June 9, 2011

• Day 9: The Youth Center

  A bus picked up 75 kids from the streets of Indianapolis and took them to a two week camp. We had no clue what we were in for. I remember bed wetting, airing out sleeping bags, death threats, cold pool water with weave floating in it, and duckweed. That was how it began for me at Good News Ministries Youth Center.

  Many of those kids I met in 2002 are still in my life today. Both of the Jasmine’s graduated last year, and are working on college. Neka has twins, Danielle has two girls, Bugg has a little girl, as does April, who is still with Reggie. Lamont is working hard, and I saw Eugene at IUPUI a couple of times. Moose is coaching, Johnny got a basketball scholarship, Donald will always be Donald, Eric is working towards his master’s degree, and most everyone else is my friend on Facebook.

  After camp, Carrie, the female staff, pulled me aside and told me “If you are just looking for a short term job, then this isn’t for you. These kids are used to everyone coming and going in their lives, and if you are just going to be one more, then don’t even try.”

  It took a year before I really felt I had formed a friendship—a relationship that would last. A year is a long time of investing before you see any results. Especially with the older girls. Younger kids will sell you their soul for a game of tag, and guys will joke around in a game of basketball, but those girls? They scared the heck out of me.

  I broke up my first fight. I got hit in the jaw for it too. Time passed quickly as the “Girls director,” and I was happy to roll around the hood in my station wagon, affectionately known as the pimp-mobile. I had to earn the right to hear their stories, to ask “So how are you and God?”

  The friendships grew, but I watched as one of my closest girls walked away—she chose drugs over the center. She chose drugs over me. My first experiences counseling pregnant girls and boys who would be daddies. The first time I received a death threat—and many apologies afterwards. Visiting Jake in boy’s school. Bugg’s mom dying.

  Then Brazil happened. But only for the summer. Or not. Kierra was the first to meet me when I got off the plane, the whole youth center following behind. I was back in Indiana. We started making a tradition of girl’s conferences. Limo rides, my mom’s macaroni and cheese, U of I gym, Golden Corral—except for one disaster with a racist from Greenwood.  

  Some new kids joined our crew: Ericka and Ebony, both mothers now, made the west side route deep, while Wrianna held her own, insisting she wasn’t white, she was light-skinned. Carlos always wore that shirt on his head. We can’t forget all the famous youth center couples: Ericka and Dante, Ebony and Carlos, Jasmine and Greg, Donald and Molly.

  By this time, the younger kids were stepping up to run the center: Erica, who is now one of my best friends, and her brothers Eric, Devon, and Andrew would come to church with me on Sundays. Vladimir wouldn’t let me call him “Junior” any more, and Cedric was everyone’s favorite.

  While I used to be able to beat Tyray, Andrew, and Johnny in basketball—while wearing a skirt—they now towered over me, blocking my shot without even jumping. The kids and I got used to Brazil being a part of my life, asking “How long this time?” each time I came or went.

  Something changed in 2005. I call it the three year mark. After three years, something was different. Not that I was “one of the gang,” but…I was welcome. When I dropped kids off, they said “Lock the doors, be safe Mz. Rachel!” They asked if I wanted to come in. Their parents knew me, and called me Mz. Rachel as well, to my surprise. They came to me with problems, instead of me prying it out. They even replied back with “Well, how are you and God doing?” I was putting in the time, and reaping the rewards.

  The youth center always has new kids. Some stick and some don’t. Tisha and Kenisha started coming, and now I don’t know what the youth center would do without them. Dabrittnay made up for her shortness with personality (I wouldn’t mess with her!), and a couple of other girls who are now mothers: Indasia, Kayla, and Tierra.

  I kept coming and going. I’d be visiting the center a couple days after I got into the country. By 2007, It was just volunteering when I could. I didn’t feel I had the time I needed/wanted to give to work at the center, and I didn’t feel it was fair to a new set of kids to come and go so quickly out of their lives. 2008 I was only in the country long enough to be torn into two by a young girl’s decision to have an abortion.

  2009 I volunteered once a week, always yanked down into a seat next to Curtis, who needed help with his homework. A huge blow on everyone when his brother Daniel, 15, was shot and killed. I watched the faces of my kids as they walked past his casket and realized it had happened—they were not kids anymore.

  Last year gave me a new chance with new kids, but I always held on to my original kids—and their kids. I held babies and went to baby showers. I found out some of our 12-year-old kids were drug runners. I busted my knee trying to break up five guys as they jumped a kid—inside the youth center. I filed a police report for a black eye and strangulation. Complete with pictures.

  I earned the title “Educational director,” running the tutorial program. I was called a thug and a beast. I was told that I must be mixed, because I talk too black to be white. I was loved and hated, by the same kids, on the same days.

  Nay-Nay and Praise begged me to swing on the swings one more time, while Shanique and Honoria were so quick to learn new things. Doodles made everyone laugh, and I made fun of Vontez’ hair any chance I could. I put my finger in Deon’s ear while he played Playstation 2, and no one could forget the new couples: Key’aunna and Airon, Tisha and Booboo. Mark and Aaron, at different times, continued on the tradition of working hard on their education at Eagledale, now called Crosspoint.

  While Brazil has officially taken over my focus, the youth center and the friendships I have made will last forever. For nine years I have seen kids come, get saved, really try, laugh and play hard turn into to girls who get knocked up, boys who get drugged up, and many who fall out of the dreams/goals that they had for themselves. I have watched most of them become their parents.

  Did the youth center make a difference? Was it worth the hours, days, years I invested? Yes. Even if the only result I see is me. I am a better person for my time at the youth center. They taught me tough love. How to say something and stand on it, though hell tries to blow me over. I have learned that there is always more to the story than I know, and that love wins more than rules. And I have some of the best memories and friends to take with me through the rest of my life because of it.

  The point was that we were there. Those kids, and those who are now adults, know we are there, and that we care. Sometimes I still get a phone call. Or someone walking through those purple doors. They know what we represent. And when they walk through those doors, it means they are open and looking: even if they are not aware of it themselves.  It is a picture of something bigger. Of Christ’s pierced hands always open, always reaching, always there. No matter what.

  No, I haven’t seen all the successful lives and changes that I would have liked to have seen. There are some bright stars that inspire me over and over again, but I have seen so many fall and fall again. I have seen things so ugly that I wanted to heave. I have heard words so hateful that I have crawled inside myself and not come out for a long time. Statistics are bleak.

  I asked my friend how he was going to change the world for Christ. He said he wasn’t. He was going to live life with God in his own little world—the one God had placed him in with people, places, situations—and when the time was right, when something happened and someone found that how they were doing things didn’t work…he would step inside that small doorway and share the answer he had found: God. That is what it is to work at the youth center.

   

  • 3:15 pm
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