Late one night, at the end of a group’s mission trip to inner city Philadelphia, I sat up talking with the participants about their trip. I had been their guide as the group had worked hard all week at various sites, as well as spending every afternoon at an after-school program in North Philly. At the Center for Student Missions, we focus on creating new relationships between different socioeconomic backgrounds of America through short-term missions to the inner city. The prayer is for healing of brokenness in inner cities.
Sometimes I forget that a week of service can be a step in the healing process in the lives of the servants, too. On the last night that one particular group was with us, I stayed up with several members shooting the breeze.
“I don’t really like talking about myself to people, I’m really quiet and awkward,” said one of the boys. However, in this setting, tucked away in the small kitchen, he and the others poured out their hearts. The group was so respectful to each other; not one unkind word was uttered. If one person was speaking, everyone else was making eye contact.
I felt so privileged to be included in their little roundtable. I didn’t say much myself, but I was certainly a part of the group. “We should go to bed; Nicole looks like she’s going to fall over,” one of the guys laughed when the hours stretched ever later into the night.
All week, I thought of exposing these students to the inner city and showing them how devastating poverty can be. I hoped the exposure to something new, especially the after-school program, would help them understand God better; but as the topics turned from personality traits to schooling to parenting, I realized I didn’t need to show these kids anything.
The quiet-and-awkward boy had been placed in a Spanish-only classroom when he was in first grade. Because he was so quiet, he didn’t say anything, and it took his mom three weeks to find out he was in the wrong class. A girl talked about how she didn’t try to make any friends in ninth grade because she figured she would just move to another foster home by the end of the year. A mixed-race guy talked about how he was moved to an alternative school with other minorities so the main school could keep its GPA scores high.
If I had known all these stories at the beginning, I would have been nervous to bring these students to the city. Would it be too much for them to handle? No. The undercurrent of that last night was one of hope. In fact, it was these students who had been most impacted by the inner city youth because they saw their own lives mirrored within the children. Meeting such young, hopeful and silly children all week had given my students the ability to revisit their own lives with joy and hope for their futures. When they explained their lives, there was respect for each other and for themselves. Their out-loud processing allowed them to approach their own experiences with positivity and decide where to go from there.
“I want to go into social work,” one girl explained, “and when I get home at 2:30, all I do is waste my life on Facebook and Twitter. This week was the push I needed. Why not get involved with an after-school program? It will give me a head start on what I want to do.”
Other students realized the reason they got involved in church in the first place was because of an after-school program they attended and people who had poured into their lives through it.
I forget sometimes that you don’t need to be whole to do ministry or missions. Instead, you have to be willing to meet God in your own brokenness. After all, He said His power is made perfect in our own weakness, and that He keeps His treasure in broken jars.
These students were ready to meet children who experienced similar pain. I watched as one student attached himself to a particularly shy preschooler. The student’s heart went right out to the adorable child with the big eyes who couldn’t utter so much as a hello to his peers. Each day, the student worked painstakingly to draw the child out of his shell into a place where he was more comfortable in the classroom. By the end of the week, I saw the child run to him upon arrival before going off to play.
Another student who struggled with interpersonal interactions and was often intimidated by adults looked forward to the simplicity and trust of the kindergarteners playing in the gym. Each day, they ran to him giggling, arms wide, ready to spring onto his back for a ride.
Several students recognized the loneliness behind the violent actions in the children and gave them attention and constructive activities to refocus their attitudes.
The athletic students learned a new trick or two on the basketball court. The academically inclined challenged themselves with checking the children’s math homework. The adults revisited childhood “Ring Around the Rosie,” probably a few too many times.
Everyone found his or her niche at the after-school program, not because they got sectioned off based on need but based on previous experience. In God’s kingdom, there is a calling unique to all. The students in the kitchen that last night reminded me that sometimes one’s calling is very deeply rooted in brokenness. When we address our brokenness in humble service to others, that is often how God brings deep healing to us.
