iRobot

This post has nothing to do with the movie iRobot. I just couldn't think of an appropriate heading for this blog entry, so work with it.

Thursday night we had our weekly Bible study. We eat for the first portion of the night, have the Bible study, which lasts anywhere from 15-45 minutes, depending on how cooperative the boys are, and then hang out, play games, watch t.v., trash Rock Island, drink half a bottle of coke and leave it laying around only to forget about it and then open a new one ten minutes later. It is always an eventful night. It seems that along with the planned events there is always something unexpected that happens. Usually the unexpexted event is dramatic or "negative". We do our best to handle the situation in a reasonable fashion. For instance, occasional "smoke-out/drinking" sessions, parents coming over to make sure that once the hang-out is over their child turns right out the door and not left (meaning that if he/she turns left they are heading towards particular people and/or environments where they might get into some things they would be better off not being involved with), phone-calls to some of our kids that when answered the kid walks outside to talk or goes into a room by themselves so not to be heard. Whatever the case may be, we do our best to be sensitive, understanding, firm, and blunt with our kids whenever an event such as these occurs.

This past Thursday night didn't turn our as successful as I had planned for our guys Bible study. With the help of Chandy, I decided to have the goys brainstorm a top-4 list of people they thought were role-models or were "cool". The boy's list looked something like the following: T.I., snoop dogg, Ludacris, Lil Wyan (that's lil wayne) chingo-bling, usher, fat joe and tupac (yea, those guys are both dead). The listing game went just as I had expected. I then had the boys talk about what made these guys "cool' or what they had that made them happy. Money, girls, and whips (cars that is) were atop the list that brought happiness to these men listed above. I then went on to read scritures about men throughout the Bible that had alot of money or were wealthy. We discussed how these riches were only temporary and how God instructs us to store up riches in heaven, rather than on earth where moth and rust destroy. Not too successful. Conversations began to run wild. Girls and money took over the majority of the talk. Lil wayne's new girlfriend became top priority of talk.

After this went on for a few minutes I decided enough was enough, it's time to pray. Seeing as how everyone knows that prayer is the ultimate silencer and closer of all discussions, I decided it was time. The highlight of the night was being able to report that an uncle of two of the boys' in our youth group came to the mission a few days back and asked us to help him get started in a recovery program for drug abuse. The exciting part of all of this for our kids was that we prayed for that exact thing to happen just a week earlier. After we prayed it was back to video games and play time. Without having to say much more about the night, let me be straightfoward and say that I was frustrated.

My frustration stems from my inability to reach these kids. I feel like I keep on telling them time and time again about God, about Jesus, about how Jesus died for each one of them and how God wants them to live. I can't possibly do anything else. I seriously exhaust myself into frustration when I plan out things to say and try to simulate questions they might possibly have when I present material. The majority of the time I just feel like it's not working. Then comes some divine intervention...

I have to constantly remind myself and be reminded by others of the fact that if we weren't here, these kids would be running the streets, just like everyone else in this area. Even with the things that these kids are involved in down here, they could be doing alot worse. I was recently reminded (by Ron's blog) that all we instructed to do and all we can do is present the gospel. We all know about how Jesus talks about spreading the seeds amongst the different types of soils and how the different conditions of the soil either yeild a crop or don't. I have tried too long to both plant the seed and then dictate the condition of the soil. It's time for me to let God work and quit trying to simply force feed Christ to these kids. In a study Bible we use here there is a sidenote that speaks about this. It says, "...our part is to do the cultivating work of evagilism. The farmer must depend on rain and sun to bring the growth. We are dependent on God to bring results from our labors of evangilism".

Well God, I will patiently wait as you bring on the rain and sun.
(p.s. until i start a professional blog or write a wide distributed book I wont worry about proof-reading my blogs and making grammatical/spelling corrections, so don't worry about pointing them out to me unless you want to start proofing them for me)