to work with. And many thanks to The Home Depot Foundation for the donation of materials making those possible.
Team Depot

12/05/2024

Good day for planting in the raised beds at Roseland Christian Ministries. These tomatoes don’t look like much just yet but 45-60 days they’ll be at the top of the cages. Patience required - be it growing plant or growing people😀😇

26/04/2024

A few more shots from our recent camp. Starting with a new partner in Chicago Heights Monday!

08/04/2024

Some initial content from last weeks Spring Break camp in Calumet Park
Big shout out to The Home Depot Foundation for partnering with TSAH to make our gardening program a reality. A total of 65 kids got a planter where they planted a lily bulb and a pansy. The intention was to learn enough to keep it growing until Mother’s Day and then give it to her as a present.
Another shout out to Workstudy Enterprises Inc. "It takes a village" for having us back for the second year of camp
Calumet Public Schools

30/03/2024

More thoughts from our ED John:
With this saying people usually are referring to wishing for a “do- over” from a negative outcome. But what about the times you look back and see the positive guidance that put you places where you were meant to be? I look back at marrying into my Michigan family some 42 years ago. We laid the matriarch of the family, my mother in law, to rest this week. At the time I scarce could see the blessings that the ensuing decades would bring. Positive 20-20 hindsight.
For followers of Jesus, today is Holy Saturday- a day where Jesus lay dead in a tomb. Crushing defeat enveloped them. It would be one more day until looking back would turn positive as they remembered what they were told. The earth-changing positive for humanity was that death was the one defeated.
Perhaps this a season of defeat for you - a Saturday of only seeing negative 20-20 hindsight. But perhaps reconnecting with God’s plan for you life can lead to a day where the looking back reveals a Resurrection Sunday that happened for you.
At These Streets Are Holy we knowing that the mission we serve will hopefully lead to a day where our participants hindsight will see the positive we helped bring about
.

Found on Google from ohiograce.com

19/03/2024

Rather than ask ‘What Would Jesus Do’, why not put out there ‘What Did Jesus Do’. Perhaps start a discussion with someone who doesn’t grasp how the world was irrevocably […]

13/03/2024

“Transactional compassion”.
That’s a phrase our Exec Dir John Ludwig brought up recently. The idea was that if we’re following Jesus’ example we don’t get to decide that some people/groups of people are unworthy of caring about. That only my ‘tribe’ is worthy. That compassion has some feel good return that goes along with it.
And while we can’t literally deal with 8 billion people on the planet, we can still acknowledge each one as a unique creation of God the father.
Compassion - feeling the burdens that another carries - is easy to tune out. Yet it is something all Jesus followers are called to do.
Peace, from your friends at These Streets Are Holy.

07/03/2024

Less than a month to being in Calumet Park for our first program of the year. Some pics from last year.

01/03/2024

Across the world, we all took a leap of day yesterday.
Today let’s take a leap of faith in trusting our Creator’s plans for us. 🙏

21/02/2024

Have you ever checked the FB 'feeling/activity' box for Blessed?
Our Executive Director John Ludwig has a saying "blessed and a blessing" - which is to say we should pass it on. This season of Lent is when Jesus followers take a spiritual journey alongside him on the path to Calvary and then Gethsemane. That outcome - humanity blessed on a global scale.
Just for fun we pulled a 1936 Webster's Dictionary from the bookcase. The 4 listed meanings were:
1- hallowed, holy
2- favored with blessing, blissful, joyful
3- enjoying, or pertaining to, spiritually happiness
4- cursed, damned, used euphemistically, ironically - i.e. not blessed with a drop of rain

Feel free to comment which of those describes your situation.

10/02/2024

Hey - look into this fundraiser from our good friends at Roseland Christian Ministries

02/02/2024

From our Executive Director:
"I thoroughly live in the present, working towards the future but aware the past is what's been driving both of those. This week I've been reflecting on Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th). Certainly one of the lessons to remember is that when a society is able to denigrate and ultimate dehumanize a group, the result can be to destroy that group under the banner of societal betterment.
What is to be remembered is that we can't fall once again into that trap as a society.
Looking across the globe I see this tribalism reappearing, sad to say.
Sometimes it can be more subtle. Here at TSAH we work in communities where the cost of violence is simply a statistic to be used for political gain. Shame on that! We, and those we work with, are in the field to change that narrative.
I few years ago I produced this song for the Indian artist Mani Rao. It expresses the idea that each one matters.
Let's keep our shared humanity in the forefront with a sense of unity. Unity doesn't mean we all agree on everything, but we do agree we are on the same team with ultimately the same goals."
John Ludwig

As a mother, time holds little meaning whether it’s one day or 8001 days when she loses a child in a meaningless death.A pain of losing a child does not fade...

15/01/2024

ON MLK Day we have been reflecting on these words of his, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today".
We amplify those thoughts to say how in our dream we would no longer need the modifier of saying "in disadvantaged communities" when we speak of our programming involving music, mentoring and urban gardening.
Let us not lost our dreams.

Turning to God first we promote peace through music, mentoring & urban gardening -a spiritual revival

13/01/2024

With negative temperatures ahead, how about some shots from the warm days of planting back in July? They will return…..

”The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.“
‭‭Job‬ ‭37‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬