Two in One

So I'm a few weeks behind but the past few weeks have been full of both excitement and heartache, starting with last week, when we had lined up an amazing guest speaker and they totally dropped the ball at the last minute and didn't show up. It turned into complete and utter chaos. The teens decided it would be a good night to show us their "best side" meaning they wouldn't settle down for a lesson, they put a rotten apple in the pool table, they tore open gifts that had been wrapped, they trashed the entire upstairs. The junior kids decided that it would be a good night to just pretend like they had no respect for people.

I stood back that evening and really for one of the very few times ever, asked God, why me and why HERE? What do I have that these kids want, what can I teach them, I can't even get them to sit still for a short lesson...and I realized, that I have so much to learn from them and with them. My heart broke that night, because it was a true reflection of what these kids lives are really like, chaos, whether in their homes, their schools, their neighborhood, these kids live in chaos. I'm not at all excusing their behavior, but I'm relating to them.

If I think about it logically, I realize that (most of) these kids have no positive examples outside of Metro Kidz, so how can we expect them to behave all the time, I mean we all have bad days..right?

For the first time ever a decision had to be made as to how we were going to punish these kids, because their behavior was unexcusable, so we took away their Gym Night, it was sad and broke my heart that a few of them showed up and I had to be the one to break the news to them, but these are learning/teaching opportunities.

So that awful night ended with one of the ladies, I've been trying to reach out too, getting jumped, I love this woman, a few months ago she went away for a few months, but now she's back and regressing, it breaks my heart. I want so badly for her to know the Love of the Lord as I do, the only thing I can do is keep praying for her and showing her Christ's Love. On Saturday when I tried to approach her about it, she turned the other way. She claims it was some of our teens who jumped her and I hope she can get over that (if it was) and still share her life with me.

Tonight, was much better and God did something kind of amazing, tonight we talked about True Unconditional Love and the lies, that the world tells us, well the plan all along was that was the study for the girls, at the end of the night, when we all came together, it was mentioned that the Juniors as well as the teen boys had all talked about the same thing, completely and totally unplanned! So awesome!

The Juniors, had fiesta night tonight, they played Fiesta Bingo, Musical Sombrero and guess how many Jumping Mexican Beans (Jolly Rancher Jelly Beans) are in the jar and then we all came together for a fiesta dinner of Tacos and Queso, remind me again why we've NEVER done tacos before, you would have thought these children had never eaten. One child said to a volunteer, "Man ya'll did dinner up good this week!" Tacos are a HIT!

I love planning these nights in the middle of the month that kind of give us all a break, allow us to breathe, and have fun being crazy and silly!

Next month, I'm planning a spring fling, I'm excited for that :)!

So a few other highlights of the past week:
-Having close to 55 of my favorite people experience Charm City in true Saturday night fashion at a birthday party held in the church basement.
- Speaking at Kidzone and sharing my heart with a room full of attentive and eager 2nd/3rd graders.
-Watching Veggie Tales/sharing pizza with a small group of 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders!
-Meeting Pastor Billy (from the Brooklyn Church of God)
-Realizing that God is so much bigger than we could EVER imagine!

Thanks friends for your continued love and support through this amazing journey God's sending me on!