May means...

graduations!

Since the community around us is quite transitional, we don't often get to be a part of a child's life for the majority of their school years.  However, we have been blessed to know Diana for many years; here she is at a Kids Klub Christmas party in 2004 (pink and gray outfit).  Now she helps teach the 1st graders who come to Kids Klub.

Darrell shared at Teen Night on Friday evening; he spoke about endurance --

something essential in completing school or any worthy task.

Graduates Richard and Diana received Bibles from Aim Right.  I don't have any "old time" photos of Richard; he came to Christ about a year ago, after spending a lot of time on the basketball court at Aim Right with his buddies.  Caleb and others began to visit with him, and he decided to make some significant changes in his life.  Interestingly enough, the last week of school, Caleb and Richard spent several hours one afternoon and evening completing an assignment necessary for him to graduate.  Sometimes being a youth worker requires you to do geometry. 

Lesson:  Don't despise your years of hard or boring school subjects.  God can use them!

Reloaded

The group of us that attended the Reload conference in L.A. over the weekend actually represented three ministries -- Aim Right, Prodigal's Home, and Paradise Valley Mennonite.  While we were eating at Panera Bread one evening, an elderly couple stopped to ask about our group.  Caleb did the talking for us and explained where we were from [Phoenix], why were in the area [the conference] and what we all had in common [following Jesus].  "It shows," they said.

Each registrant had the opportunity to attend at least three workshops and three general sessions.  At the final workshop that several in our group attended, the room was packed.  All the chairs were occupied, and much of the floor space was covered with sitters or standers.  What topic would draw such a crowd?

The Messy Art of Helping Hurting Kids 

While the mass of humanity in that room looked very different -- Caucasian, Latino, African American, and Asian -- I believe we had at least two things in common:

1.  We know a lot of hurting kids.
2.  We want to learn how to help them.

Much of the workshop covered the topic of abuse, especially what to do when a child has been abused, but that abuse has never been formally reported to authorities.  Aim Right gets so many pamphlets in the mail about registered sex offenders that I used to throw them away with barely a glance at them.  I've paid more careful attention in recent months, though.  We received one yesterday, and the offender resides in a 4-plex where two of our Kids Klub families live.  Since most children are sexually abused by someone they know and trust (93% of reported cases, in fact), it is often a neighbor, family member, or friend who is responsible for the abuse.

These are such hard, deep, painful issues that most of us came out of the workshop saying, "That was heavy."  A pizza party and a lock-in aren't going to heal the gaping wounds that many youth carry inside of them; we need to be a safe place where they can share those wounds and find healing in Jesus.

May Musings

A group of us are heading to the Urban Youth Worker's Institute Reload conference in L.A. next weekend.  Some of the workshop options include: The Messy Art of Helping Hurting Kids, 3D Mentoring Perspective, and Reaching Your Local School's Campus.  UYWI offers training that is geared towards churches and ministries that are working primarily with unchurched, inner-city youth.

Teens had the opportunity yesterday evening to join several other volunteers to "build" MannaPacks at this organization again:

There were scooping jobs to get the right ingredients in each MannaPack, then bag holding jobs so the scoopers could do their job, then MannaPack weighing jobs to ensure that each bag contained the correct number of ounces.  Finally, there were sealing jobs to close up the packs, then boxing jobs to....well, you guessed it....try to beat up any volunteers who might be slacking.  We had some conscientious boxers, though, and they spent all their time putting the MannaPacks in boxes to prepare for shipping, so any slacking volunteers got off easy last night.

All in all, I believe volunteers packed 52 boxes, which is equal to 1,872 MannaPacks.  That's not bad for an 8:00-9:30 p.m. shift that also included training and clean-up times!

A Poem about Two Little Friends

A place to color, a place to play

Was the art wall at Kids Klub one day,

Until someone wrote "Andrea is gay."

"Please tell Andrea I'm sorry," the little girl said.

To which I replied, "Why don't you tell her instead?"

"But I'm scared to," she uttered with dread.

"I'll go with you then, but let's first make this right,"

So we colored over the words, dark over light,

And even came up with a nicer message to write.

Andrea was standing with jump rope held close,

"I'm sorry," her friend said, "for what I wrote,"

As she swallowed a great big lump in her throat.

Andrea just stood there, but she seemed to agree,

That friends they'd remain and still would be,

Little and happy and mostly carefree.

"Wanna jump rope with me?" she said with a smile,

So off they went and jumped for a while,

Apology given and accepted in child-like style.

"And said, Truly I say to you, unless you repent (change, turn about) and become like little children [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving], you can never enter the kingdom of heaven [at all].  Whoever will humble himself therefore and become like this little child [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving] is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  Matthew 18:3-4 Amplified Version