FBCASHMTATL2010: The Last Days

First, I would like to thank all of you for reading these posts, and giving me so many kind compliments. I enjoy writing just for the sake of writing, but positive feedback is a bit of a guilty pleasure that comes along with it all.


Second, I would like to thank any parents or guardians of the 25, or so, youth who went on this trip for raising such wonderful children. I was very impressed with heir hearts, and their work ethic. They taught me a lot, and I feel like I got way more from them than they did from me.

And now, a recap of the last few days, and a summation of the entire trip. We’ll see where this goes.

I apologize for not writing about that last day. I instead chose to play basketball with Carlos, Jerimiah, Taylor, Connor, Luke, and Ryan. I may have been better off writing. I’m not very good at basketball to begin with, and I’m pretty out of shape. I was spent in the first five minutes, and we played much longer than that.

In doing that, though, I missed out on telling you some interesting things. One of them being a…new experience with our old friend Rand.

He showed up ready to take us to Asian Square, as I’m told it’s called. It’s a shopping area near Virginia’s Community Center that is full of, well, Asian stores. We went in to a shop with all sorts of Buddhist and Hindu items of worship, and general house decoration. We went in to a grocery store that blew the minds, and most of the five senses, of the kids. We saw an herbal pharmacy, and even Rand’s favorite taqueria in a small shopping strip across the street.

But before all of that, he took us to a place most of us have never been. When he walked in to the church, he gathered us all together in a room, made us all sit down, and told us to close our eyes. He then led us through some Christian meditation by getting us to completely relax our bodies (and telling us we were doing a great job, although he had no idea whether or not we actually were), and imagine a scene in which Jesus rides up to a beach in a sail boat, and sits down next to us on a random bench. For some, this was a new and exciting experience. A few kids truly got in to it, and even teared up a bit at the idea of Jesus physically comforting them. For the rest, however, this idea was horrible. Maybe at another time it would have hit them like it did the others, but not this time. This time they were all exhausted from a few days of travel, physical labor, and running around for a few hours with some wiiild kiddos. Asking them to sit down, close their eyes, and get completely relaxed was like handing them a sleeping pill and a bottle of NyQuil to wash it down.

After everyone woke up, we went about the above international experiences, then showed up a little late to our sites and had another fun day with some fun kids.

For our group, Team 1 (consisting of the kids listed in this post), the last day was the best, and the hardest. From listening to the other groups, it was the same for them.

Short trips like these are tough. It takes you a few days to really build a rapport with the kids, then you have to leave them. They beg you to stay, or take them with you, and don’t always understand why you have to leave. They ask when you’ll be back, and that is a tough question to answer when you know you probably won’t.

When our group showed up, the kids were already off the bus and walking home. They thought we weren’t coming this day. Then one kid saw us, yelled, and the whole herd of children turned around at once and charged us. This was our tough group from the past couple of days. But this day they decided to be positively the sweetest kids we’d met all week. They listened to us, played with us, and wanted us to stay. It was either like they knew we were leaving, and this was a diabolical plan by the little heathens to really hit us where it hurt and make us feel bad for leaving, just because they knew they could. Or we had actually broken down their jaded, callous little hearts. I think it was the latter.

And that’s why this stuff is so hard. You see kids who are entirely too young to have such calloused hearts make giant relational leaps in just a few short days. Then you have to go away. You have to look at them and say “bye,” when all you want to do is stay around and see them continue to grow. Your heart breaks for what you now know they have to go back to. Your heart breaks because you know that there is a good chance the callous will grow right back over their tiny, sweet little hearts, and without the saving work of Christ coming to them through Christians willing to take it, those calluses will grow larger and stronger and become contagious like the ones that got to them in the first place.

This is why we must pray. This is why we must go, and be willing to deal personally with this emotion, in the hopes that if enough of us go, something will stick. Some calluses won’t be able to grow back. We’ll have actual kids we can picture when we pray, and God will move in their lives and continue to break down those calluses when we leave. There is hope for them.

However hard all of that may be, there is a personal silver lining in there for you parents of FBCA youth. Your youth leaders recognize the blessing of their job. They recognize that they don’t have to leave your kids. They find joy in knowing they get to “do life” with your kids, as Sarah puts it. And they will. Kurt, Carlos, Sarah, Carol and everyone else who works with the Youth Group love your kids. That’s why they spent this week with them, building relationships and showing them what Christ wants them to do with this love they have. Serving together, and traveling together, builds community like nothing else. Your kids are in a very strong community. You can be sure of that.

You can also be sure that they are a blast in a van. Our travels on the way back proved to be just as fun as on the way there. It was great to see them come together. This trip definitely transformed them. Seeing kids that don’t normally “hang out” become close friends is an exciting thing to witness. Please encourage them to continue to nurture those new relationships. Finally, please continue to do what you’re doing. Whatever it is, it’s working.