Hurt, broken and beyond beautiful!

She hit it floor as the leaders separated the girls, and she sank low on the floor sobbing angry and hurt hot tears. A leader knelt down beside her trying to comfort her, but instead baby girl cried out, “You don’t care, you don’t care at all you didn’t do anything”.  I rushed over and as a knelt down to the floor could hear heavy angry breathing between her sobs.  “Kiki” I whispered, “come with me, we can talk about it. She lashed out through her tears, “No”! Quickly one of her peers come over and coxed her to go with her into a different room to cool down.

Walking into the room I could hear her peer telling her not to worry about the other girls, that she didn’t need them and was cool without them. I sat and listened as this 14 years old took responsibility over this 11 year old. After a while I interrupted, “Kiki, can I talk to you alone”? She nodded without eye contact. As the peer left, I bent close and asked if I could give her a hug. She feel and sank into my body and hug me tight, as her sobs turned to uncontrolled crying. “I’m sorry baby girl,” I whispered as I held her tight.

As we began to talk I quickly realized that so much of what had happened rooted back in to this little girls identity. I again interrupted her explaining the situation and told her how beautiful, cool, smart, adventurous, creative and loved her was. As I reminded her of how much Jesus loves her and all the things He thinks about her the tears slowly started running down a what had become soft and broken face free from anger. I reminder her about how Jesus never retaliated or acted out in revenge because He didn’t have to prove himself, and how because of His life and death we don’t have to prove our worth and ourselves to others either.  As she listened the tears dripped down her face and she leaned forward into my arms “I love you Jello”.

As I tried to hold back my own tears I asked if she was able to receive an apology from the other girl, she said she was. This surprised me, so I asked her if she was going to be able to also over her forgiveness, again she said yes. Surprised even more, I looked her in the eye and asked her how, how could she forgive this girl for what she did?  I was discouraged, discouraged that the last day of camp before Christmas was ending with a fight between my girls, discouraged that there was so much unrest at camp, I was tired and feeling frustrated in ministry. But she stopped and looked be straight in the eye and said, “I don’t want to Jello, but I can because Jesus forgave me”.  I quickly became a weeping mess myself as we cried together  because of the hurt and the brokenness, and because of the beautiful and reality of what Jesus and for the fruition of it coming to live in this little girl. 

You are special

What to do, these situations always make me wreak my brain having to be the one to decide how to deal with the situation at hand. A young boy in his moment of anger chose in that moment to push another kid backwards off of a four foot stage. Thank goodness the other boy wasn’t seriously injured, worst case scenario; he could have broken his neck. This wasn’t the first time I had run into this young man’s anger. Only I knew his situation at home, how his aunt handles discipline. I didn’t just want to discipline this kid by making it obvious that he didn’t something wrong and we weren’t happy with it. There was more to this whole thing then that. But what would my team think if I don’t suspend him? They all saw it; they’ll think that I am a weak leader and that I can’t enforce the rules. I should just suspend him for the last two days of camp, I mean what he did was bad! Somehow this decision just didn’t sit well with me.

I decided he will come to camp and he will have to sit out of all the activities with me.

He was very grateful not to be suspended and willingly sat in the corner where I placed him away from all the other kids. I explained that we were going to do something I little bit different and handed him the book “I am special” by Max Lucado. Read this book, write any thoughts or questions you have on this white board and I will be back soon.

For anyone not familiar with the book it is about a little boy who lives in a village of wooden people who go around placing stars and dots stickers on each other based on how they look and perform. The little boy always had dots because he wasn’t good at anything. One day he meets a girl who has no stickers because they don’t stick to her, he decided he need to know why they didn’t stick on her. She brought him to Eli the maker of the wooden people who explained to him that he is special because he was made by Eli and the more he believed this the less he would believe the other people and the stickers would stop sticking. As he leaves the house of Eli, one of his stickers falls off.

When I returned to see how this young guy was getting along there was one single question written on the white board, “Why did Punchinello fail at everything he tried?”

As we discussed the book and his question it became clear that he could relate his own live to this pretty clearly, so we did an activity. We wrote out all the ways he felt people where placing dots on him and then all the ways he felt people where placing stars on him. He focused for an hour on this exercise writing in great detail his thoughts and feelings. When we finished we went over them together and talked about the parallel of the story, of how Eli represented God and Punchinello represents us. 

I may never see this boy again. He was only staying with his auntie for the summer, but I pray the things we discussed would be hidden in his heart.

Kingdom

“We want the kingdom”

Is the echo of their words and actions

The place where not more tears exist

Of happiness, satisfaction and life

The streets of gold and life of easy

The place where it’s all going on

This kingdom we want

But what makes a kingdom a kingdom

Is it the location that makes it what it is

Way up in the skies

A place we dream of

Containing every whim of our imagination

And the things that we deem as “good”

Or is a kingdom not more than a destination

More then what our minds can perceive

Or even begin to conjure up?

You see I think it’s more than anything we think of as good

Something more than a place that merely host

And caters to us

Maybe it’s a place where the focus isn’t simply to please us

I think a kingdom is in simple fact

A dome of a king

A place that is good because of the good king

A location that satisfies because

The one who knows us best rules there

A place that brings joy

Merely because of the presence of the king

Of a home where we know we belong

To the one we long and crave for

And believe this

Not for a moment will the focus be on us

But rather all on the king of the kingdom

But what concerns me is that so many want the first kind of kingdom

But there is no kingdom if there is no king

And you can’t have no kingdom

If you reject the king

One of those days

Today was one of those days, a day that filled my heart to overflowing.  A kind of day that had my lit up with a smile just from watching my boys play basketball, to watching them fall asleep on the subway ride home. It was full of moments where I was so proud, proud of my young leaders stepping out of the comfort zones, watching them reach of to a child who felt left out and leading others to do the same.  It was full of meaning full moments of conversations, a young man asking how someone could get baptized and then expressing his desire to be baptized because of his desire to follow Jesus. It’s moments like these that I cannot keep the tears from filling my eyes with the immense joy I feel and know. 

It was also the kind of day that had my heart so burdened and heavy, a day where one of my young leaders came up to me at the end of the day and asked me if she could go home, ask I looking at her face the sun glasses did not hide the tears streaming down her face. Without delay I told her to take her time and to join us for staff night when she was ready. Moments later I found out that her 14 year old friend had been shot the night before after hanging out with her and some others girls and had died this morning in the hospital. Blank. I ran after her and wrapped her in my arms. She sobbed into my shoulder and clung to me.

Quick conversation with my co-worker decided that our staff night would begin with a prayer meeting.

As we struggled through the next few hours, we gathered together with our streetleaders and interns in a building we have long desired to use. A building unused, left empty in the community, yet for so long we had desired to use and had been unable. Today  for the first time it was filled with life again, games, laughter and food going on inside, basketball outside. Again my heart was filled, filled with the love of a community support, loving and embracing each other and coming together.

The night was coming to an end as the staff night wrapped up. Hurting girls grieving the deep loss asked to go to the beach. Four of them piled into my car and we drove. Open water, space to breath. We ran into the water and let loose, we played. We splashed and laughter filled the skies. The laughter was healing. We sang and danced, jumping the waves. Our cloths soaked, we ran around, being careless and free. We laughed. They passed me a stick, “bride to be bride to be throw the bouquet”, they chanted. Over dramatically I counted down and through the stick, the pushed and throw each other into the water until one rose celebrating her success. Once we were all soaked we piled back into the car. As I drove them home I was filled with great joy, immense sorrow and so much thankfulness.

Today was one of those days, one of those days that will be cherished deep within my heart.

                           

Cold calls to Warm Interactions.

All I had was a number, 10 digits that represented something I did not yet know.  I hate the phone, for anyone who has lived me we I would rather never answer a phone call. As a kid and teen and even adult I would leave it ringing for someone else to get and picking up isn’t even the worst part, making cold call phone calls is even worse.

I dialed these 10 numbers and waiting, in my mind ran the subconscious scribe I had run through my mind for the past 15 minutes. “Hello”, “Hi, my name is Janelle I’m a camp leader”, and I waited. What else should I say; I didn’t know who I was calling, only that they had an 11 year old they wanted to come to camp. Before I knew it was out rightly asked her where she lived and told her I’d come over to drop off a form for her. Minutes later I was standing at a door waiting for not sure who to open the door.

Next morning I dial those same 10 numbers, “Hi, its Janelle I met you yesterday”. For the life of me I couldn’t remember her name. “I was wondering if I could come over around 10 with a friend, we’d like to get to know you more”, (because that doesn’t sound creepy or anything). “Sure, that’s fine”, she sounded a little uncertain but I took it as a confident yes.

An hour later I was again standing at the same door with my co-worker waiting for her to answer, not super sure how I was going to introduce them since I still could only remember that her name started with an F. I didn’t need to worry; she eagerly opened the door, introducing herself and invited us up stairs. We spent the next hour visiting getting to know her and her story.

. The next day she came out and joined out Mom’s group in the local Community Center and we made homemade pasta together. She is a beautiful woman, a strong outgoing personality and she is very excited to have made friends in the community. As we discussed grace in relation to being a neighbor she shared her thoughts and ideas and I thanked God for the boldness He gave me to make that cold call because two days later it meant she was immersed in a loving group of woman who desire to love and support her as they share the love of Jesus Christ with her. 

A prideful heart softened

I faced the stairs and the daunting task ahead. Pride had again reared its ugly head as it fought hard against authority, its eyes only focused on self, and its rights above others. The consequence had been given 20 minutes to sit in the office. As I took the first step I wondering where I would find this young man. Where He would be hiding, avoiding what had been required of him. I reach the top and glance into the office. There, still, quite with a low bent head sat the one just a few minutes had been fighting vigorously.

I bent down and looking up into his eyes, “Thank you, thank you for being here, I am proud of you, I know it was hard”. I looked deep, wanting to hear the wrestle going on inside of him and quietly asked him if he would like to talk more. He slowly uttered a first word. What is normal a boy of many words and little thought was suddenly choosing his words very carefully.  He spoke honestly, of frustration of anger, of the raw, really feelings mixed of what he knew was right and wrong.

As he spoke slowly and more controlled than I had ever seen in the past I was able to confirm and agree of the struggle he was explaining to me, pride, an ugly beast relentless to have its own way. He expressed his yearning for more and he spoke with a rich understand of the conflict it causes with the leaders. He spoke in quiet, sad tones. “Are you done?”  I asked him.

You see this young man has been a part of the youth program for 4 years and he only has one more week left as He is graduating and off to high school next year.  In barely a whisper he responded that he didn't know. I slowed prodded him with question to tell me the ways he had grown since he had come, what had happened over the previous four years and weather those years had been good and fruitful ones. I encouraged him that something that had been such a great thing for so many years did not need to end on this note. We discussed Romans 5:4 and Galatians 5, of perseverance and character, of the fruits of the spirit and the way we are taught, refined and built. He listened quietly. As we finished he thanked me and I was able to prayer for him before he ran off to join the other kids to play. 

Invitation to join me in the mission of reaching, raising and restoring!

Let me share with you about a nonprofit organization in Toronto called UrbanPromise Toronto whose mission it is to Reach children with the love of Jesus to Raise them into leaders who Restore their communities!

I joined UrbanPromise Toronto for a 2 year internship 3 years ago and this past September I joined them as a full time staff member to reach the kids and youth in Warden Woods Scarborough with the love of Jesus Christ and to raise the youth there to be leaders who do love Jesus and make a difference in their communities that are broken in family, in relationship, in love, that are wounded due to gangs and violence.

Let me share a story with you about Dashawn, he is 9 years old and lives not with his mother or his father but with his mother’s ex-boyfriend because he is the only one who cares for me. His mother in fact is missing and wanted by authorities. Dashawn also lives with his three younger half-sisters, only one of them in fact is the blood relation to the ex-boyfriend caring for these four children.  

I first met Dashawn and his “family” this past fall when Dashawn started coming out to camp. He had little self-discipline and large amounts of anger. He struggled in camp to follow the rules of respecting self, others, leader, property and God and often time would end up being suspended due to his behavior After watched him for a while we realized that Dashawn was actually a very orderly kid, and disorder or not knowing what to expect really threw him off in what came out as anger. 

The leaders at camp continued to work with him creating for him his own personal chart showing each transition in a day at camp, he could then earn a sticker for each transition he did well and if he earned all of his stickers he was able to come the next day to camp and so. In two weeks Dashawn went from being suspended every day to earning back every day of the week! He had been empowered in making small decisions that where encouraged and whether he had a good day or not he was loved and always given another chance! 

Today Dashawn is a sweet fun loving boy, now don’t get me wrong he is still the same little boy but something has shifted. This past week as I was in the kitchen I could over hear the boys in the next room having a bible study and he was explained to the other kids what preaching was, this kid who 8 months ago didn’t really know anything about Jesus. We have also gotten to know his younger sisters and desire and hope for them to be able to come to camp in future years! We have also been able to pray with and for and support the ex-boyfriend who gives of himself to care for these children.

I am so excited about the things that are happening in so many children and youth that I have come to know during my time with UrbanPromise Toronto! For the past month I have been interviewing youth who desire to give back to their communities by being a part of summer camp this year and have a chance to be leaders to the younger kids in their communities and to tell them about God!

As a missionary to this community I am financially supported 100% through donations of committed monthly supports and one time donors! Currently I am need of monthly donors to partner with me and the work of UrbanPromise Toronto in a financial way.  My financial goal is $2500 a month and I am currently sitting at 77% of this. If you are interested in joining me in this mission in partnering with me financially I would love to speak more with you.

You can sign up as a monthly donor or make a donation at www.urbanpromise.com “donate” and “support a missionary”.

Thank you for your consideration and support!

Contact Info:

janelle@urbanpromise.com