Hometown Madison - September & October 2017

“A Micah 6:8 man – that’s how I see myself,” TMac Howard said in trying to describe himself.
That verse summarizes three things that the Lord requires of us;
“To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Those three elements weren’t TMac’s foremost
goals when he graduated from Northwest
Rankin High School and entered Mississippi
State. But he had always had a love for the poor
and a sensitivity toward the “loners.” During
TMac’s sophomore year at State, he spent a
summer working at Desire Street Ministries
in New Orleans where he saw individuals,
like himself, dedicate their lives to love their
neighbor by revitalizing neighborhoods through
spiritual and community development. His path
was becoming clearer.
By the time TMac graduated from State in
2007, he knew he had a heart for teaching, but
his goals had changed. “My first plans were to
move back to the Reservoir and do what every
other twenty-three year-old does,” he said, sitting
athletically erect in his Delta Streets Academy
shirt and jeans. TMac knew that the delta was
calling his heart and life to make an impact in the
lives of young men with little hope.
God opened that door to that call when
Greenwood High School offered him a job as
head baseball coach, assistant football coach
and Algebra teacher for six classes in 2008.
When his first semester at Greenwood turned
into disappointment in the control he had over
his students, he initiated an after-school program
in the summer. Here he could lead daily Bible
studies and share the Gospel.
TMac is a disciplinarian at heart and understands
the value of discipline in lives. Latecomers
to his summer activities learned immediately that
to be late meant being locked out of the day’s
activities. Instead of turning young men away,
their innate desire for discipline drew them to
TMac’s rules and standards.
In the second year of the summer program,
he and volunteers were discipling forty middleschoolers
in Bible study. “They were also improving
their reading skills, working Algebra problems
– doing everything we were asking,” TMac
said about their progress with the young men.
Yet when they returned to school, their grades
dropped again, and they fell back into their old
patterns. “We needed those guys for a full day,”
TMac decided.
Delta Streets Academy was officially opened
in 2012 for any young man, grade 7 to 12, on
the third floor of the First Baptist Church of
Greenwood. Tuition is $75 a month. TMac
Camille Anding
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