Not alone

I had only met her twice before but it only took a day for this eleven year old girl to find her spot curl up beside me on the coach resting her head on my shoulder asking me questions and listening attentively. I had the chance during my second week of “vacation” to go along to a cottage with some friends and a few kids from their summer/afterschool program located not too far from where I work in T.O. It sounded restful, fun and so I went along never imagining the many ways I would be encouraged and strengthen through it.

This young lady is like so many others her age; young, scared of what life might do, confused about a lot of things and desperately seeking someone to hold her and talk with her. She wanted to know who she was going to marry and if she would ever have to face divorce. She made such profound comments about being an enemy with people is more comfortable than being friends because she feels more in control. So many effects and fears developed from what she sees and experiences in life, so common to so many others in this world living in protection mode scared to show who they really are and afraid of being hurt, not knowing the One who is more than willing to love, care and save them.

Yet as our time at the cottage continued there were so many moments of God being so evident. Of lying on the trampoline star gazing and being able to speak of the creator of every star being the same God who formed our lives, of watching a sunset or staring in a fire, of sharing our own testimonies and lives, of joining hands before bed and praying together, of opening own lives to each other and sharing the same love that was so graciously given to us by the creator of this universe who love, cares and seeks after each one of us.

Psalm 139

Spiritual Warfare

So often in many accounts in history when people work hard for God and for His kingdom there are also accounts of the devil seriously attacking, trying to destroy the things God is doing through our efforts.

Tonight we had our community night to celebrate the community of Rexdale. It was a wonderful evening full of joy and fun. A time were they kids can be proud of themselves and their accomplishments and were the community is given a space were they can be proud of the things they bring to their community. Just like every year our purpose in having this celebration is not only to bring the community together for a good positive reason but to take the opportunity to speak truth into the lives of many in the community through the kids, their acts or our sharing. Also just like many years in the past the devil works very hard on this exact night every year. He attacks in many ways; through division, fights, anger and other things, to distract and erupt the peace we bring by uniting the community for this evening.

Just as in past years this was again true of tonight. Only two blocks away from our lawn covered in tables and chairs flooded with kids playing on the bouncing castle and adults talking and eating was the reality of yet another shooting to strike this community. Another harsh reminder of the violence, gangs and hatred that grips so many in this community.

This should be no surprise to us at all, of course the devil wants to stop anything we are trying to do to bring glory to God. When we step out to do big things for God he tries so desperately hard to stop what we are doing. The good news is that even amidst the chaos, hurt and hatred God is far bigger and He still rules over Rexdale. Please continue to pray for this community as this is yet another mark, a familiar and yet painful mark against this community as we are reminded of the reality of the spiritual warfare that goings on around us.

No words can explain this kind of experience!

I was sitting and watching the young run through their rehearsal of their skit.The skit was about a few different individuals falling into sin by stealing, drinking and fighting and each of them had a different reaction to the gospel just like in the story of the sowers and the seed. There being caught in sin was represented by chains around their shoulders and they were removed when repentance and forgiveness happened. Close to the end of the skit I noticed one of my 8 year old boys sitting, watching and crying. I went over to see what was wrong and one of the other boys told me he was upset about the skit. I assumed it had to do with the fact that his older brother was in the skit and pulled him aside to talk with him. He continued to cry and told me through his sobs that the skit made him feel scared. Through the tears we figured out that it was because of the chains and he was worried he had chains holding him. I was able to share the gospel with him and show to him that like in the skit when the boys prayed and confessed their sins to Jesus he forgives them and removes their chains. I told him that just like the boys he didn't have to keep the chains binding him very much because Jesus loves him very much and doesn't want him to be bound by the chains either but that he can make them free. His tears didn't end so I wrapped him in a hug and prayer over him that Jesus would give him peace and help him to understand. After a while of sitting together while he dried his tears he went and join his friends again.

I was overwhelmed, tears flooded my own eyes, this little boy eight years old crying and grieving over being in bondage. I pleaded with God to work in his heart as I fled the room to cry and pray. You have to understand I have a huge spot in my heart for this little guy. I picked him up after school every day this whole past year and care so much for him. It was overwhelming the amount of love and desire I had for him to truly understand his sin and why he has chains binding him and to know that God loves him and desires for him to be free.

Ten minutes later I noticed him off to the side crying again and his leader was struggling to get him to join the other kids not understanding the bigger struggle within him. I took him aside and sat down with him again and asked him what was wrong and he told me it was the same thing the chains still worried him. So I asked him why, forcing him to speak what he was feeling. He then confessed he was scared because he does bad things and he has chains around him. I prodded more and through his deep sobs he told me he fights and some times he steals from the grocery store and that he has chains because of this. I asked him if he wanted to get rid of the chains and he said yes. I asked him if he knew who could take them away and he replied Jesus. We then spoke of what Jesus did on the cross in order to take away our sins and chains. We prayed together, he asked that God to forgive him for fighting and stealing and asked Jesus to take the chains away because he doesn't like them and they are heavy. We then spoke of grace and how when we confess our sins Jesus takes our sin and our chains and throws them far away. They are gone, completely gone.We spoke of what he has to do now to try and stop fighting and stealing, to speak to God a lot about it and that he could also talk to myself or any of the other leaders any time about any of it. It was incredible to see the conviction and pain on this little boys face as he considered his sins and the chains holding him. As he wiped away his tears I was amazed to realize just how much God taught me about his grace through this experience. After I led him back to join his group yet again this time with a smile on his face I again had to escape as tears flooded my own eyes at the wonder of this moment, of what God was doing and what he allowed me to be a part of.

PLEASE, continue to pray for this little man as he has many struggles and temptations ahead of him. Pray that he will never lose this conviction, that he will continue to go to God, speak to us leaders and that he will learn what it means and how to live a life that represents Jesus Christ.

He doesn't like me

"He doesn't respect me, he hates having to talk or listen to me,  I'm a crappy leader, he doesn't like me",  statements similar to these and self doubts kept running through my head as I inwardly struggled after having a tough disciplinary conversations with one of my boys. 

These are quite common in our relationship, the difference this time was I had the supervisor take him aside and talk with him and he had just returned and joined the rest of the group. 

He avoided eye contact knowing that it was I who had "turned" him in. 

I knew I had to speak with him before we both left for the day even if it was about nothing but just to get past this silence between us. I didn't know what I should do.

In moments like these I often doubt my own value as a leader. "Did I do the right thing, did I cause him to make a bad decision, maybe I didn't handle it right, does he hate me?"

As I fought to shut up these voices I looked over at him silently sitting on his seat. 

Then he looked up at me, made eye contact and said "Jello, how much money are you bringing tomorrow?"

His face held a solemn expression, as I saw repentance spill from his eyes.

A knowing look pasted between us when I smiled down at him.

I sat beside Him and he continued to ask questions and make an ordinary conversation.

As I watched his face light up as we continued to talk I realized just how far my relationship with this young man have come. 

The fact that I can be hard on him or in his words "pick on him" and yet after his anger and frustration with me "picking on him" he comes back to a place were he desires to be in relationship and conversation with me. Two minutes before this all happened he had been arguing and very frustrated with me for disciplining him but after those brief moments He came back to still craving my attention and approval.

I love this young man, he can be my greatest challenge any given day but He is my biggest blessing when I experience moments like these. 

Please pray for my young men!

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