Youth Stories - June 6th 2022

This past week I had a friend, Nathan, from Seattle come down for a visit. He was one of my previous students and later an intern in ministry with me. Nathan’s going to join us later this summer in Seaside for the high school trip. He came and on Sunday he sat at a table with complete strangers, and somehow found himself at home having memorized the names of every student he sat with that morning. Later that day I hosted a birthday party for my friend Ashley’s son. Her son wanted a large location for a Nerf gun battle and I proffered the church. No one in Ashley’s family goes to church. After a day of foam bullets being liberally sprayed all over the campus we cleaned up and Ashley asked if there was somewhere she could serve in the church. She admitted that she doesn’t believe in Jesus so being a Bible study leader wouldn’t be a good fit, but after some discussion, she said that she wants to come and help do stage decoration for VBS this summer. She’s willing to step into a church because her son was allowed to come and shoot toy guns. God works in mysterious ways.

Carolyn and I went to one of my student’s dance performances. As soon as the show was done she bee-lined to me, gave me a hug, and took a picture to post to her Instagram. Her grandma told us that she was looking forward to this performance in particular because we were going to be there. Carolyn bought a shirt from the show and agreed to wear it on Wednesday night so they could be “twinning”. On that youth group night as Carolyn sat with this student and her friends, a conversation started about the previous abuses the girls had endured. One mentioned how she was molested at 5 by her uncle because she had to go live with him after her mother died of an overdose. Another confided that she’d been raped at 12, another that she’d been molested by a family friend. They traded war stories in a casual manner asking questions like, “Is your abuser still in jail? Mine just got out.” Carolyn sat and listened and asked questions and didn’t cry then because that’s not what the girls needed. They needed to know that they could share these things and that an adult would demonstrate care and love and not make it about themselves. For Carolyn the tears did come later, abuse and evil are hard to not be affected by.
 

I think the fact that Carolyn was wearing the same shirt as her student spoke to an unconscious part of this girl’s mind. Here sitting before her was a visible representation that the relationships that get built at church go far beyond those walls. For every girl that shared while sitting outside against the fading sun on a slack-line (think a tightrope to be walked only it’s not taught), each is planning on coming to high school camp this year. What God has started in matching t-shirts will continue onto the coast. One student, who signed up for the trip told me that she had sent me a text, and when I said I didn’t get one, I asked to see her phone to check if she got my number right. She’d been sent my contact info by another student, and when I looked and confirmed I saw that the number was a digit off. I couldn’t help but notice the name that had been saved under my contact info, it read “Adoptive Dad”. I know from her stories that her actual dad isn’t a stand-up guy. These kids have hard lives, I’m privileged to be one good example. I’ll try to be worthy of that.

This is a snapshot of youth ministry. It’s yelling at the top of our lungs while playing board games, sunset talks about abuse, and most importantly talking about Jesus. This week I went through Romans 15 and in verse 7 Paul writes, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” This is a major aspect of what we’re aiming to do. Accept the students like Christ. Which is to say accept them and their imperfections, accept their quirks, and accept them in order to bring praise to God. I continue to be honored to be a part of the ministry that is taking place here.