Hoskins Park Ministries

I had the opportunity to be baptized out at the Hoskins Park Ministry pond on a beautiful, Fall Saturday afternoon in late October, 2007. I’m a Forest Hill Life Group leader and my life group has been serving at Hoskins Park since early 2006. My life group has been involved in helping to build this pond that’s focus would be for God’s reflection, fellowship and baptisms.

Being raised in a Christian home, I had never been baptized as a child nor growing up through my adolescent and young adult years. Baptism never seemed to be something that was relevant in my Christian walk until work began on this pond. God started to plant a seed within me and tugging at my heart to be baptized as work progressed on the pond and reached completion. I experienced the building of relationships with men living at Hoskins Park Ministry working on the pond together and watching God work through this ministry. It’s amazing how God has our lives planned out and that he decided it was time for me to be baptized on October 27, 2007. The act of baptism shows our inner love and commitment for Jesus Christ and the obedience that God calls upon us through a public profession of this faith. My hope is that many homeless and displaced men and women coming to Hoskins Park ministry will have their lives transformed for Jesus if they don’t know him personally as their savior. They will experience God’s love through this special pond and will feel led to be baptized through the death in our old self and live in our new self through Christ’s resurrection. 

It meant so much to me to be baptized there as myself and others were able to participate in the building of this special pond in the inner city of Charlotte. The pond is such a place of tranquility in an area of Charlotte that often sees life’s strife and difficulty with the poor and homeless of this inner city community. I feel incredibly blessed by God to have so many family and friends there including Hoskins Park staff and residents encouraging and loving me!

Proverbs 3:5-6

To help participants and staff change unhealthy behaviors an incentive program is being conducted from mid November to mid January. The Health Improvement Contest is intended to motivate and support those involved with the ministry.  It is for a nine week period, November 13th to January 15th. Targeted behaviors are as follows: Weight Loss, Stopping Smoking, Stopping Using Drugs & Alcohol, Eating Better and Exercise.

Participants will keep logs of their activities and points will be awarded for those various activities.  All participants who achieve a certain level of points will win a prize.   A grand prize will be won by a participant in a drawing at the end of the program. See the document at this link for more details.

Help Needed: Prizes are needed for this program. I envision a variety of gift certificates that might be provided by local merchants and business owners.  It would be great to offer a terrific grand prize!!!

Please contact me if you are able to donate a prize of any sort that might be appropriate.  I can be contacted at dale@coachfletch.com or 704-542-3207 or contact Tom Wheeler at tawheeler@truevine.net.

Dale Fletcher…. aka “Coach Fletch”

I would like to thank all the Life Groups that have volunteered to help in this year’s Hoskins Park Ministries Christmas Party.

We will have a planning meeting for the Christmas event on Wednesday, November 14 at 6PM at the Hoskins Park Office. The address is 107 Cromer Street.

We would like to have the Leaders or Impact Champions from every Life Group attend.

If you haven’t volunteered to help, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Below is an overview of the Christmas Party, the Life Groups that have already volunteered, and a list of service opportunities that have not been satisfied. We look forward to seeing everyone there.

God Bless.
Bill Dinkel. 704-488-2488.

Get your online copy of the Hoskins Park Ministries Newsletter October 2007 here.