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| A volunteer hands out balloons during Touching Miami With Love’s block party in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Participants corporately released the balloons, representing the releasing of their dreams.Service |
MIAMI – For a holiday in honor of one man’s big dream, one urban ministry sponsored a community block party to show some Miami citizens how their dreams could be realized one step at a time. Touching Miami With Love (TML) closed a street block in the Overtown community and had a party to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. The event was also an open house for TML’s newly renovated ministry center.
TML executive director Steven Porter said he hoped the event would reach new people in the neighborhood, "continuing to build bonds and relationships" that are the foundation of the ministry’s effectiveness. In addition to "lifting up the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in our neighborhood and the justice he demanded for our society," Porter said the block party promoted new ministry opportunities for adults in the community.
Based in Miami’s historic Overtown community, TML, a partner of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions’ Urban Team, reaches nearly 400 people a week though ministries with the homeless community, children, youth and families. "They’re helping folks realize dreams, and it’s being done in an incredible Christ-centered way," said Eric Spivey, associate pastor at The Baptist Church of Beaufort in Beaufort, S.C.
Seventeen church members, ranging in age from 30s to 70s, volunteered in the church’s third trip to Miami since beginning a long-term missions partnership with TML last year.
Having recently moved to a new building, TML had yet to expand to its south side, where many residents thought the ministry center was just an abandoned building. "Their goal was really to attract a whole other part of their neighborhood who didn’t know about TML," Spivey said.
About 150 people attended despite the downpour of rain that forced the party indoors. The cookout became a cook-in, where TML leaders recognized guests and presented awards to community partners that helped the ministry. The children enjoyed dancing to music from a live deejay, bouncing in an inflatable house and watching a puppet show. There were raffles, giveaways and an anti-tobacco skit by TML’s youth leaders. In the spirit of King, who had a dream of racial equality, participants released helium-filled balloons representing their own unrealized dreams. "It stopped raining for that one piece. As soon as everyone released the balloons, the rain started falling again," Spivey said.
TML also offered parents help with income taxes. As the poorest community in Florida, an Overtown family averages a $12,053 annual income, Porter said. Many families qualify for, but never receive, a $4,000 earned income tax credit, nearly a fourth of their annual income. "If you don’t fill out the [tax] schedule, you don’t get the refund. They don’t get it because they don’t know about it," Porter said. In 2003, $300 million went unclaimed in Miami-Dade County, Porter said.
In addition to offering helpful services, the block party fulfilled an aspect of Porter’s vision for TML. "We want to create neighborhood traditions in a community that has lost its history. Part of Christian community building is getting the neighborhood to come together and celebrate," he said.
CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.