As I’ve mentioned a few times I’ve been reading Lou Giglio’s book I AM NOT but I know I AM. It seems I have read this at just the right time. That phrase, I AM NOT is extremely powerful in my role on the 5mile team.
Last night was our first drop in center. [centre for the NI team… they need a spell checker!] We had about 20 or so young teens drop by over the 2 hours. Just to give you a picture of their life… 5mile is a tiny town. No stop lights, 1 stop sign, and two traffic circles. Life for them is equally small. They hang out because their parents don’t know what to do with them all summer.
Mostly they just go to the park as their is nothing for them otherwise. No camps. No summer leagues. No reading program. [programme for NI folks!] No jobs, no movies, no malls, nothing. Just alcohol, smoking, sex, and paramilitary wannabe’s. [Just think of them as gangs in the States, same deal… they tag everything.] So they hang out in the park all day every day. Actually, you won’t see them until 4-5 PM and they are there all night. Last night a big glob of them slept in the park so they could smoke and drink and do God knows what else in the peace and quiet of the playpark. Then they go home at 4-5 and sleep it off. As we talked to them last night we didn’t just sense a hunger for God… they want to know what it’s like to be a Christian, to have hope is something better, to see outside of tiny 5mile. As we’ve gotten to know some of them they have asked us questions about God and told us a little about them. Not that this is a shock, but it was tough to hear that most of the 13-14 year olds are sexually active and find it odd that we have 19 year olds that are not. These are the students you are praying for. In Monkstown, Kilileah, Ballymena, Ballyclare, Moira… and the others… it is mostly the same. Life without Jesus is, well, pretty stereotypically Irish… no happy endings to their stories.
Here is a little update from Autumn, enjoy!
Hey I’m in Northern Ireland and its beautiful. I am really excited about
my team, they are awesome, and I am in Killyleagh right now, its a small town,
kinda like romeo, but prettier and more colorful, and full of Irish
people. My team is doing community clean ups in the morning this week and
kids club in the morning next week and drops ins at night both weeks. Its
gonna be really exciting, I’m so pumped, but I have to go, its time for Tea (aka
dinner for all you crazy americans)
~Autumn
Kristen has mostly convinced me that I need to go visit everyone else next Tuesday. As usual, I think she is right.
Oh yeah, about the weird title to this post. Last night the 3 leaders [Becca, Richie, and Val] had a good sit down to talk about their inability to lead. It really came to a head and I had a good talk with Richie about it. Please pray that these 3 would step up to their positions. I’ve said over and over again to them that I am here to support them and be the scum of the team. Give me the jobs and I’ll do them… I want to free them to lead. Saying to them over and over again that I AM NOT the leader is all I can do. Like I said, please pray that they would take on their role. They are afraid of it… but our success in these 2 weeks and their future success in 5mile depends on them stepping up. I told Richie last night, if I were Daphne [our host church] this would be a very short lived experiment. They scare me… but I know they can do it. They have to because I AM NOT the leader. I’ll only slide into that role as a last resort and if the YFCNI asks me to. Pray that this won’t happen.
If you are really keen on your NI news, you’ll know that there was a bombing of a building in Ballymena [Either Dawn or Jon is there] last night. No one was hurt and the damage was minimal. I doubt the SummerServe team will even know about it. When you hear stuff like that just remember that the paramilitary stuff is a lot like gangs in the States.
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