Your Love oh Lord

Walking home tonight after camp I was again reminded of the painfully at risk live style so many of the kids and youth I work with live in. Today was another ordinary and what I would call a good day at camp but there still so much to remind me of the type of live so many of the youth in Toronto and all over the world live with.
Yesterday one of my kids mom came to church on her own, after the service I spent some time talking to her. I asked if she was having a nice relaxing weekend with her boys being gone to their fathers. She responded honestly as she told me she was happy they were gone so that she didn't have to worry about them seeing her cry. She told me that she hadn't slept in a few nights due to worry and fear of a circumstance in her live and that sleeping pills were making her feel worse. She was a worried mother who was scared and alone We were able to pray together before she went to talk to the local pastor.

This weekend two young men were shot and killed one in Jane and Finch area and another in Brampton. I don’t know either of these men but I know people from the community who know there names, the young man in Brampton was the cousin of one of my kids. I have never experienced receiving the news that my cousin has been shot and killed and the fact that my kids live in a world were they are no longer shocked my shootings and only saddened and angry by them makes me angry.

Today at camp the realization didn’t stop, as I work and observe my youth I am often concerned by certain repeated behaviours. Behaviours that make me worried about the possibility of emotional or physical abuse at home, eating disorders, and bullying whether it be siblings or other kids at camp. These things remind me of the harsh reality that is true for far to many young kids.
As I reflected on all the mess and brokenness on my walk home I noticed the sky and the clouds and for a brief second I missed the country and the corn field and the simpleness of picking veggies and seeing God in amazing ways through that. But then these lyrics came to mind

Your Love oh Lord reaches to the heavens
Your faithfulness stretches to the skies
And your righteousness is like the mighty mountains
Your justice flows like the oceans tide
So I will lift my voice and worship You my King
I will find my strength in the shadow of Your wings

Its hard and painful working with these kids, when I have to talk about hard things with them and I don’t know what to say. When I am overwhelmed with hurt, pain and angry at the hurt, pain and loss in their lives. When I worry about them or have to let them make their own decisions even if I know they will choice to make a bad one. When I am overwhelmed with the brokenness that I see I think of these words and remember that the Lord’s love exceeds mine, that His faithfulness to the kids I love stretches to the sky, that His righteousness is higher then mountains and that His justice flows constant like the oceans tide and so I am able to lift my voice and worship Him, I can find strength in His wings!

Experiencing the blessings!

Just finished the third week of summer camp which means that we are official half way done with summer camp! I cannot believe how fast the last three weeks have gone. Being half way through is such a great stop to be in, everyone has figured out how camp runs, times has allowed for relationships to be made and to be brought to the next level of trust and dependency. 

This past week has really been a week of growth. Of kids opening up, asking questions and sharing their thoughts and struggles. Our time of bible study has shown me just how much my young girls desire to learn and to grow, they cling to any of my life examples that I share with them and this only helps to bring more trust into our small group. 

I have also by now see the worst and the best of my kids and because I have experienced them at their worst it makes their best just that much better. 

One of the big things I have noticed this past week is that because of the growth in relationships the last few weeks tough conversations have been able to happen. When kids act out and when problems have arise there have been so many times this week when I was able to pull a few of the youth out and just talk with them, addressing their mistakes but also helping them look to and think to the future to see how they could do things better next time. Experiencing them recognizing their own mistakes and desiring to be different is the biggest blessings I have from working with these youth. Today during our trip to the Toronto Zoo I particularly noticed one of my young ladies activity working at something she had been struggling with earlier this week. After half of the day had gone by she walked up to me to inform me that she was trying to do better. I assured her that I had noticed and was  very proud of her. 

Earlier this week I was praying with my program director who I also worked with last summer I was encouraged by his words saying how I had been a good leader but this year I was just one of them! Those words meant to me in that moment more then anyone reading this would understand. Today I had to watch a few of my friends/room mates say goodbye to their beloved kids from this past year.  I watch them give hugs, trying to help their kids understand why they have to leave and seeing the tears roll down their face as their hearts break. I understand, I think of how I would be if I had to say goodbye to all these kids and youth that I have loved and invested in and my heart breaks just thinking of it. Tears enter my own eyes just knowing and understanding the difficulty of having to say goodbye and to leave. 

As today ended and I sat on the beloved TTC I was filled with thankfulness for were I am, what I am doing and by the fact that I get to be here and get to remain here. That God isn't done with me here yet and that I can still love and grow with these amazing young people!

Exploring Caves

I had the awesome privilege of once again going on a trip with the youth I work with to the Warsaw Caves in Peterborough. I love the Warsaw Caves, I love being in nature, climbing into holes in the ground, shining a light, and crawling through holes hoping I'm taking the right route to find my way to the other end. I love the thrill of it personally, of the dark, wet, cold hard walls around me, the water dripping from the rocky ceiling and seeing rays of sun shining through the cracks in the rocks. But the one thing that tops this experience is taking kids and helping them explore and experience something I deeper enjoy!

 I had a small group of four young girls who were very eager and yet slightly fearful of the dark unknown. Entering the first cave involved pushing, arguing who would go first and a great deal of yelling. Once we established an order, rules about who was aloud to talk and when we could continue forward. The first cave we ventured through probably took us a good ten minutes to make our way through the rises and falls, corners and tunnels to at last seeing the light ahead! Once we were in clear day light I couldn't keep them there, they were so eager and excited to explore all the caves. One that we entered took a great deal of trust on their part on me and my judgement. About five feet into this cave there was a 7 foot drop which I gladly dropped into to explore what the landing was like. I then had the girls one at a time enter the cave and sit on the ledge about foot and a bit above my head. I then coaxed them to reach across the gab with one hand while holding onto the ledge the sat on with the other trusting me to grab a hold of their waist to lower them to the ground. It took some longer then others to trust enough to do as I instructed but eventually we all made it down! Another cave we enjoyed was one that opened up to a very large almost room like area were one of my girls decided we should sit and pray and so we did, thanking God for His creation and that we could be beneath the ground under neath the rocks but still in His sight and completely in His care.

It is one of my favorite trips to take these kids on, for a number of different reasons but I think the main reason is because it takes them so far outside of their comfort zone to experience something so different then what they have before. It brings them to a place were they must depend on some one else to be able to find their way through these caves as well as trusting the fact that the rocks will not fall and that we will find a way out. It stretches their understanding of the world and God and just creates so many opportunities to be able to speak of God and His creation.

As we prepared to enter into this week of camp please pray for growth to happen spiritually in these kids lives as we start to tackle the topic of “Harvesting what you reap” “You will harvest what you plant. Of you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, your will harvest eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8

First Week Back

I have been with urban promise for a complete year now and I am still being faced daily with things that are completely new to me. After a year I'd kind if hope to get the hang of everything and just have some smooth sailing here on in but no such luck cuz God still has a lot to teach me and so He keeps putting me and giving me new things and situations to tackle which are out of my comfort zone. Taking me past my previous experience and sometimes knowledge to have to figure things out as I go. It really I amazing and so good for me in order to keep me humble and brought low in myself and to find my confidence alone in the fact that Christ is working in, through and for me.

Going into this summer I was excited to be able to experience the same thing I did last summer, yet knowing the mistakes I made last year and being able to learn from them. As well as having an advantage of having a relationship with a lot of the kids I am working with.
Not all the youth are the same, some of them are youth that I have been with all year while others I haven't seen since last summer and here is also a hand full of new youth coming out.
A lot of the girls I have been working with this past year have all graduated from grade 8 and are moving on to new things and so new for me this summer is the fact that I am no longer leading girls who are 13-14 but instead girls who are 10-12.

Now this may not seem like much of difference in age and in my life growing up it wasn't that big of a deal having such a small age gab but with the cultural differences this little difference in age means a lot. It is completely new to me! I am used to leading girls who have tons of attitude, talk back, diss, and are quickly becoming involved in sexual conversations, words and actions. Last week I started my small group with an entirely new group for me of young girls who are defiantly younger, quieter, shy, sweet, full of questions and are actually quite girly which is also new to me. The change in dynamics could not be more different.
Something else that is new and exciting is what I am in charge of preparing for community night at the end of the summer. Previous years preparation for community night consisted of planning skits and dances and other typical talents. This year my Intern Director is planning for this evening and he has a very special gift of being able to see the bigger things outside of the box. Just over a week ago he spoke to me about his idea of having a group of kids from camp creating, writing, editing and putting together a couple page newspaper for
our local community. He later emailed me his ideas and notes and pretty well said go. I was super excited and yes kind of scared, it was his vision, idea and passion and it was my job to implement these accurately. The more I thought of the idea the more excited and passionate I was about it. Wednesday was my first day in determining a group of youth to commit to working with me on this project. It was a lot of fun brainstorming, discussing and planning to be able to make our very own newspaper! I have never done anything like this and defiantly have never had to lead others in it but it's all about trial and error and learning as you go. I am excited to see what will come out of this as we learn more about newspapers, reporters
and writing. I am also really excited for this opportunity for these youth to be able to learn and actually complete something so cool together.

"I am a friend of challenges", I first heard this quite last September from one of my fellow interns. The more I think about it the more I realize what a good quote it is. To be a friend of challenges means taking them on even when you don't have it all figured out ahead of time. To not be scared or hesitant about them but just excepting them. Challenges stretch us and make us depend on God when we cannot depend on ourselves and our own strength and abilities. Something God is teaching me the last couple weeks is that I am not a pro, I don't have this all figured out and I need to depend on Him as He continues to place challenges and new difficult things in front of me!

Bursts of Joy

I had so much joy brought into my day today by one single young boy.

This guy makes me laugh so much, I wish I had a video or photo or something to get

you to understand what happened with him today.

But words shall have to be enough since that is all I have that I am able to share with you.

I was running a game of taboo with a group of kids, the rules consisted of having to stay

seated and raising your hand in order to make a guess as to what the correct answer was.

This particular kid is always bursting with energy and sitting to begin

with is a very difficult task for him.

As the game went he was never late shouting out answers and jumping

out of his chair as he did it. I repeatably told him that he needed to remain seated

and to raise his hand. He was trying so hard to get my attention,

to make a guess and to be seen or heard by me. This continued to the point where

he was literally jumping on one leg directly in front of me, blocking all the

other kids repeating over and over again "Jello, jello I know, pick me!"

It's so hard to be firm or to even try to discipline or explain things to him at times like this,

it just doesn't work, he is far to cute, far to funny and it's next to impossible to do

anything except laugh and hug him!

Summer Training Retreat

A leader is someone who looks at the world and says it doesn’t have to be this way and does something about it!

This quote has been floating around Urban Promise for a while now and with good reason, this quote explains our street leaders! They are young, they start off with little experience but have a heart and a passion for something to change and they take the initiative to make that something happen. For the past four days I was able to be a part of the best ever training retreat to get all our street leaders, interns, staff and volunteers trained and ready for summer camp beginning next Monday. It was second time attending this yearly retreat and I was completely blown away by all the amazing things involved.  Not only does Urban Promise have the best staff members who are willing to do and try anything for the sake of fun, learning and spiritual growth but there was this atmosphere surrounding all these people of love and acceptance without any form of judgment.  Seventy five people and we truly were a family!

The street leaders amazing me, new and old! There were so many who have been involved for years and years and others who are just being now connected with Urban Promise for the very first time. They have passion to make a difference, they have a desire for their communities and most importantly they are willing to grow, they desire to grow! Their lives our tough but they value and appreciate every relationship they have.  Across the board so many amazing me with such an outstanding attitude to joy and rejoice in everything, in the cultures in our communities family is huge, its everything, you always stick with your family and these young adults consider Urban Promise their family and they stick with it!

Our theme for the entire summer and so obviously for this weekend as well was InsideOut  which deals with the issues of our hearts being so broken, wicked and in need of a change and how that change can only happen and needs to happen from the InsideOut through Christ! It is a beautiful theme of redemption and full dependence on God with no reliance in ourselves or our own strengths. This was brought home through the three sermons our Executive Director had prepared around this theme to better equip us to be able to teach others.

What better way for us to being our summer as a team going out to speak this truth to many kids and youth across our three communities in Toronto (Scarborough, Jane + Finch, Rexdale) then to be fully immersed into God’s word, worshiping, praying, competing, team building, laughing and enjoying each other! The love expressed and shown within our team of 75 scattered throughout the city of Toronto is a held together by a strong cord of love that is only there because of the work our Savior has done in each of us!