June 23, 2005
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January 26
I am having such a paradox of emotions. They seem to pull me every directions at once. I think I will take the easy way out and just go to bed (hey–bein’ honest!).
but I wanted to write to ask you all to pray. Monday and Tuesday it seems like so much is happening! Monday night Neka called me. Neka was one of the first girls I ever met at the youth center. I met her at camp and instantly deducted that she was one of the chosen few that could change the world. there was just something very special about her. we got along, but she was one of the girls that got kicked out of camp. When I started working at the youth center, we became fast friends. she was definitely a leader, and she struggled in many areas, but always lead the girls to look to the Lord. Her house burnt, she had to move with cousins way east, and ended up flunking 8th grade because her mother never took the time to sign her into her new school. She continued coming, but it slowed down. then she spent the summer at her friends house and never came back. she told me she was too old for the youth center and made it very clear she did not want to see me again. I had little birds telling me she was into drugs and I don’t know what. And that was that. It hurt alot. since then there have been other kids leaving the youth center like that, but this was the first time for me. the first time I felt the pain of someone close rejecting God and so rejecting me. But yesterday Neka called.
she said that she wanted to come to the youth center. that school and work and everything in her life seemed to fall through and she needed to come to God. She said that her grandma was in the hospital, real bad. So I said I would pick her up today. I ran around the center elated. It was so amazing to see God answer prayer like that! after two years, I had basically given up hope. I still pray for her and have her on my list, but…I didn’t know. God did. the kids thought I was going crazy because I could not stop grinning. I went to pick her up today and she was not there. I tried not to be pessimistic, but I gotta tell you, it is hard. because I have seen it all before. I just had to whisper to God “it might last a day, a week, or all be fake…but one thing I know, and that is that you did answer prayer and You are working.”
I went over to see how she was tonight and was met by David. David is younger than Neka, but is her uncle (the age thing got all mixed up in their family). I casually asked how his grandma was, and he looks up and say “oh, you mean my mom? yeah, they are pulling the plug tomorrow.” have you ever been frozen to the spot? I had not realized it was David’s mom, and…
they were not there today because the hospital called. Tomorrow, at 10:30am, the family is getting together and they are giving up. I guess they gave up all hope. David did not tell me the whole story and I don’t know anything more, but standing there on the porch I felt his pain reach out and seize my heart. I went in to talk to Neka. they were all very close to David’s mom and lived with her off and on because Neka’s mom never really became a mother. I rambled on about something or other, left my phone number for them to call anytime, and left. You just don’t plan for these things. they just come up on you and you are left with nothing. please pray for them. I want to do something, but I just don’t know what.
Two more big things happened about that also need prayer. One guy, who will be nameless has gone through alot. He has a whole long story just like everyone else. There was alot of sexual, physical, and mental abuse as well as neglect in his past. He has been struggling with alot of depression. He seems to think that he can’t get right with God until he starts coming to the youth center. And so he just puts of coming and then puts off God along with it. I am not sure when, but just recently he was arrested for driving a stolen car. he says he did not know it was stolen and was driving it for a friend. I don’t know the whole story. but they took him to the big boy jail until they learned he was a minor and it shook him up BAD. He has a court date in March and is determined that the judge has it in for him and that it would be better to skip town. He is jumpy and depressed and scared and has all these wrong friends and family…please pray for him. He may get some help with school from the mission, but he has to step up and take responsibility. And he needs to come face to face with God.
I got another call today that overjoyed me! the girl I told you about awhile ago, also nameless, called up. Her mother was in jail, I believe for drugs. It was a lonely Christmas for those kids. Well, she was released and they moved closer to the youth center, so hopefully they can start coming to the youth center again. They are so happy to be home with their mother, but they had to up and leave all their family, friends, and change schools. So this is a big time of transition.
This is from my devotional: “When we are right with God, the tiniest thing done out of love to Him is more precious to Him than any eloquent preaching of a sermon…Human nature and pride will help us buck up and face the music of crisis magnificently, but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live 24 hours of the day as a saint, to through drudgery as a saint, to go through poverty as a saint, to go through an ordinary, unobtrusive, ignored existence as a saint, unnoticed…we have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. that is not learned in five minutes.”
“God does not tell us what He is going to do, He reveals to you who He is.” Psalm 12:6 “The Words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”
