During one of our recent youth meetings Ron, Chandy and I discussed how we need to do a better job of approaching the kids health/not so healthy lifestyles. After several minutes of thought we decided that pizza, tacos and lemonade weren't the top three blocks on the food pyramid (weird huh). It occurred to us that although we were providing a safe place for the kids, fun video games to play, a decent meal to eat, some spiritual guidance, and a place where the kids can talk/pray with us, we haven't done much about addressing the wellness of their physical bodies.
In Corinthians we are told to honor God with our bodies by fleeing from sexual immorality. Why shouldn't we also honor God with our bodies by treating it as if it is really what He says it is, the temple of the Holy Spirit. I think maybe Paul knew what he was talking about in Timothy when he said that physical training is of some good. How can you minister to others or give a helping hand to someone struggling with physical illness or physical troubles when you don't even take care of your own body?
Our resolution was that we need to take more seriously what we feed our kids and we need to stress physical activity more then have in the past, which isn't much. Next semester, after Christmas, we have decided to use one of our normal "hang-out" days as a study hall/workout day. Rather then feed pizza and coke and play video games we have allotted this time as homework and workout time. We will have plenty of homework available, but workout options are limited.
We have aspirations of providing the youth with a place to work out upstairs. We hope to have 3-4 cardio machines (treadmill, elliptical, ect.), a small collection of free weights(dumbbells) and a couple of weight machines. So, what we are hoping is that collectively, by way of donated equipment, machines and maybe even specifically allotted financial donations we can provide a place for the kids to improve their physical wellness.
If you have a machine, free weights or some other physically related piece of equipment (that is in decent, usable shape) you would like to donate we would be very pleased to put it to use. If you do donate something to the gym we can probably give you some type of discount or a free gym membership for a couple weeks. We'll work something out for you.
lwhitmire@hotmail.com
or email me for my phone #
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