and it's goodbye time.

Camp is over... can you believe it?

Today was our graduation day for the girls and some of their families came.

They did the dances we have taught and showed off their tae kwon do. We all broke some wood! We summer missionaries sang some songs for them (Justin Bieber, of course - we sang "baby, baby, baby, ooooooh" to them and they all got up and danced with us - fun fun fun) and Kendall and Lauren did a rap for them- very funny. Then we handed out their certificates to them, their families all ate lunch and they headed out.

I don't know how else to say it other than I have just been kind of sad all day. It hit me while watching them do their dances that everything we worked at this summer has come to today, and it is all over. Watching the girls dance and listening to the words to the song "I Wish," which one of the dances was to just really brought me to tears. I'll post them. It really is our prayer for these girls

I wish I could paint your world so beautifulI wish I could make it rightBut of all the things I could ever wish for youI wish this more than life
Love the Lord with all your heartWith all your soulYour mind and strength
If I could give you back your innocenceAnd if I could turn back timeIf I could heal you of all the broken promisesStill the greatest thing in life
is love the Lord with all your heartWith all your soulYour mind and strength...
I was just watching them dance and praying for them... that God will protect them in the midst of the homes that many of them live in, with drugs and violence and abuse. I love these girls... and my heart is heavy that I won't see them anymore. But I also know that practically I am pretty exhausted and many more weeks of this would be so difficult. New Orleans, you have become a home to me. I only have a few more days this time, but I will be back! Now is time to take advantage of the time I have left with these wonderful ladies!

god turns sauls into pauls...

that was pretty much the synopsis of our small group time today.

I'm going to try to make this short because I am really tired (but that probably won't work).

Many of the questions the girls ask during small group time tend to revolve around the issue of "what if a person does this..." and "but what if you have a man who is in jail because he did this... and what is going to happen to him when he dies?" And I try to be intentional about getting them to understand that it isn't about what we DO, but where our faith and devotion lies.

...but I Thought since they have these kind of questions, I should share with them about a man whose life God radically changed. A man who called himself the "worst of all sinners". Yep, I told them all about Paul today.

Using lots of Scripture from Acts, I described to them the murderer that Paul was before encountering Christ, what happened when he encountered Christ, how his reaction was to being preaching the gospel, and the extreme influence he has had on the church - how God chose to use him specifically.

We discussed it in lots and lots of detail that I won't go into because it would take quite some time, and then I discussed how in 1 Timothy Paul says that because he is the worst of all sinners, he is an example to all believers of Christ's unfailing patience. I explained to them in detail that if God chose to save Paul and change his heart and life, he can do that for anyone.

One of my girls that I have gotten pretty close with started asking everyone if she was a Christian, and then asked me how to know if you are a Christian. So after I let everyone else out, I stayed and talked to her in detail about salvation, what it means to believe, trust, have faith in Christ, and also what it means to really make him lord over your life. We kind of went through that together, and I asked her if she did those things... did she believe and trust that Christ was God and had the power in his death to forgive sins? Did she believe in the resurrection? Does she live to try to please God and not her selfish, sinful nature? Then we talked about the fruits of the spirit in Galatians and how your desires change when God comes into your life and how that is shown. We talked about how one of the most amazing parts of salvation is not only getting into heaven but getting to know God and how you do that through prayer and reading his word.

And let me tell you, it felt so good the entire time talking to her. The spirit was just so encouraging and confirming for me the genuineness of the conversation and of her heart.

We prayed together, which was such a huge blessing, I told her that I loved her and how much I am going to miss her.

And that is so true... my heart has been really burdened today thinking of tomorrow being our last "real" day of camp... Friday is the graduation celebration deal when the families come. Reality is setting in that I won't be seeing these girls anymore.

I made Noodles, the girl I talked and prayed with a lot today, promise that she would write me... that better happen!

(told ya it wouldn't be short!!)

as for god, his way is perfect.

i was blessed today with another very good day. we had to send another girl home at one point, which of course is never fun, but the way i am choosing to look at it is that at least it is the last week and they got to enjoy it thus far. and there are so many other girls here - we can't allow someone to miss out because of someone else. and my prayer is that the discipline won't be in vain, but that she will come back next year with a different attitude, you know? and i think that is certainly a good possibility.

but i was very encouraged by my small group time today.

i decided a long time ago, and told the lord, i wanted to leave camp knowing that the girls understand the truth of the gospel - the real salvation story...

not the gospel mixed with superstition and voodoo, which permeates much of their learning.

our summer verse has been the first part of luke 10:27 - "love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."

so this week courtney is doing devotions and breaking it up, talking about what it means to love with your heart, then your soul, and so on and so forth.

so today i presented this question to the girls: "why should we love god?"

i mean, in my mind, that is a fundamental question, especially for girls from the inner city, born into poverty and crime ridden homes.

so we answered this question with 1 john 4:19 - "we love because he first loved us."

then the question, "how do we know god loves us?"

then the answer, romans 5:8 - "but god demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, christ died for us."

so through that we talked about the gospel, i presented the salvation story to them, using the bridge diagram and there were lots of good questions. we really took it apart and talked about things from the fall, to how you get saved, to how you know the bible is true and jesus really came and died, to what baptism is and the purpose of baptism.

it was just so nice. i don't know a better way to put it - to be able to hear their questions and explain these things to them using tons of scripture.

i felt purpose in it all. like the spirit was really working. you know that feeling?

i just want to be faithful to the word of god, to the gospel, to christ.

and the gospel feels so good coming out of your mouth.

sweet sweet girls

good day, good day indeed

for our long weekend off, we hung out at kay's house in slidell... a suburb ( i guess ) about thirty minutes away.

we relaxed by the pool about all weekend, watched a bunch of movies, ate junk food... it was a wonderful sleepover.

it wasn't complete because casie had to go home for a few days for a wedding... so when we left sunday we went to pick her up, got dinner, and went back to creole creamery to get some ice cream because it was NATIONAL ICE CREAM DAY, duh. and that is a day i WILL celebrate.

i'm telling you... i love these girls. there are so many ways it is going to be so hard to leave next week. our camp girls, the missionaries, the staff, the city itself. i'm not allowed to think about it until this weekend. so i'm gonna stop now.

a ministry group called get real has been here since friday and they did camp today. it was such a blessing to us... they have a group of musicians in their group so they set up and played for the girls, served them breakfast, taught them about jamaica, did dances with them.

and our girls were so good today. it was just fun. we got to enjoy being with one another again... it was the best day in a very long time. so yes, good good day. i'm praying that we will be able to have a good week to go out on.

torn

so yesterday our girls were just wild and completely disrespectful. i think i understand the cycle:

they are wild, we have to holler over them to tell them to hush and try to get them to do what we are asking them to do, they feel threatened or hurt or offended, they put up walls (which are communicated through extreme attitudes) and those walls are up. this is what they have been taught, what they have been raised in.

and it infiltrates to the whole group, minus a few.

my small group time was the worst it has ever been, to the point of the girls almost being mean to me, which I know they don't mean, but in the heat of the moment they feel like they have to be defensive of themselves so it gets communicated in a rude, mean way. one of the girls i am closest to i have had to constantly get on, and i gave her chance after chance until i was blue in the face from it.

through dance, group time, game time, "relaxing," nutrition class... they were all very rude, and they all know better.

it got to the point where we had to do something other than empty threats. we had sent girls home because of different things and having those examples did nothing. and earlier that morning, kay had threatened to cancel friday's fun activities if we had to tell the girls to chill as a group again. of course, they were told at least ten times just in nutrition class to hush.

so we decided to cancel camp not only friday, but today as well. hopefully the time off will give them time to chill and they will come back monday and be able to have a good last week.

it is just so discouraging, you know? you see these girls that you love so much and it is just this continuous cycle of disrespect, attitude, and when you feel like perhaps you are getting through to them, you seem to take five steps back.

it makes me want to be able to stay in their lives forever, and try harder, do something.

i just want to do something.

"no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful; later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." hebrews 12:11

so....

the past two days have been such encouraging days for me. to be quite honest, both mornings I have woken up and just felt desperate for the Lord's strength and will, seeing the days as looming ahead, and losing sight of the joy I have with the girls.

both mornings I have prayed for the Lord to give me his perspective and to renew the joy I have of just being with the girls. after last week, I think I was just exhausted and stretched kind of thin.

but both yesterday and today, I have found such enjoyment throughout the day of just seeing the girls for who they are and laughing with them. and of course, we still have to get on to them or whatever, but i have just genuinely enjoyed them again.

hey, did i mention we went to the swamp sunday? saw some alligators! but there was oil in the water at the swamp... which means it has to be pretty bad to have made it through all the plants and everything to the boardwalk where we were walking.

baby gator!

really just pray for these girls... so many of them are so empty of hope and so used to living in the mess they see everyday. pray that God reveals the true hope he brings to them... be it through this camp or through some other vessel... I don't much care... I just want them to see Him for who He is. you know?

many aspire, few attain

in light of the experiences and emotions i have been dealing with lately, reading this yesterday was a huge comfort... encouragement... well i'm not sure what the right word is, but anyway, here ya go, from "many aspire, few attain":

"involvement in this spiritual warfare is a voluntary thing. it's our choice. in ancient israel, before going to war, the officers said to the people, "what man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart" (deuteronomy 20;8). involvement in spiritual warfare is voluntary as well.

the apostle paul writes that a soldier must endure suffering and hardship if he plans on getting into battle (2 timothy 2:3). the spiritual battle is a battle for keeps. don't enter it unless you plan on winning. don't enter it unless you plan on giving your life totally to it. don't enter it unless you plan on suffering and enduring hardship because your adversary the devil and his legions of demons play dirty. they fight rough. they give no quarter.

but christ in you is greater than he that is in the world (1 john 4:4). and you are on the winning side. you can take refuge and consolation in that, but it is dirty, rough warfare - and the deeper you get into it, the meaner and nastier it gets. men come and go, and the attrition rate in the christian life is absolutely horrendous. in the final analysis, many aspire but few attain. many begin well, but precious few end well." -walter a. hendrichsen

pajama day and the view of the city from the ferry

oak alley plantation

it is not fair

it isn't fair that a mother completely robs her child of love. and makes the child feel responsible or guilty or that she has done something to deserve to not have the love.

a kid doesn't do anything to deserve not having her mom's love because a kid doesn't have to do anything to earn it.

it's a given, right? you have a precious child, you fall in love with it, you want the best for it for its entire life. Right?

isn't that the way it is supposed to be?

a child should never sob over the fact that she has never felt her mother love her before. she should never say the words, "it'd be easier if she had died." or "i never did anything." or "it just hurts." or "she doesn't want to be part of my life, and i will never let her back in."

that should never happen.

and why does it?

i don't understand. and it makes me so angry. how could you do that, or rather not do that, if we are talking about loving your child?

i just don't understand.

why are these kids born into families where the mother is strung out on crack?

where the mom is totally mental and they are watching their father die of cancer and being rushed to the hospital for choking up blood?

where they discover they have gonorrhea and their family they live with abuses them?

where they live with their grandparents because their mother is messed up and their grandfather loses his job so they go without food in order to feed the girls, and try to hide it from the girls, but of course they know everything.

where the mother dies of cancer when the girl is eleven.

where there are shootings and stabbings and break-ins outside their homes every night.

where they live across the street from or beside condemned houses that still are spray painted from the storm that turned all of their lives upside down.

where all they are taught is fight and defend.

where school systems completely suck and teach them nothing but what they cannot do.

why? it just is not fair.

but while i can't see past tomorrow, god is making history.

and we have had four girls get saved.

and it is one at a time, right? one at a time...

right.

sometimes it's hard.

Today was movie and pajama day… the girls got to wear their pajamas and we watched movies before and after lunch. And despite having to tell them to quiet down a good bit, it was an okay day.

Until time to go home. There was a fight.

Casie and I split it up.

An angry mom comes in and we get preached at. First, we were being blamed and lots of raised voices. After she vented a while, she came around and was telling us how it wasn’t our fault by the time she left. Long story…

It is so incredibly draining. These girls are constantly on edge, constantly fighting, constantly disregarding anything we say to them.

And then knowing what they go home to – the poverty, the lack of love, the lack of discipline… it doesn’t surprise me. It all seems so hopeless sometimes.

Kay, who has written a book on inner city missions, says this is the worst she has ever seen it and doesn’t know where to go with it. How do you combat what they have grown up in and live in constantly? The only way to do it is to be with them all the time, which is not possible.

The school systems stink, after school programs that the schools began after Katrina stink, their home lives stink.

How do parents not love their children? I simply cannot fathom or understand it. And it makes me so incredibly angry.

And one of my girls told me this morning that she found out she has gonorrhea… she is 12. And let’s put it this way, I am not sure how accurate her information she gave me was, and I’m not sure how she got it, but I am one hundred percent sure that it was not from anything she did willingly.

This is the hopeless.

This is what I know I have been called to.

Kay and I were talking today, and one thing she shared in our conversation was this:

She remembers sitting a neighborhood after Katrina, looking up and down the street and only seeing houses flooded, full of water. Sitting there, she asked the Lord where she was to go from here. It seemed overwhelming and hopeless, but the Lord spoke to her and told her – maybe she couldn’t fix them all, but she could start with one. One at a time – that is how the difference is made.

Looking at the hopelessness and seeing that task ahead, I have to remind myself of that constantly.

So, this morning began a bit rough… constantly having to get on the girls, which once again I have to remind myself is so necessary… hopefully we are planting seeds in their minds… anyway. I was just so drained and close to tears a couple of times.

But as the day progressed, it got better and better. By the end of the day, the Lord had renewed my strength and my joy for being around these girls. They are just so funny!

The main thing that we deal with I guess (other than just blatant disrespect and all) is how they talk about one another all the time. And when one girl was sat down and talked to about it, she just said she does it because her mom does it… which is the truth behind about everything with these girls… it is what they see, what they are taught, what they are raised it. You talk about people; you defend yourself and your family no matter what, etc. Of course, there are some exceptions – but very, very few, if any.

So today we had a staff meeting after all the girls were home and we were back from taking them, and we had a discussion about some of the issues in some of the families. One mom who is on crack and probably passed out most of the time (the girl who is the biggest instigator of them all), two girls who lives with her grandparents… the grandpa lost his job and they have been going without food in order to feed the girls and the girls know about it (she has been having a terrible attitude), one girl who goes home to an abusive grandmother, two girls who have terrible home situation and a father pretty much dying of cancer… and it goes on and on.

When you see that, when you know that, you can’t be angry with them.

All I wanted to do this afternoon in our meeting was sob for them. It seems so hopeless. How do you combat the way they have been trained to think, what they have been raised in? How do you give them enough love and grace?

Kay says she thinks they are trying to distance themselves from us in some ways because camp is going to end in a couple of weeks, and I will NOT let that happen. Part of me wants to stay forever, you know?

I know that this is what I am called to – the hopeless and hurting, and I know it isn’t going to be easy… it is going to be really hard. But I want to rescue them and I just can’t do it.

Hopefully things they learn here and the love they get here will show them another way of life, and they will know that they don’t have to end up making the terrible decisions some of them come from, and they won’t end up here living in the transition housing because they are homeless with kids.

Hearing their dreams and all the things they want to do with their lives burdens me so much. I pray, really I beg God, that they will make it.

The odds are against them, and it absolutely kills me.

But God is much bigger than all that, right?

Today

Today:

Probably the roughest day of camp so far, behavior wise.

My heart just aches over the way these girls treat each other and us. They are so mean to one another and so disrespectful towards us. We have really been dealing with it for the past few weeks heavily, and I don’t understand why it is, other than it is the way most of them have been taught at home, and schools certainly do nothing about it.

We have been told, both by staff, and by some of the campers themselves, that this group is the most wild and disrespectful yet.

I have had to be really stern, to the point of pretty much yelling today, with them. Sometimes it is the only way to communicate to 30-something girls who are all yelling and being ugly to one another. And they have to see that they have to listen to us.

It can just be hard because we want camp to be fun and I struggle because I just want them to know I love and care about them, but I know that discipline is necessary, and that shows that we care as well.

This afternoon they were just so bad and saying hurtful things to one girl in particular while we were trying to play a game, and they wouldn’t listen to any of us, so Kay came in and ended camp early.

Today was already kind of an emotionally trying day for me. A girl came to me this morning telling me some really heavy news. Kay has a relationship with this girl already, and it was information she needed to know, so I went to talk to Kay about it and we ended up talking for a while, and part of me has really just been feeling so badly for the fact that I will be leaving soon, and leaving these girls. And I guess I am just sad, both because I will be leaving , and because I can’t just change them or change their lives or rescue them. You know?

So overall, today has just been a trying day.

It is a weird place to be, you know? Being torn like this. A huge chunk of me longs for home and loved ones at home, but a huge chunk of my heart is here with these girls. And it is going to be really difficult, but that’s good, right? I mean I’m glad I love them the way I do.

Anyway, God is good. ALL THE TIME.

fire

Sunday after watching the sun rise and all, we came back, slept for a while… that afternoon we went down to the Quarter where they were having lots of music and stuff for the fourth. We saw the Treme Brass Band, a pretty well-known brass band here in NOLA. They start playing in one spot and then walk through the city playing, and a crowd gathers and follows them. It was very neat to see. There are these guys called dancing men who dance around while the band plays and get people from the crowd to dance with them and stuff. It was very cool.

THEN we went to the river, after Kendall and I snuck through a fence to go through the wharf warehouse to the other side where it was SO pretty and then running from the cops because it was definitely very illegal for us to be there, but hey you only live once, right? (turns out it was more dangerous than we thought because that is where a lot of people do drug deals, and the cops are super corrupt and sometimes have drug deals there too…) to watch the fireworks.

And let me tell you, they were the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen… being on the river adds a lot to it I think, and the bridge is in the background… they have these two huge boats that shoot the fireworks off at the same time – one on this side of the bridge and the other on the other side… they call them the Dueling Barges Fireworks. Anyway, there were some that were huge and fell all the way onto the river. Gorgeous.

Monday, we did a WalMart/Sams run, had McAlisters, and then Kay took us over the Causeway, which is the 24-mile long bridge that runs over Lake Pontchartrain…that’s right, 24 miles, so at one point you are completely in the middle of the lake and all you can see is water on either side of you. And it is awesome. We got some PJ’s Coffee (another NOLA local place), came home and chilled.

Amurrica

After watching the sunrise on the Mississippi and sleeping for a while,

that afternoon we went down to the Quarter where they were having lots of music and stuff for the fourth. We saw the Treme Brass Band, a pretty well-known brass band here in NOLA. They start playing in one spot and then walk through the city playing, and a crowd gathers and follows them. It was very neat to see. There are these guys called dancing men who dance around while the band plays and get people from the crowd to dance with them and stuff. It was very cool.

parading in the quarter and the dancing man

THEN we went to the river to watch the fireworks! And let me tell you, they were the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen… being on the river adds a lot to it I think, and the bridge is in the background… they have these two huge boats that shoot the fireworks off at the same time – one on this side of the bridge and the other on the other side… they call them the Dueling Barges Fireworks. Anyway, there were some that were huge and fell all the way onto the river. Gorgeous.

uhhhhhhhhhhpdate

I hate when I don’t blog in forever because then I have an annoying amount to write.

Let’s see... last week we spent a lot of time talking about self-image, relationships, self-respect and things of that nature. The girls were really attentive and I think genuinely into what we were talking about. I got them to write a lot of stuff in their journals that they will be taking home, so hopefully one day they will actually open it back up and look at some of the information we gave them about good and bad signs of relationships, things they want to do with their life, etc.

(it's kind of scary how well this shirt fits her...)

Then we had a four day weekend for the 4^th.

My weekend consisted of a lot of fun stuff… especially the part where I slept in a lot. That was beautiful. I missed seeing the girls after a couple of days, but having time to rejuvenate was so wonderful.

Saturday we ate and shopped in the French Quarter.
Oh! This is something to write about:

Sunday morning we got up and left around 5 AM to walk to the river to watch the sunrise. We stopped at Café du Monde (my favorite place to get coffee ever) and got café au laits and beignets and sat on the steps that go down to the water and watched the sun rise, and we all had our own Bible time. It was beautiful, really.

I'll post a separate blog about the afternoon...