Ministry at Urban Promise is all about building relationships, to build trust and friendships to be able to build into and be a part of the kids lives.
I personally find planning a program and running it can at times be much easier then really getting to know some one and being a part of there life.
At other times it feels really easy, normal and almost like I am not doing anything.
Some days it feels like I just hang out with some kids, shoot some hoops, cook some food and have of fun, then I call it ministry and its all good.
Today started as one of these days. The plan was to go to some of my boys basketball tournament. Pretty sick way to spend a Saturday and be able to label it as ministry eh! I thought so.
As it turned out it was quick the distance from home so Jess and I set off taking buses all the way to Thorn hill you may think it is not that far and I didn't think so either but when you are relying on the TTC and then even worse the York region bus it takes a very long time!
On top of that we got confused as to were we were going, we asked around but no one was helpful and everyone was rude and that is how we found out selves standing in a bus shelter for 45 mins in the freezing cold missing our boys game.
I was mad! I knew how much the boys wanted us to come and I really wanted to be there. I had all good intentions to step into their lives and be a part of something that was important to them, so why the heck was I stuck in a bus shelter. After 45 min of sitting there and excepting the fact that we pretty much screwed up and we may as well go home we tried to think of why our day went so crappy The best conclusion we could come up with at the time was that maybe it was to be able to better understand how the homeless feel.
A bus finally showed up we boarded and were ready to just go home. We continued chatting about the horrible day and the driver as well as a passenger over heard us and helped us figure out where to go. They told us were to get off and which bus to catch. At this point we just wanted to go home but they were so helpful we got off and waited only to realize that we were going in circles. Giving up again we decided not even to try to make it to the end of the game anymore and go home. Just as we turned on our heels from the bus stop the bus pulled up empty with an amazing bus driver who pretty well drove us straight to the school. He seemed like our angel and we ran up the block to the school and caught the last 2 minutes of the boys game.
One of the boys saw us and came over with a huge smile and said Thanks for coming guys! Suddenly all the frustrations of the morning and the freezing temperatures didn't matter, that smile that appeared on his face was worth it all. As it turned out they had another game in 1 1/2 hrs so we hung around, talk a bunch and was able to watch their second game. A number of kids in my class at school also played on this team and were excited to see Miss Janelle watching them.
My boys may have lost the game since they had the fewest players, the smallest players, the worst jerseys and not the greatest coach compared to the other teams. There were a lot of difference between the teams and my boys defiantly played for the team that didn't have any money for sports such as this but it was cool to b a part of it and it meant the world to them that they had some one cheering them on!
Ministry can be tiring, it can be hard, it can be a lot of struggles all piled up but some times ministry is about showing the kids that you rather come be with them then be else where and some times its as easy as showing up and watching them throw a ball around.
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