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?