Together

7:11

175 middle school students. 25 leaders. 4 hours. 12 different activities. More candy and pop than ever ought to be consumed.

And, just like every other moment that is classically our kids, their favorite parts don't have anything to do with the extras at all.

Instead, they thrive on the parts where we pour into them, where they feel seen and protected and known without question. And, I am pretty sure that we break all the American stereotypes with our tweens and teens who would rather build a relationship with another person than take a sledgehammer to a junkyard car.

And, I love that about them.

S*rg**, with his wary eyes that take in everything, tells me that he is having fun, but even winning at dart tag (nerf gun battle) earns hardly any reaction until I ask him about it and a soft grin finally quirks out. That cheek splitting smile of his only makes an appearance once, when we both walk around a corner and he spots me for the first time all night - life pouring from his face like I never would have dreamed of when he was my traumatized little kindergartener with the long sleeves and glow in the dark gloves.

The seventh graders come en mase, always checking with laughing eyes to make sure that I have seen. The eighth graders watch out for the younger kids, carefully alert, bouncing between leaders, trying to learn by mimicry this art of being almost grown up, of taking care of smaller people.

Two girls return to my station to explain a trigger and get help in gaining a small victory over a fear.

M*t** checks in several times though the night, anything from a wander past to just a few sentences, only once staying long enough to chase him through the auditorium. He slows to a walk and relaxes in my basket hold for several heartbeats until I ruffle his hair and he spots a friend. He seems so confident and so at ease that I forget about the anxiety that eats at his heart.

M*tt** runs around with his friends and postures as flirtatiously as his cluelessly twelve year old self can muster. M*dd** and K*r*n come by with him several times to check in, his two female body guards. Both of the girls are giving me that look that says that M*tt** is out of control and I need to fix it.

He causes enough "trouble" at my station to earn himself a few catch and release maneuvers, but it isn't  focused enough to break through what is bothering him, and I can see the girls mentally settling in, prepared to follow him and run damage control for the rest of the night until I am free.

I forget to tell any of them that I am moving to a new work station. 

"Is this where you were?" M*dd** is almost scolding as they come up the stairs to play dart tag, as if the twenty minutes since I left jousting had been a month long quest, and, for the rest of the night, they stay within throwing distance - even with a sheet of black plastic between us.

"I found you." M*t** weaves his way out of the crowd that we have gathered back together for the end of the night and plants himself by my side. He stays there, sitting down with a thump, as if that will prevent my still standing self from leaving. I messed with his sense of safety when I "disappeared," and, as payment, he expects no comment about the fact that it is only the two of us, sitting a few feet back from the mass of bodies.

So, we sit, and we talk, and, when his dad comes to pick him up, he leaves happy again, if more than a little ready for bed.

"You know he's serious [about flirting]," M*dd** takes advantage of the rapidly thinning group to explain their current M*tt** predicament, "when he actually leaves my side. As soon as the girls leave, he'll be back."

And, he is.

Actually, he's back even before that, stealing her phone the moment it registers that their group is the only focus of my attention. And, finally, with my hands wrapped around his shoulders and hers grappling for the stolen electronic, he remembers, for a few minutes, that it is okay to breathe.

It's like we've vacuumed the manic right out of him. He settles in, showing off for me a little, like any boy with a new trick, and they start to just play. Four hours of activities, and this is what they've been waiting for all night. Just a half dozen of us, with nothing more exciting than a stack of cones and a Disney princess playground ball.

20 minutes, and they are content.

"My favorite was the snack bar," Kyr* says, "because it was the only time we weren't running and I could actually talk to my friends."

All night, I don't see a single phone used for anything besides taking pictures or video. Instead, they hang out with each other or work around the system to carve out time to hang with a leader. And, it's so anti everything that the media says that they are, that I can't help but be grateful for the chance to see their beautiful, messy reality.

Normal

This is how I spend my Sunday afternoons...supervising littles while they play in the gaga pit.

When they are feeling particularly epic, it becomes the staging field for World War II. They claim allied or axis forces, "I'm England!" "I'm Germany!" "I'm Japan!" and shift roles fluidly to match the actual game play - much the way that the middle schoolers claimed Hunger Games characters last fall.

When they get bored, we play hide and go seek or take them outside to play tag on the play structure. We eat snacks, read stories, have quiet time, and color pictures.

The kids at school make bracelets and weave bookmarks out of plastic canvas from my grandma. They run up for hugs at recess and expect solutions to current problems. We work together to mediate arguments, and they swing their hands in mine like it is the most natural thing in the world - and, occasionally, like they would prefer to never let go.

We play tag and monkey in the middle and pass around a "cheese touch" to kids who don't cross their fingers fast enough. We talk about friendships and behaviors and choices, and then we talk about them over and over again.

My first graders stop talking about Black Ops for long enough to play Batman and zombies and fly imaginary spaceships to Jupiter and Pluto, even though they inform me that, "Pluto isn't a planet anymore. It's a dwarf planet."

And, it's all just a part of the mass of quirks that make up my kids.

My Sunday school kids think that it is Christmas when they get to sit down and write thank you notes or put together little 'random act of kindness' packets, while the sixth graders still break out into the world's hugest grins when we play chase or my dad joins us in a game of keep away.

I have a four year old at church and a fourth grader at school who like to curl up on my feet, purring happily while they take a "nap." They are content to answer my questions with meows and growls and hisses, only resorting to words for more complicated communications.

Certain kids almost always stand or sit on a certain side, M*tt** just in front of me or M*t** on my right, and two of the second graders have verbally laid claim to their "favorite arm."

J*rr*tt fiddles with the can of nasty tangerine air freshener, and J*sh shoots rubber bands at anyone in sight. M*k** pounces me from the back and Cr**g*n from the side. N*ncy and Tyl*r try to sneak up on me, and D*n**l and Tr*v*s fade as quiet as they can to follow in my shadow.

They are bizarrely unique, which, I suppose, in the great mass of humanity, just makes them completely normal. 

Least of These: God's Story

Last week, we read about how God's people get to be incarnational, how they get to live like the people that they are living with, just like Jesus did. But, what if the people that we are living with have problems? What if they are hungry or thirsty or sick? What if someone is being unfair to them? What do you think that God's people are supposed to do then?

Yep. You guys are pretty smart. Not everybody has always thought that that was so simple. But, Jesus thought that it was important. Jesus thought that it was so important that He told a story about it. This is part of what He told the people who were listening.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)

When Jesus was incarnational, He used his words to tell people about God's story, his own story, but He also used His actions to show that God's story really was true. He fed people when they were hungry, not by making bread fall down from the sky, like in the Old Testament, but by finding out what the people he was with did have, and then making that little bit more...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.

Quiet

Spring break. Sunshine. Early morning calm.

Common prayer, and a Creole learning app. Projects open. Scrivener. Open Office. iPhoto. A Blogger tab that is never finished.

Perspectives. Sunday School. Haiti preparations. SOLD.

A hammock swinging gently. Erasing Hell. Are Women People? Easy Readings in Spanish. Late afternoon quiet. Evening breeze.

He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Conversations about materialism and Haiti; beauty, creativity, and fashion. Because Haiti has informed every aspect of these kids, the way that the Rez once shaped our world.

Supernatural. A purring cat. Pen and paper. Journal.

Prayer. Written reminders of his faithfulness. Sunrise. Sunset. Desert. Emails and Facebook.

Life, this week, is quiet.

There is space for learning Creole, for new words and old words to swim together in my head, tenses and pronouns and basic vocabulary. Because, if I am going to encourage the kids to learn some Creole before we go, then I need to learn it too. More this year than last year. More last year than the year before.

It's surprisingly simple, this language. Except for when it's not. When the five forms of the same word make the difference between 'a' and 'an' seem like child's play. When I can't quite force my mouth to make the sounds, to drop the final 'n,' but, not always, and never completely.

Instead, it hovers in the empty space between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, surrounded by unfamiliar vowels that are almost phonetic, but not quite.

It rains, and, for the first time this year, the rain is warm, like even the sky has finally decided that summer is slowly on its way.

Incarnation: God's Story

This week, we are going to go back to some verses straight out of the Bible, because there is a big word that I think we need to understand. It is an important part of God's story, a part that sounds pretty simple, but means big things that can be easy to forget.

The Apostle John wrote this down as a way of starting out his story about Jesus:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

The Word that John is writing about is another name for Jesus. Jesus became flesh. Jesus became human. Jesus, who is God, became one of us, and He lived here, on earth, just like all of the other people around Him. God lived like a person. God was a person!

And, John says that the only way that people can ever really understand God's kindness and truth is by looking at Jesus, Jesus who was just like us.

Now, Jesus wasn't just like you or just like me. He lived in a different time and place, where people dressed and spoke and did things differently than we do here. But, He was just like the people that He lived with, and I think that that is the important part. Jesus was a person just like the people around him. And, we have a long word for that kind of 'becoming a person like the people around you.' We call that 'incarnation.' Jesus lived an incarnational life; Jesus lived as a person just like the people around Him....

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.

Spinning Our Wheels, Slowly Getting Somewhere

Lent. Spring. 

For my kids, it is a time for growth. A time for change. A time for words. But, growth is hard work. Change can be frightening. And, there are some things that they still do not have the words for.

So, they come exhausted and wanting comfort. They come with worry in their eyes and fear tight in their shoulders. The words hover on their lips, waiting until we can jar them loose. Behaviors seem like they are regressing, and I find that I have to remind myself that this is only another side effect of massive growth.

Fifth graders go from too cool for anything to suddenly willing to play Simon Says. Third graders switch in milliseconds from bossy yelling to tears over a parent who isn't there yet to pick them up. Freshmen shoot rubber bands during the talk and lose all sense of what is and is not a wise use of paperclips or air freshener or fire or anything else that their hands think to touch. And, sixth graders, sixth graders are a tangled knot of twelve year old that would take weeks to begin to explain. 

M*t** is newly affixed to my side, no longer in the stage where we could only talk in the octagon, before most of the other kids showed up.

He runs into my back until I chase him, weaving through clumps of students and past the leader who is his best friend's dad, and back again, until his counselor from winter camp catches him and hands him over to be "tortured." 

I release him, and we do it again, and again. Always, eventually, he is back, positioning himself on my right, slightly forwards, where he has stood and sat since kindergarten.

Last week there was blood in the octagon when I wasn't there to see. This week, he asks for the bandaids before I disappear to a leaders' meeting, slipping them back into my pocket during music. Music means bopping between adults and groups of friends, but, by the lesson, he has staked out his place by my side. On the right. Slightly forwards.

K*r*n is close to my left, connected at the kneecap or elbow for most of the first hour of the service. *nn* is sharing M*t**'s spot on my right, curved around so that we form a circle in the midst of lines of students. A circle, because S*rg** is behind me, my "sneaky" little one who lights up like a sunrise when I pass the test and notice him there, proving once again that I pay enough attention for him to relax.

M*tt** is six inches in front of me, ostensibly sitting with his friends and "not with us." His head whips around to share thoughts when he forgets himself, though. My phone makes its way up to his hands. A mischievous smile crawls across his face. And, eventually, he melts back, using my flexed foot as a backrest.

There are seventh graders who catch my attention before small groups, wanting to be heard and seen, as if suddenly remembering that, back in elementary school, they used to sit like this too, gathered in tight and all talking to me at once.

There are high schoolers hovering in and out of proximity and littles who just want to run until they land in sweaty heaps in our arms and on our laps.

We're spinning our wheels a little in the fresh mud of spring. They are tired and afraid and uncomfortable. They are growing. But, every touch, every catch, every smile, and every snippet of conversation throws another stick into the mud, and we are slowly gaining traction.

It might mean holding conversations at a half shout, while running full speed through a room full of people. And, it might mean letting them peg me with playground balls - or having my dad join in on pegging them back, like a multidirectional game of Kati. But, bit by bit, we are moving moving forwards.

Slowly getting to wherever it is that God is taking us.

Listen: God's Story

Over the years, Jesus' followers have learned lots of ways to tell God's story. They have learned how to translate the Bible into other languages, so that people can read God's story for themselves. And, they've also learned how to tell God's story without writing down any words at all.

You've probably seen one of those ways of telling the story without writing. It's called the Wordless Book. You might have gotten it painted on your face at the fair or made a bracelet out of it in Sunday school. The Wordless Book uses colors to tell God's story.

Black is for sin, the way that our hearts look before Jesus. Red is for Jesus' blood when he died on the cross. White is for the color of our clean hearts after we believe in Jesus and what he did for us. Green is for growing as Christians by learning more of God's story, praying, and trusting the Holy Spirit to help us be brave and patient and kind. Yellow is for the streets of gold, where we get to be with Jesus forever.

It's a pretty easy thing to remember, and it has been a way that Jesus' followers have told God's story, over the last hundred fifty years or so, to kids or grown ups who maybe don't know how to read or don't want to read.

Jesus' followers have also learned – again – how to tell God's story the way that it was originally told. They have learned how to start at the very beginning, with Adam and Eve and use just their words to tell the story, one little piece at a time, almost like actors in a play that you come back to again and again. Actually, it's a little like the way that your Sunday school story tellers come in each week and tell you a little more about Jesus, but without any of the fancy or silly parts. This way is just God's story...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.

Prayer and Lightsabers

Sometimes, a lightsaber is simply the only way to explain things.

Like, when you are given five minutes to talk to 3rd-5th graders about prayer and intercession and why on earth we do this weird talking to God thing.

Because, the world to third grade eyes is a totally different place than the world that fifth graders inhabit, especially this close to spring, when they can feel middle school chomping at their heels and muddling everything that they thought that they once knew.

Here, in this state and this country, though, Star Wars is a language that we (nearly) all speak.

So, we start by defining intercession, comparing it to getting a duty when a friend is hurt on the playground. There are plenty of things that we could do to help or encourage or show mercy to our friend, and those are all good God things. But, the most important thing is that we intercede for them, that we carry a message to tell someone that they are hurt.

At church, I explain, we talk about carrying those messages from our friends to God, and from God to our friends. The fancy word for it is intercession, but it really just means praying for people.

Our God is amazing, though, I tell them, and their eyes follow as I go to pick up a bag from the corner. God doesn't just ask us to pray for people. He gives us some cool tools to help make that job easier.

"If I give this entire bag of tools to one kid, and tell him to defend his friend, would that be a very effective way to use them?"

"No." They shake their heads, and I take the bag back from the third grader I handed it to, leaving him standing in front of the friend who is sitting on the floor.

"Exactly. And, God knows what He's doing. He gives different tools to different people."

I pull the first lightsaber out of the bag and swing it open, turning so that they can see the label. "The first tool is a really simple one. If we talk to our friends, we can find out what's going on in their lives and how to pray for them."

The red lightsaber goes to him, and the next one comes out of the bag, hands from all three grades up in the air, volunteering to come up. And, they do it beautifully, each kid coming up silently, without wasting precious seconds on giving them instructions. Instead, they fan out around the fourth grader on the ground, creating a diorama that I could not have arranged more perfectly. 

I have given them lightsabers, and they know how to stand with these.

"Discernment is a tool that a lot of times means knowing things in your gut, God helping you to pay attention and notice little details that other people might miss."

Blue lightsaber.

"A word of knowledge is when God talks back and tells you something about that person, so that you know how to pray for them even if they didn't tell you."

Obi-Wan's blue blade.

"A word of wisdom can be God talking back and giving you an idea of how to fix the problem or telling you what needs to happen."

Mace Windu's purple saber.

"And, prophecy, sometimes seems like a funny little tool. It is when God tells you that something is going to happen before it happens."

Yoda's short, green lightsaber.

"Now," we all turn to look at the scene in front of us, and I can hear the hum of Obi-Wan's blade where I hit the power button opening it, "what do you think? Could much get through that to Haley?"

"No!" 

They get it, but I explain anyways, wanting to cement this in their memories.

"If Satan wanted to get at her, do you think that they could do a pretty good job of defending her?"

"Yes!"

"Exactly. That's why we share prayer requests and pray for each other, guys. Because, the more people are praying, the more people that puts up here with all of their different tools."

My time is over. It's short. Too short to go into any detail. And, we're moving on to the next thing. There are a half dozen speakers today, basketball relays to be run in the gym, shoes to be taken off and put on, and parking lots to be crossed. We've inundated them with information.

"Guess what we did in Sunday School today?" One of the fifth graders walks with his little brother after service. "We got to use lightsabers."

Unreached: God's Story

Over the last couple of weeks, we've read about some people who the Holy Spirit used to help change that way that Jesus' followers told God's story. They worked hard, and they were a blessing to a lot of people. Do you remember that word?

Being a blessing meant that they showed the world how good and how big God is. It is the job that God first gave to Eve and Adam and then to all of his people, including me and you. And, the job of being a blessing to the whole world isn't over yet.

But, me and you, we're pretty lucky. Do you know why?

You're right. We're lucky for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is that we are alive right now, in 2013. Because, in 2013, God's people have a pretty good idea of where in the world Jesus' followers have and haven't gone to be a blessing. In fact, we even have a list of all the places that we still need to go! We call that list a list of Unreached People Groups. Can you say that?

Unreached people groups, that's right. An unreached people group is a group of people, who all speak the same language and have the same ways of doing life, who don't have enough – or even any! - people like them to tell them about how big and how good God is. There is no one like them who knows God's story and can be a blessing.

They need someone who isn't like them to come and be a blessing, just like Peter and the rest of Jesus' followers learned to do way back in the book of Acts. An unreached people group needs someone to come from somewhere else, another city, another country, even another continent, to tell them God's story in a way that they can understand. (We'll talk another week about what that type of story telling might look like.)

Now, lots of Jesus' followers want to be a blessing. In fact, they all should. But, not all of Jesus' followers like the idea of being a blessing to someone so far away or so different from them. So, instead of spending money and time and resources to go to unreached people groups, a lot of the time and money and resources that God's people give away, they give to people who are close by and pretty much the same as they are...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.

Do You Love Us?

(Pictured: Perspective's kids)

"Ms. Jessica?" One of my new first graders at school looks up at me through thick glasses, brown eyes curious about everything. "Do you love us?"

This is only the fourth day that he's seen my face, and, already he's asking.

Even though we change it into the 'like' word for school, the answer, of course, is yes. Because, I really do love them, this rough and tumble school full of kids from their trailer parks and cheap apartments and  houses too full with unrelated people or ever changing lists of "relatives."

They are sassy and desperate, fiercely protective and always bubbling just on the edge of disaster.

These are the kids who were limp with relief at the re-election of the President, because a crackdown on immigration laws would mean brothers, uncles, cousins, and fathers sent back to Mexico. These are the families where it is normal for an eight-year-old to have a mom who is twenty-three or a ten-year-old to have a mom who is twenty-six.

Long weekends are met with trepidation, and the quiet relief when they get back from breaks is palpable. They get into premeditated fights on the playground and in alleyways after school. They drink at home and watch Chucky in kindergarten.

I love this sweet and eager school full of kids who light up at the chance to make a craft project and dance the Sid Shuffle for me during lunch.

These are the kids who make me cootie catchers and pounce me with hugs during recess, who want to play tag and soccer and think that the coolest thing in the world is to carry my backpack. These are the families where older siblings save treats for younger ones and they bounce up and down with excitement over a new baby being born.

Cucumbers are the greatest vegetable ever invented and no one makes enchiladas better than each of their individual moms. The fifth graders devour these books and talk about them animatedly during lunch. They steal them off of each other's desks for long enough to read the next page and watch the (made for Australian TV) movies during library time.

They are all of the above and a thousand times more. Complicated. Testy. Brilliant.

Yes, I love them.

There is nothing surprising to that. I could say the same about all of the kids that I work with. But, it is important to this wiggly little first grader in his Cougars jacket. Important enough to ask.

Growing Up

We sit on the floor at church for both 4th grade and middle school Sunday school, scattered in clumps, some weeks curled closer than others. Each week my phone comes out of my pocket, and, every week, in middle school, we close our eyes to pray and I open them to find a small hand just hovering, waiting for an inconspicuous moment in the lesson to reach out and borrow it.

They pass it down the line, back and forth, until it has been disabled for an hour, and their eyes spark with silent laughter, as pleased as if they had just invented the first joke.

It's simple, silly, one of those pointless things that happens purely because I can see no reason to make it not happen. It happens once, and then twice, and then folds into the rhythm of our dance. And, we add another layer to the feeling that they belong here. We add another line to their histories.

And, slowly, they start to open up, to talk about the things that I know, but that the other leaders have never heard before. We ask about broken promises and their hands shoot up, because, yes, we actually raise our hands this year, instead of all talking at once. The words spill from their lips for just a few short minutes: words about moms who were supposed to be better after a brain surgery but aren't, not the way that they thought, at least; words about moves that were supposed to be to Tennessee but ended up here instead; words that I know to be truer than most of what we hear from them in these quick little break out groups.

Because, growing up, like so many other facets of human life, seems to come in seasons for them, cycles that we repeat year after year, with the changes that are so subtle that I have to look back in order to see them. Lent is a season for words.

M*dd** and *nn* are more likely, in this season, to share stories. M*dd** is more willing to pray out loud. K*r*n vocalizes connections she's making and J*d*n leans over to ask me questions during the lesson.

It is also the season where they are most likely to be found just standing, quietly, beside me. *nn* sits closer. M*t** fights with himself, bouncing in and out of my range, testing the boundaries of how far he can go and how close he can come. M*tt** hones in each week like I have a beacon on my forehead, and, at each transition, he does something to get "caught," my hands redirecting on his shoulders or my arm looped around him in a head lock.

We've done this before, this season of Lent, these behaviors, this growing. But, the stories come clearer this year, with fewer tangents and a better sense of their audience. The questions and connections have a greater sense of knowledge behind them, a deeper understanding of the world, and the prayers come out stronger and more confident.

The standing is more settled, less anxious, the testing less extreme, more willing to yield. The actions are toned down and the "catches" are quicker, more aware, although more frequent to make up for the difference.

And, they're not going backwards, no matter how familiar it feels, because growing up doesn't happen along a straight line. It's around and around, season following season, a spiral that climbs a little higher each year.

So, it is Lent, and they have words and proximity. Soon it will be Easter, and they will be anxious. And, then. And, then. And, then.

They will continue to grow and to change, to move a little closer to "someday" and whatever it holds. They'll get taller and stronger and faster and more confident, and, for however long God has me here, I am going to thoroughly enjoy being a part of helping it to happen.

Even when it means that they lock my phone.