Open Mike

What is "Open Mike?"

On Saturday night the Candidates are give the opportunity to use the mike to talk to the whole group. No one is ever required to speak or encouraged to speak. Team members are told not to offer support to any Candidate who becomes emotional while speaking. That support needs to come from the table family. The team will leave the "family" will be there Monday morning. I've left off names for privacy

Today I felt the Holy Spirit and it made me clean. I can’t believe that I have this many brothers behind me. The love that has been shown me is something I’ve never experienced I pray that I can take it with me.

How sweet it is!!!!! My Dad was in Kairos and I was called back to the Lord in a suicide room. This is showing me how to help others the way God has helped me. If you need help call me. All I can say is 3 words 8 letters "I love you"

I have been trying to be a Christian for a little while now, but I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want anyone to see me fall or fail. For this reason I didn’t go to church but I have been studying the Bible for seven years. I can say this now study will help you, and I guess I am going to be going to church now.

I am not to thank you so I thank God who is the one who sent you.

I have seven brothers and seven sisters and they don’t write, but I have a new family and (holding up his bag of letters) they have written.

I was popping pills here, right here in this room this weekend. I’m ready now, I have to change, I have changed. They can call me a holy roller it don’t matter I am going to stand here!! I’m going to dedicate my life to God!

Don’t worry! Take what your got, don’t worry your life is worth something. Don’t give into anger God won’t let you face more than you can handle.

I pray that these 42 people can make a difference in this unit. We have a lot of work to do and praise God we now know how to do it!

I have learned I have a mission I will complete my mission I won’t be afraid

God has worked on me for 30 years. This here is reality, this is no joke! For me to say I’m going to be a Christian is real, it doesn’t change on the yard or late at night. If you don’t have anyone to write you trust in God he will take car of you.

Prayer works I have asked for prayers for my sister. She is dying of AIDS, and I got a letter from my mother that she is not going to work the streets anymore and that she has given up on drugs.

I live an alternate life style, but I know that God is real. I come to church and people are always making fun of me because I cry all the time in church. I want you to know to understand that if you lived the kind of life I live and still know that you need Christ you would cry in church too.

Christ always lifts me in the morning, but I can feel him now at night. I am ready to pick up my cross and follow Him it ain’t going to be easy to follow Him at night but I am clean and I will be His. (based on appearance this was a man who follows an alternate lifestyle)

The Woo done got you! (This is a term for the Holy Spirit based on a talk given during the weekend) The Woo is in the House!!! Being nervous it is easy to forget so I wrote it down, but I forgot where I wrote it. I said I wasn’t going to cry but then I got those letters from those kids. I have walls, I am lonely, I hurt I didn’t think I could break out of them, but a child shall lead me. I can’t thank you, I can only thank forward. I will do that!

FROM A STEWARD:

You guys have taught me a lot! Alternate lifestyle? You are still a man and you are still my brother. How can I not love those who are loved by my Lord? How can I not stand with my brothers now if we are to stand together before God? I have to apologize to you, I have not treated you in 3 Building the way I should treat any human. That stops right now! I am sorry, and I will stand with you no matter what. I can’t say I will ever approve of the alternate lifestyle, but I have learned I love you. I know what I will be called on the yard, but it don’t matter what they say, Christ loves you and I love you and I am sorry for what I have done to you in the past.

I am from the table of God! I’m still lost but I know what do now is forever, this is not a game, I can’t play with words, I have to chose what I am going to be and I’m not ready yet but I am ready to ask you to pray for me.

I am forgetting the things that are behind me and I have to go forward. You see me now looking like this, but when you will see you will know that Jesus Christ loves me. I will change, I will be someone Jesus wants to spend time with. I can never be worthy of that but I will do my best because he gave his best.

It took prison to bring me back to life, I thank God for this walk to help me move forward. I will not be what I was.

When I was young my parents hit me and told me it was because they loved me. I thought that that was what love was. What I wanted most was attention and love. My family had plenty of money and I wanted them to spend time with me, to want me. I went out in the streets and sold my body. I didn’t do it for money but because they would say they loved me, and that they hurt me proved it to me. It would only last for a little while, but during that time they wanted me so much they would pay me. I thought that was love. Others tried to love me but I knew it couldn’t be love because they didn’t hurt me or want something from me. I could never understand God’s love, it didn’t hurt and love hurts somehow. I was afraid that if God loved me as much as people said that it was going to hurt more than I could stand. I have seen a different kind of love here, love that doesn’t take but gives. People who can’t hurt me or won’t ever even see me are doing things for me, kids spending time for me because they love God and me. I don’t know how I am going to do this, but I have got to be in that love, not the other kind! I’m in church because it hurts too much to be alone anymore. I am still a sinner but I… God loves me & I am still a sinner. I’m trying so hard but I am still a sinner… (this candidate broke down and received support from a whole group of other candidates and stewards.)