My Mija Vicky

        Since I've been in town around 10 days out of the last 40 or so I've not had a lot of time to make any posts. So I will reflect a little bit on those past 40 days. They began with me finding out that one of my more ornery high schoolers had commited armed robbery and was sittting in jail. Yay.

         After a fun time of calling county jails and police officers I know, and getting the run around by the kid's mom, I realized that I was not going to be able to go visit him in jail. Which was frustrating. Even more frustrating was finding out later that he was literally sitting in jail for stealing $20 from someone.

         The next week as my interns and I began to get our high schoolers together to prepare for our mission trip to Tulsa; I heard more bad news. One of our favorite people at Impact, Ashley Cooks, had suddenly died at age 25. Ashley was the sweetest and most kindest person you'd ever meet, she was an intern when many of my kids were in our VBS program, and adored by them all. I remembered being at her graduation party just the year before where we celebrated her getting her criminal justice degree and her new job at the jail. Needless to say, times were not happy around Impact.

         But a surprise came out of nowhere for me! My sweet Vicky who I have had since my first summer as a middle school intern came up to me and asked if I could get a hold of Wes, our old middle school minister, to baptize her! I was excited to her my mija say this. I call her my mija, because she's like my little daughter sometimes, but apparently we're brother and sister now since Wes is like our adopted Houston dad, but it's a Spanish word I don't know.

          Nevertheless, I got Wes and he came and baptized Vicky the Sunday before we left for Mission Trip. Which was perfect timing because almost right out of the water, we're taking her to a place where she can serve others and live out her faith. It's moments like these that keep me going in this job.

      There may be times when things are just heart-wrenching and sad, but there's nothing better than seeing one of my kids put on Christ. It makes it even better to get a hug and to be told that you made a difference in someone's life. 

Grace and Peace,

John

Watching Beauty Unfold...

Once the summer is over and done with I most certainly intend to blog more frequently. My days are filled with planning trips and small group activities. One such activity got me thinking. Earlier this week we picked up our high schoolers, and loaded them up in a van with waters. Now these waters were not for them. These waters were for anyone we saw on the street as we drove around the city.

It was a such a great opportunity to talk about how Jesus told us to feed the hungry, and give water to the thirsty. While watching my kids go and take water to the outdoorsmen they encountered and pray with them. Something dawned on me. My kids are just a few bad decisions away from being one of these outdoorsmen. I certain hope they don't become one, but many of these outdoorsmen come from situations like my kids.

Now I don't know what to do with that thought. But it was beautiful to watch some of my kids who don't get enough food to eat, going and handing a bottle of water and crackers to someone who needed it just as much as they do. I don't have enough words to describe the Presence of God in that moment.

Grace and Peace.

John

I Like Free Things

Later this week I and 14 students and interns will take off to the beautiful land of Colorado. There we will begin an adventure up a mountain with Wilderness Trek Expeditions, which is a Christian outfitting group that leads youth groups and such on trips like these. Before we can go on this trip we all must have physicals.

It's a tedious and trying time to get physicals set up for 15 people, but we make it work. The simplest solution I've found recently is to pick up who I need and head on over to the Walgreens Take Care Clinic. There is a lot of paperwork there, but they are usually quick. So I walk in last week to get mine out of the way, and something cool happens.

The conversation went about like this.

Me: Hi!

NP: Hi! Oh you're wearing an Impact shirt...

Me: Yeah. I'm a youth minister there.

NP: Oh cool, I used to go there and house interns in the summer until I moved away.

Me: Sweet! Well I've got some kids lined up out here for physicals. We're going on this trip to Colorado and we're required to have physicals.

Physical begins, blood pressure is being taken and then...

NP: You know I hate to make Impact pay for these. How bout I come up to Impact on Monday and do them for free?

Me: Really? Sweet!

So we got our physicals today, for free, saving us hundreds of dollars. I learned/remembered two things from this experience. 1. Always wear an Impact shirt when going places in Houston. 2. God is funny. This lady hasn't had a church home in a while, hasn't been connected to a Christian community since being laid off. Yet for some strange reason, I stroll through her door, and she offers to do something inconvenient for her, but nice for Impact on her day off, all because of my shirt.

Now as much as I tried today, I don't know if I convinced her to return to Impact. But I think a door has been opened and opportunity has presented itself and I have no doubt that God with work through this.

Please pray for us as we trave l8 hours to Colorado this weekend!

Grace and Peace,

John

I Never Want to Speak at a Graduation

Today, I went to a graduation, many of which I hate. They are boring, lame, and nobody really remembers what the speaker says. This one was different, I found myself at the graduation of one of my kids I had just gotten on to, and told couldn't come with us on Monday. I had every reason not to go, I certainly knew I wasn't going to enjoy it all that much. I was sure that it would be an awkward encounter seeing her and her family afterwards.

So I went. It was boring. It was different from what I'm used to. It was awkward seeing her afterwards. But something happened. It may have been my girlfriend whispering to her to tell her to say something to me. But I got a hug.

Sometimes, I feel like it's just easier to just write the difficult kids of mine, or to just avoid them and not do things with them. What would that teach them though? That when things get tough at all between us I'm just going to ditch them? NO! That would be the opposite of what I want to do. I wanna teach them all about forgiveness. That even though we screw up all the time Jesus does not ditch us. And as a person who seeks to pick up his cross and follow Jesus everyday, I must stick with my kids when they treat me terribly. Maybe, just maybe I can teach them a little more about forgiveness through the awkwardness I experience.

The Beaten Path

Over the past month or so, I've spent a lot of time and effort into getting my car fixed, and now it has finally meant its demise. So now I get to search for a new car which is not quite in my budget. While my car was in the shop, I used the bus as my transportation method. My first attempt at riding the bus was a complete fail resulting in my somewhere in south Houston, quite a distance from where I live west of the 610 loop. Two weeks ago, I made my second attempt after my car went back shop, it was much more successful. I got home and back to Impact safely, but I noticed something interesting in my walking from the bus stop.

I walk a few blocks to and from my bus stops and transfers. I walk past a few different blocks on my way to the church. When I got to the block where I turn to go towards Impact, I noticed something. There is a beaten path where people had cut off of the sidewalk to save a few steps to get to the church, I looked to the other side of the street and saw the same thing.

It reminded me of the text in Isaiah where he says "A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him." This is text is commonly interpreted to be speaking of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. John is a guy who is speaking to a thirsty and hungry people looking for a hope and a Messiah.

We try to do similar things here, there is a beaten path to Impact because we are a group who seek to reach the hungry and thirsty people of Houston, and I'm proud to be a part of it. The hopeless seek us out, and we bring light and love and food and clothes into their lives. We are preparing the way for them to meet Jesus, and trying to make paths straight for the day he returns.

Charging into Hell

      This past week I went to play basketball in a park across the street from where some of our kids at Impact live.  It was not an ideal place for me to be ever as a white person, much less playing basketball, especially when my kids tell me that they do bad stuff at this park.  There I played some ball with a couple of our boys, and a middle schooler from the neighborhood started to play with us.  Which is exactly what I wanted, I wanted to run into a kid from the neighborhood I didn't know.  This kid was named Donnie, and he seemed like a nice kid, and I remembered our middle school boys were hanging out that night.  So I asked Donnie, and he hopped in the van, and we took off to the church.

         It would be nice if things like that always went that smoothly.  I like taking the kids to church and getting them out of their hellish neighborhoods.  My whole job is centered around telling these kids about Jesus, and to hopefully get them out of the chaos and hell that is in their life.  The next day, I realized just how much I hated dropping my elementary kids off at the same place after Children's Night.  I knew what would happen when they went through the door.  They would be ignored, slapped in the head, yelled at, and hungry.

       The positive is that they were coming from church where they were loved, hugged, fed a hot meal, and taught about Jesus.  It saddens me to drop them off into the chaos and mess surrounding their life.  I don't like doing this because it feels like everything we just did at church is contradicted and reversed at home.

       All of this reminded me of a quote by Charles Thomas Studd, a Scotsmen after my own heart.  He says "Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell."    I only wish I could keep them out of hell longer.  I'm glad that I can charge into their hell and bring a little glimpse of heaven into their lives, I just wish it could be more.  So until then I'll keep going to play basketball, and driving my van in that neighborhood bringing kids to church.  I also encourage any of you who read this blog to do the same.  Find the hells in your lives and charge into them, and bring a little glimpse of how the world should be and how heaven is going to be.

My Friend Shane.

I want to brag about my friend Shane Hughes.  Shane was my campus minister all through my time in Arkansas, even the times when I wasn’t attending his school.  He’s one of the people who pushed me to come intern at Impact, and is part of the reason we have so many interns from Arkansas.  He was also one of the people who encouraged me to pursue ministry after I finished school.  Last week, he brought his campus ministry group for the second time to come work with us at Impact.  

            While they were here, I witnessed something cool that was happening while they worked.  They were hard at work painting Claudia Aleman’s house.  I realized quickly that Shane was going to get a lot out of this experience.  You see thirteen years ago or so, Shane came to intern with middle school group at Impact, and in that middle school group was a young girl named Claudia Aleman.  I can’t tell you a lot about what happened that summer.  Today though, I see him scraping and painting her house, and being a servant.  I think it’s awesome that Shane has had such a wonderful commitment to the work that we do here at Impact.  Someday, I hope that almost fifteen years I can still be involved in my kids’ lives, whether I’m here still at Impact or elsewhere.  Whether I’m seeing them and their kids every Sunday morning at church or whether I’m bringing a group once a year, I pray that I am still making a difference in their lives.  

Grace and Peace,

John