End of Two Years

I have reached the end. How three month turned into two years so quickly I shall never know. How two years have gone so fast is an even greater mystery. I have three more days of spending time pouring into the kid’s and youth that I have spent the past two years loving and investing in. Eight more days until everything will be packed up and I will move out of what has been my crazy, insane, apartment that I call home. The elevator, alarms at all hours and sounds of the city are things I never anticipated to be sounds of home but that is what they have become.

Every day for the past few weeks I have been gently reminding by a few kid’s each day that I will be leaving. It is a difficult task. Seeing the end of something is almost always the start of something new. But whether you know this about me or not I absolutely hate change, I loath it. I cry about it and fight it and avoid it to the very end. It was on Friday when reality started to sink in, I kept catching myself just watching, watching life play out in front of me while standing on the side lines. Caring words and demonstration of love and value from those who have become closest to me over this journey pushed me over the edge into an flood of tears. It’s a big count down, every day another dear sweet children asks, “is it today, is today your last day, when is it?”. How I hate answering these questions.

It is a strange thing, preparing to leave something that I shall be returning to, only it will never be the same. These kid’s will have a new group leader another intern will come and struggle to earn their trust. Yes, I will enter their world again, only I am not sure what it will look like or which location I will be serving in. I know that it will be good for God has shown me that. It will be challenging, heart breaking, rewarding and it will be good. Yet I feel like I’m on the edge, the edge of the end and the edge of beginning not knowing when it will begin. I’m in limbo.

This summer will be a blessing, moving home to my family, getting to know the nephews and niece, spending time with the siblings, hiking out to camp under the stars with my brothers. I am excited, it holds good things, yet it is stepping stone. A stepping stone to provide for the future and to bring me back to where I know I belong, to a city that I love, to a ministry that I rejoice in the work that God has given us to do. To children, youth, families and communities that are in poverty of the truth of the word of God, of whole relationship with him, with themselves and with others. Funny how a heart can be so torn.

Life Abundant

 Abundant living is referred to by Wikipedia as fullness of life. When I think of fullness of life I think of things that bring me life, things like the ocean, running, watching a sun rise/set, lying in a hammock and other things that inspire and fill me up with life. Life is a gift from God and so things that remind me of God are the things that also fill me with life to the fullest. The Bible says that God gives life and that He gives it abundantly, meaning to the fullest extent, this is His gift to us and He wants us to walk in the fullness of life and to live in an abundant state of life. Not abundant in material possession or money but abundant in things that give life.

When God teaches me a lesson on something more often than not He will give me contrasting situations where I experience and learn about the same thing in very reverse methods. The past few days I had a tremendous privilege of taking 7 of our youth away for the weekend to a remote retreat center. We had a beautiful building with a great big long table to enjoy “family” meal’s together, great big open spaces to run around play in and pitch tents, forests to hike in, ponds to skip rock’s in, tree’s to climb. We experienced making homemade bow and arrows, roasting marshmallows, playing sardines and man hunt and bogie ball. The kid’s got to experience sleeping in a tent for the first time, barbecuing, climbing tree’s, lying in a hammock and listening to the coyotes howl. The laughter and fun we had this weekend reached its finest, enjoying such simple and wholesome activities while playing hard was so refreshing. Climbing through windows, drinking hot chocolate before breakfast, water fights, furniture tag, rock throwing competitions and barrel rolling down a hill were good reminders to relax and to not take everything so serious. Teaching and modeling for the kid’s this kind of freedom in experience fun, nature and life was so rewarding, it was living life fullest.

This was met quickly with the very contrasting side of the lesson. Life can be robbed of its abundance far too easily. I believe the devil comes to steal to kill and to ultimately destroy and this can often begin with our joy or our sense of an abundant life. We get robbed of simplicity, of contentment and of enjoyment. Upon my return to the city I was met with such a life, one that had been drained of life, of true living and contentment. It was not only life sucking to be around but leaves little to be desired or enjoyed. A person can live but lack real living, a person can have a good life but lack true abundant living in the joy, contentment and simplicity of the life Christ gives. Life that doesn't need to compete or fight to get ahead, that can value above all else bring life to others and to take time to live recklessly free of the burdens and pressure of this world.

Life abundant to me means cultivating hobbies, creativity and imagination. To explore and to enjoy the things that God has made. To treasure and rejoice in relationships, to recognize in full the One of whom all these things come from and to life in such abundance that others would find such a life as well. 

The difference love makes

 Second day in a row he was waiting for me. It was free time, our bible study time had just finished and he was at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me. “What do you want to do Jello” he asked. I turned the question back to him, he thought but came up with nothing. We ended up outside where I challenged him to chalk out his own city, with a school, church, homes and grocery store. We spend the rest of the afternoon with him slowly instructing me what to draw one side while he worked on the other.

Now this isn't a super exciting story I realize. It sounds like any average day and in some ways it is. Moments like these are common, kids wanting to hang out specifically with a leaders, having the task of thinking of things for them to do or challenging  task to keep them busy and then doing it  are all normal parts of an  average day, only this child is not an average child. His name is Will and he is 11, when I met him just over a year ago he was not such a nice kid. He was never allowed to stay at camp very long due to his behavior and when he joined our program full time last September my days were filled with determining the difference between truth and lies in his stories. He promoted himself as a bad kid and found his identity in how many times he had been suspended or the number of kids who did not want to be his friend. Only he is not that kid anymore, he is now who he really is, he is sweet, excited, smart, creative, intelligent, focused and fun. Yesterday was my first day back from being in Camden for the past week and it had been 11 days since I had seen these kids. As Will arrived after camp he surprised me but running in excitement and giving me a hug. We spend free time yesterday sitting on the grass (which is a big deal in itself since the grass is on the ground and the ground is gross) and talking. We talked about gifts, the best gift we had ever received and the worst gift. We talked about how we responded to receiving these gifts and how we left about them. Then we talked about God and we talked about the gift that He has extended to us, we talked about how we can get prideful and we don’t want this gift because we don’t want a hand out, we somehow think that in and of ourselves that we should be able to somehow achieve salvation. We talked about how hard it is to humble realize how stupid we can be and about how amazing it is that God has extended this gift to us.

As the day ended while I was walking him home and stopped with the other kids and chilled on the basketball court for a while, only he didn't play. He stood beside me and we talked, I asked him if he thought he had changed since September and he began listing the ways, “I didn't like camp I do now, sometimes I am bored but the leaders are nice and fun. I don’t tell as many lies, actually I can’t remember the last time I lied to you Jello”, and the list continued. Will is special, he is special to me but he is so much more special to God. Please pray for Will that He would truly understand this gift that God extends to him and pray that the Holy Spirit would move in his heart and that he would accept Christ. Pray that as he comes camping with us over the weekend that these kind of conversations would continue and that God would use us to speak words of truth, love and life into his life.  

Camden

Broken buildings, shambled

A thousand faces, labelled

What used to stand was beauty

Now empty, waste is reality

Open your eyes to the wreck

To buildings, rust and bricks

But beyond you see, the shine

Of Philly standing tall and fine

The difference is shocking

The facts terrifying

How one child is born here

While is born there

Camden feels like a third world country, it stands across the bridge from Philly and is a city bankrupt, booming in drug dealing and is a city that literally looks like it is crumbling.

I went to visit Camden for the past 6 days as a mission team with some students from Tyndale Collage, University and Seminary. We went to help and learn from the Urban Promise Ministries located in east Camden. This is Urban Promise Toronto’s sister Ministry and so it was inspiring to meet the people there and experience how the same ministry functions and looks like in a different city.

It was a shocking eye opening week, the poverty and communities that the individuals and kids live in are unreal. If all of this existed without God, it would be a place without hope like so many other places in this world.

During these 6 days I got to experience after school programs, visit their boat works project of over the course of a year building canoes or kayaks with the youth, served two lunches to homeless, 26 on Sunday and 54 on Thursday and help to facilitate their yearly Math Dare event and of course any of the maintenance and cleaning.

Seeing the work that God is doing in the city through the different churches and ministries in the city was reassuring of the hope and promises that our God offers. To experience and to see/feel afresh the areas of inspiration, passion and desire to do something was encouraging and refreshing and yet hard and challenging not to just accept things for how they are but to search out God’s heart for each person and situation.

Please pray for the city of Camden, for God to continue to transform the hearts and lives and for His holiness to continue to influence deeply the lives of those who are working as His hands and feet.

The joy of kids, bbq's and sunshine

Tonight was joy. With the weather being so nice there was nothing else to do but to have a BBQ. So minus an actually BBQ we cooked up some awesome steaks, bought some cheese and made some Philly cheese steaks styled burgers. We added some speakers, a basketball net, a few foot balls and 52 pieces of chalk to make a solid 2 hours of laughter and fun with around 40 of our kids and youth combined. 

An advantage of holding camp outside is that we are more in the community which has both positive and negative effects. It can be crazier keeping track of kids and keeping them safe but it is great to see familiar faces passing that we don’t see regularly. Two of my boys from my very first summer walked past tonight with some of their friends, now 15 and much taller than I am they ran over to me for a hug with smiles on their faces still calling me Jello.

For me it was a time of really loving and spending time with individual kids while being surround by many, playing catch with a little 6 year counting every catch he made, we got up to 36. As camp finished up the kids slowly disappeared until we were only left with a mess and two little ladies waiting to be picked up. They smiled sweetly and suggested that they would be able to help me clean dishes if I found them a chocolate bar to eat afterwards. 

Once the basement was cleaned, chocolate enjoyed we headed back outside to enjoy the warm and last light of the day. Kicking a soccer ball around being okay with extending our day. Before long our four formally dressed senior highs arrived back from their day down town meeting CEO’s and hearing their stories. About two and a half hours later we figured it was probably about time to head home.

Tonight was filled with joy and was an evening with a huge sense of presence in the community we work in, but also a clear picture of the sense of community that our camp family is for each other for which I am very thankful.

Cry for control

 “I don’t like that!” she sat bad in her seat with her arms cross in rejection of the words being spoken. She continued to listen as the speaker spoke of our need to recognizing our weakness and our need for the Lord’s strength. As she finished the woman turned to each other around the table to discuss in small groups. Tayler again lashed out, “I am not weak”, she said it spit, “if I was weak I would be dead right now, I don’t like that.” At finishing her outburst she left the table briefly. My fellow mentor and I caught one another’s eye not expecting this reaction from a woman who typically avoids talking about anything spiritual. Upon her return to our table of moms, I began to ask her why she felt that way. She spoke of her past, of experiences, people, situations and lies convinced that she was not weak.

I could hear a cry for control laced in all her words, a desperation of needing to be strong for herself, a fear of submitting and giving that control over. It was such a clear opposition of the truth that I am quite sure that this is an area God has already started His work in.

The fellow mom’s at the table spoke up, sharing their own experiences and stories. As the conversation continued there was such beauty of openness and honesty shared as each woman besides myself struggled with physical diseases and illnesses and battle against health difficulties. Tayler continued speaking her frustrations continually apologizing for her not accepting of the things we believed, “maybe I am just screwed up this morning,” she said.

I assured her that we were happy for her honesty of struggling with it, of my own difficulties of accepting the fact that I need to be weak and humbled before God. We assured her that we had better discussion because of her openness to share.

Ironically our morning session moved on to budgeting through a CAP (Christians against poverty) money course we are doing. A message of weakness and inability in herself continued to be preached as tears were shed. My prayer for this Mom is for her to see weakness not as a bad thing but as a surrender to something far better. I pray that God would continue to use Mom’s Arise to be a place of acceptance and truth. I pray that God would continue to speak this truth into her life and that she would find peace resting in His strength in her life. 

Societies garbage

One of the hardest part of working with young girls is that I cannot change them. I cannot make them stop dressing a certain way, saying certain things or from action in certain ways. I am not their parent and have such little control over these circumstances besides influencing them through love.

A few girls particularly struggle and are influenced greatly by books they read that are filled with nothing but junk and stuff that messes with their heads with pictures and premature images.

I have always struggled knowing how to respond. I do not approve but I cannot do anything to make them stop reading them unless there is a desire for better things. I can ban them at camp but that does nothing for the other 22 hours of every day.

What I have discovered is that there is something that is drawing them to read these books and there is a great need to understand where that desire is coming from as well as the curiosity.  The other day I decided to ask a few questions about the reason she was reading the books. She knows they are not good and refuses to let me read them. So we talked about why she was reading them. We talked about how they made here feel and everything that goes alone with reading these books.

At one point she came across a word she did not understand but told me she couldn't ask me what it meant because it wasn't appropriate. It was such a perfect time of being to tell her that no, I did not approve of the book and I really do not want her to read them. But I was also able to tell her that I wanted her to feel open to talking to me about things. If there were things she is curious about or thing she does not understand I want her to know that she can come to me and ask me.

There is a great need for honesty in this generation. Our culture and society pushes so much garbage at us, it is right in front of our eyes half of the time. Kids, youth cannot get away from it and yet is there anyone helping them to understand the proper place for so many of these things. So they see sex as something beautiful created  by God or do they think of it as they see it on the TV or books or advertisement?

It is not comfortable and it diffidently is not easy but we cannot  afford to not be talking about it and helping kids and youth to understand the  things in a proper, respectful and God created thing.

We cannot waste our time wanting to be comfortable or easy if we are neglecting to respond to what has become a very great need within our culture. Please pray for the scary reality of what this means for many of our youth and for wisdom in speak up and into their lives.