My YouthWorks Summer: Week 6

This is the seventh of ten blogging installments from my life-changing summer in Milwaukee. In this recap I review my sixth week of programming. Be sure to check out my postscript thoughts at the end—a logical place for such thoughts.

If you’ve missed any previous recaps, flash back to Week 0. Also, check out what a camera crew produced when they visited our site during Week 9.

Week 6 was interesting.

Interesting in new ways — and interesting in frustrating ways.

The week started with some chaos when a random thunderstorm threw off our ministry schedule. On Monday morning one of our ministry sites was struck by lightning, and we had to divert all our volunteers to another location for the day. We also needed backup plans because another one of our sites — the one, the only GINGERBREAD LAND — is completely outdoors.

And thus, my Monday morning was largely spent on the phone trying to secure said backup plans.

It turned out beautifully, though.

I called a pastor from one of the campus ministries at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and she excitedly said my call was a total answer to prayer. She had expected volunteers from another organization to help with painting the previous weekend, but they never showed. An entire floor still needed to be painted.

YouthWorks to the rescue.

It made me smile that we could step in like that and help her on such a rainy day. The kids and adult leaders were fantastic, and by day’s end that entire floor was painted. She was incredibly grateful, and it reminded me that God is totally sovereign.

Rainy day? No big deal — He had something perfectly in store for us.

So, disregarding the fact that I may have grazed the pastor’s car earlier that morning, it was a beautiful day.

Now, back to Gingerbread Land (love this place).

We eventually returned there once the weather cleared, and I was reminded again why I love that part of my job — simply driving to ministry sites and spending time with people. There are always folks sitting on their front porches, just enjoying life’s simplest pleasures. These spirit-filled people carry an overflowing joy.

It will be legitimately painful not to return there on a weekly basis in just a few weeks.

Throughout the week, though, I sensed a deeper level of spiritual apathy among our students. Every week has some of that — it’s inevitable — but this time it felt more pronounced.

These kids need prayer. They need to see that Jesus is real — that He’s madly in love with them.

But many of them just don’t see it. Don’t feel it.

To close the week, our site director’s mom came into town, and it was refreshing to have a motherly presence around. We all miss our families, and it was a small but meaningful reminder of home.

Man. Three weeks.

That’s all that’s left until we return to life again.

But will it be the same life we left?
Will everyone back home be different?
Will we?

To be continued...

TMZ

PS: I was blunt in my last postscript, so I’ll be blunt again. If Week 5 was my favorite week of the summer, Week 6 was probably my least favorite — or maybe better said, my most difficult.

Monday’s chaos set the tone, and it was hard to stay motivated as a staff when so many of the students simply weren’t.

It was an eye-opener. For every student fully sold out for Christ, there are others who don’t understand Him — or are even resistant to Him. And these are students in the church.

Huge eye-opener.

And for the record: it really is painful not to see Gingerbread Land on a weekly basis anymore.