Yesterday I prayed that God would help me connect with some specific girls after being out of town for a couple week. Today, he said "YES!"
We are starting a new Impact Team to love and serve at local middle school, so I decided I would stop by today. Our church meets there every Sunday evening, but I’ve never seen it in school mode, I’ve never seen a kid there. We have a couple guys working the lunch hour, and our fearless leader Trent was going to meet me there. I stopped by the office to get my visitors badge and walked into the cafeteria. I listened to the principal make his announcements, scanning the room for “my girls” (I use the term loosely, as any girl I’ve met becomes “my girl”.) I see two I hang out with regularly, one more who I love to talk to but haven’t made the jump to one on ones yet, and one who I love but is….still a long way off. One of them had just spent the morning in the principals office, her teacher had to physically restrain her from beating up a girl. Yikes! Some of them asked if they could be in my cabin for winter camp. I didn’t know I was going to camp, but after that, how could I not go? As lunch comes to a close, each girl came and gave me a special hug. One tells me to text her on her friends phone, one invites me to her first volleyball game tomorrow, one tells me she will go to camp for the first time if she can be in my cabin at camp, and one doesn’t say anything because she knows I’ll see her again soon. As if my heart isn’t bursting already, it get’s better!
Fearless leader Trent walked me back to the office to sign out. He introduced me to the principle, who asked when I’ll be coming to visit. I told him that I would stop in every once and while to see some of the girls I know. Trent told him that I’m connected to some kids through our outreach program on Tuesday night. The principle looked at me and asked, “Mmmm, how well connected are you?” Being that’s a tough question to answer, I laugh and reply, “Pretty well connected.” He turned around and called for a girl who’s sitting in the office waiting for him, she was “in trouble.”
“This is Kara. Kara, this is my friend Robyn, we used to go to school together.” I’m not really for lying to kids, but his heart to tear down her walls so she’d open up to me, is beyond precious and borderline miraculous, considering his position at a public school. “Why don’t you go talk in that conference room?”
Kara laughs unhappily, “But I don’t know her.”
“Just go.” He replied
I spent the next thirty minutes listening to Kara angrily share about her crazy teacher that regularly calls her an idiot, who sent her to the office because she fell asleep in class. She tells me about her dad in prison, her step dad who she thought was her real dad, her eight siblings, and cynically laughs as she tells me how today was an extraordinarily bad day. She tells me about her friends, which turns out to be almost every kid in the school, and how there is really only one she isn’t cool with. She tells me how she was arrested at school and put in Remann Hall last month, for “putting her hands on” her mom. I wasn’t surprised; any kid that bold…and angry would surely tour the local detention center. Can you say kingpin kid? Can you see the Lord’s strategy? Can you see how God builds his Kingdom on earth?
It’s just like God, to answer my prayer of yesterday to better connect with some of these girls, in such a dramatic way. And to bless me with a new friend named Kara.
Can you say Robyn’s going to be spending more lunches at school?
