The sun is almost warm by mid-day. The moon is large and nearly full, and it is a loud and bouncing sort of Sunday, as if the weather has released all of the bound up energy of winter.
The fifth graders sing full and eagerly and, as a whole, more than a little off key. But, we finish, and the little one to my left smiles honestly, “Our harmony sounded perfect on that song.” Perfect because God has fifth grade ears that are still able to listen to the heart rather than the melody.
They ricochet off of each other in the hallway, hunting for the correct laminated card, comfortable, after almost six months, wrapping their tongues and their brains around these Minor Prophets with their crazy long names.
They ricochet off of each other in the hallway, hunting for the correct laminated card, comfortable, after almost six months, wrapping their tongues and their brains around these Minor Prophets with their crazy long names.
In a week or two, we’ll leave this game for an outside one that focuses on Spiritual Gifts, running up and down the hill until they are breathless. But, for now, they throw arms and shoulders and set a safety line, where whatever is in your hands can no longer be wrestled away. For now, I settle them back into the main room with prayer journals and a pile of duct tape, and they get started, creating a patchwork quilt of color that they mark over with name after name. Praying with their hands. With the tearing rip of duct tape and the scent of sharpie. With the way that they verbalize the reasons for writing down these names.
One of them gets my name tag. Another one is put in charge of making sure that the correct girl leaves with the correct parent, jokingly, because they know that the other leaders are watching out for them. Even when I leave early to go stand at a foyer table and talk about Haiti.
Because, in between the rest of it, it is Haiti season again. Six months since we got home. Six until we leave. Dates, but no applications yet. Just this steadying, discombobulating sort of a knowledge that the thing that they have allowed to share so much of who they are is coming around again.
It's Haiti season.
But, also, it's the season for this. For middle schoolers who bounce off of each other and leaders, who borrow phones and jostle for places during music. One of the girls loves hand motions to songs, so we stand in the back and make it up as we go, letting the other two bump and push and circle around these spots that they have staked out, until the music slows and they finally settle.
Play a mutant version of capture the flag where the girls are sitting on the ground, and the boys line up to visually measure height, that spark in their eyes as they try to decide whether or not they can get enough clearance to jump. The eighth grader who can spend easy hours moving shipping cartons from one trailer to another but rarely speaks to me otherwise, gives me the same look that leads to pitch black games of hide and seek in the storage room and sends himself flying over my head.
His leader laughs and does the exact same thing.
This is the simple, chaotic part of middle school ministry, the slightly impulsive action and reaction that lets them be both so much more vulnerable and so much more responsible here than they are at school.
One of the seventh graders spends his morning making flying leaps to gently slam his shoulder into mine and then spinning off to whatever else catches his attention. There is volleyball/basketball/keep-away with a princess ball that has survived long months of being hurtled around this room, and a neon striped playground ball to replaced the one in the gaga pit that they popped last week.
Another seventh grader helps me to stack chairs after the evening service and then shrugs easily. "I want to go play basketball now."
At almost thirteen, simple words aren't always so simple, and this well mannered, responsible one rarely asks for anything, so it takes very little to eke out a yes. We shoot hoops until the other kids start to arrive, and it is far warmer than the snowballs that he has proven himself able to throw towards heads with astounding accuracy, but it means the same thing. You are seen. You are safe. You are valued. You are loved. So, let's throw miniature basketballs into miniature hoops, because this is still middle school, and it doesn't yet matter that Jessica doesn't know how to sport.
Intersect starts with an aborted attempt at a fire, now a charcoal puddle in the whipping wind, because youth leaders often learn best from what has gone wrong in the past, and we would rather not call the fire department tonight, thank you very much.
We pile into the building instead, a smallish crowd of us tonight to continue working our way through Genesis. Fewer kids than we had at this point last year. Missing a few leaders to Haiti trips and work obligations. The oldest of the boys band together to lead a group. Freshmen talk about their middle school years like they were decades ago.
Because, we are well into the grown-up young of Lent, the wild growth and mud and distraction of spring, where they remember to keep the game flexible and plan out their notes for next week's talk, but forget to empty the trash or wash the coffee mugs. Where the month seems to crawl by, but the weeks are an active blur. Where the nights are getting shorter, but, sometimes, the extra light just serves to illuminate our broken places. Where they hurt and they heal, and I would love to be able to simply speak truth in whatever language their souls were able to hear it. You are seen. You are safe. You are valued. You are loved.
Seniors come with more pointed versions of the same problems that my 7th and 8th graders have just begun to wrestle with, circling back to this story that we focused on during retreat. Cluster girls draw parallels between Exodus and Revelation or text questions about what they are reading.
We stand, towards the end, and join into this story put to music, "You split the sea so I could walk right through it; my fears are drowned in perfect love. You rescued me so I can stand and sing, 'I am a Child of God."
No longer slaves to fear, even when anxiety or scarcity rear their ugly heads. Free and known.
And, it all comes back down to this loud and messy work of lives bouncing up against one another. Of occasionally throwing shoulders and elbows. Of singing loud and out of tune. Of standing in the back and making it up as we go.
Of inhaling a little bit of chaos.
It's Haiti season.
But, also, it's the season for this. For middle schoolers who bounce off of each other and leaders, who borrow phones and jostle for places during music. One of the girls loves hand motions to songs, so we stand in the back and make it up as we go, letting the other two bump and push and circle around these spots that they have staked out, until the music slows and they finally settle.
Play a mutant version of capture the flag where the girls are sitting on the ground, and the boys line up to visually measure height, that spark in their eyes as they try to decide whether or not they can get enough clearance to jump. The eighth grader who can spend easy hours moving shipping cartons from one trailer to another but rarely speaks to me otherwise, gives me the same look that leads to pitch black games of hide and seek in the storage room and sends himself flying over my head.
His leader laughs and does the exact same thing.
This is the simple, chaotic part of middle school ministry, the slightly impulsive action and reaction that lets them be both so much more vulnerable and so much more responsible here than they are at school.
One of the seventh graders spends his morning making flying leaps to gently slam his shoulder into mine and then spinning off to whatever else catches his attention. There is volleyball/basketball/keep-away with a princess ball that has survived long months of being hurtled around this room, and a neon striped playground ball to replaced the one in the gaga pit that they popped last week.
Another seventh grader helps me to stack chairs after the evening service and then shrugs easily. "I want to go play basketball now."
At almost thirteen, simple words aren't always so simple, and this well mannered, responsible one rarely asks for anything, so it takes very little to eke out a yes. We shoot hoops until the other kids start to arrive, and it is far warmer than the snowballs that he has proven himself able to throw towards heads with astounding accuracy, but it means the same thing. You are seen. You are safe. You are valued. You are loved. So, let's throw miniature basketballs into miniature hoops, because this is still middle school, and it doesn't yet matter that Jessica doesn't know how to sport.
Intersect starts with an aborted attempt at a fire, now a charcoal puddle in the whipping wind, because youth leaders often learn best from what has gone wrong in the past, and we would rather not call the fire department tonight, thank you very much.
We pile into the building instead, a smallish crowd of us tonight to continue working our way through Genesis. Fewer kids than we had at this point last year. Missing a few leaders to Haiti trips and work obligations. The oldest of the boys band together to lead a group. Freshmen talk about their middle school years like they were decades ago.
Because, we are well into the grown-up young of Lent, the wild growth and mud and distraction of spring, where they remember to keep the game flexible and plan out their notes for next week's talk, but forget to empty the trash or wash the coffee mugs. Where the month seems to crawl by, but the weeks are an active blur. Where the nights are getting shorter, but, sometimes, the extra light just serves to illuminate our broken places. Where they hurt and they heal, and I would love to be able to simply speak truth in whatever language their souls were able to hear it. You are seen. You are safe. You are valued. You are loved.
Seniors come with more pointed versions of the same problems that my 7th and 8th graders have just begun to wrestle with, circling back to this story that we focused on during retreat. Cluster girls draw parallels between Exodus and Revelation or text questions about what they are reading.
We stand, towards the end, and join into this story put to music, "You split the sea so I could walk right through it; my fears are drowned in perfect love. You rescued me so I can stand and sing, 'I am a Child of God."
No longer slaves to fear, even when anxiety or scarcity rear their ugly heads. Free and known.
And, it all comes back down to this loud and messy work of lives bouncing up against one another. Of occasionally throwing shoulders and elbows. Of singing loud and out of tune. Of standing in the back and making it up as we go.
Of inhaling a little bit of chaos.
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