Week 6 -- Sharing Stories

Summary:

Week six in St. Louis, week four of teaching, was shortened because of the Fourth. We spent a lot of time in class talking about Jesus, while briefly touching on the Underground Railroad. Our tutors for the week were from Colorado, and one day during class they shared their stories of how Jesus has transformed their life. The men on our team made us a BEAUTIFUL dinner to love and serve us one night, and the women spent the next night bonding and making a beautiful mural of which all of the guys, and eventually all of the girls, got a piece.

Because of the holiday on Monday after Fourth of July, we only had three days of class that week. Our class was down to 7 students, but we had a fun week with them. I had shared my testimony with them the week before during devotionals as I mentioned, and so quite a bit of our time was spent preparing that. Most of our time that week was spent on devotionals and teaching about Jesus instead of African American history. We did briefly talk about the Underground Railroad some more. They made quilt squares like the ones used for codes that were hung outside houses along the Underground Railroad line.

I realized that I never really mentioned the tutors we have working with us. Living in a different part of the same building each week are teams of high schoolers who come to St. Louis for a week-long missions trip. In the mornings, they work in our classrooms as tutors and get to work closely with one or two students and get to know them. In the afternoons they go out in to the community to do different work projects. We had a group of really great tutors from Colorado with us that week -- two high school girls and two of their college aged male leaders. They really poured a lot into the week with our students, especially with prayer. I really really enjoyed interacting with the high school girls and hearing their stories. One of the girls who was going to be a sophomore in high school really appreciated interacting with Laura and I throughout the week and so did we! God really grew my heart for the difficult, but ever so important, middle school to high school aged kids. Little kids are still cute and super fun and loving, but I appreciate being able to have real conversations with the older kids.

One day we spent the whole class time hearing the testimonies of our four tutors. I think it was a really great day for the kids. They got a little antsy by the end of listening, but the tutors did a wonderful job. We had a whole spectrum of stories, involving everything from parental abuse to cutting to partying to just living life for sports to seeking affirmation from men to self-image, stories of people that grew up in the church, even with pastors in the family, and stories of someone who grew up Jewish and found Christ later in life. These were people who had great stories of the power of God in their lives and they were people that our students had become friends with. Because of the spectrum of real stories we heard as well, I think it also made the Lifehouse skit a little more real to them. Even for me though, it was an awesome day, because I LOVE hearing testimonies. It reminds me of all the different ways that God can work, and it reminds me of his love and his power.

I realized I haven’t talked much about my time teaching art this summer. I’m always tired by the afternoons, and never had much enthusiasm or energy for art. It was fun to get to work with the younger kids that I didn’t know as well. They are super energetic. We made different projects like little African-looking hand drums, 3-D African animals, some African style stamp painting called Adinkra, mancala boards, African masks, etc. Some of my favorite times were when this beautiful group of girls, about age 6-7, would come in to class or in the middle of class just start singing excitedly one of the worships songs from the morning worship. It touched as part of the worship team to know they were enjoying the songs and connecting with them, but even just as a teacher, it was encouraging to see these beautiful daughters of God singing his praises as they’re painting and coloring.

Two of my favorite nights of the summer came during this week as well. Tuesday night, the guys on our team along with the two male staff workers put together a beautiful night for the women, to serve and love us as their sisters. We didn’t know what was happening. We were just instructed to show up dressed nicely at 6pm on Tuesday night. They cooked dinner for us (yakisoba and fruit), as well as transforming the chapel area in to “Café Shalom.” They escorted us in one by one into a candlelit room. Then they served us at our tables while to of the men played beautiful music in the background. They had cake for us as well. They did a wonderful job. The night really touched a lot of my sisters. I heard many comments like, “I’ve never felt that special before,” or at least “I haven’t felt that special in a long time.” It was a huge huge blessing for the men to do that for us. Our interactions with the 11 men that were around this summer were awesome. With the no dating rule at City Lights, we could encourage and affirm one another without worrying that others would read into it. For many of the girls, the quality men of God that we got to live alongside this summer were a catalyst for healing in their attitudes towards and relationships with men. The bar was raised for what a man of God, especially one who is pursuing us, should be. I am blessed enough to have a wonderful man in my life right now, and that night made me appreciate all he does for me even more.

Wednesday night is our small group night, so all of the ladies got together for a joint night to do something to thank the men for their beautiful night for us. We took a 20 foot long piece of butcher paper and a bunch of paint. We were instructed to paint anything, didn’t matter what, but also to move around the mural. It wasn’t that one area was claimed or anything and you couldn’t ruin anyone else’s work. By the end we had a beautiful mural, which represented a really fun night of bonding as well as our unity as the women of the summer team. Once it dried, we cut out 8 by 10 pieces of the mural and put them in frames to present to each of the men. They each had an important part in our summer and the mural wouldn’t have been complete without each piece in it. After making cards for each man and painting, we sat down and had some heart-to-heart “real talk,” which is some of my favorite. It was an awesome night of bonding with my sisters and thanking our brothers.

Thursday night was another big night. We had a speaker on the racial reconciliation. She talked about the need for Shalom in the world. Shalom is more than just “peace,” but it’s the way things ought to be. We talked about how Jesus entered in to the brokenness of the world. The world’s solution for reconciliation is “don’t be racist,” but Jesus’ is more active: repent and love your neighbor. We looked at the story of the Good Samaritan.

Her end applications, to contrast the secular solutions, were:

Don’t be “color blind;” SEE people.

It’s more than “celebrating diversity;” go deeper.

Don’t just “get along;” sacrificially love.

Then we had a time of worship, which turned in to a time of confession to the whole team. It was a really hard night, but it brought a lot of healing for people (including myself) as they shared their struggles and their stories, the ways they’ve sinned and been sinned against.

Friday we spent our retreat of silence at a cemetery, which obviously led to some thoughts and later discussions about how short life is. Gerry asked us to write what we would want our epitaph to read, what we would want to be remembered for. I was thinking something along the lines of “Faithful servant of the Lord.” We went to the St. Louis black history wax museum. It focused on people who have St. Louis as part of their history. The first half of the museum especially was cool, because it was the same stuff we’ve been teaching in our classes all summer. Then we had White Castle for dinner. It was my first White Castle, and hopefully my last. We went to The Muny (the municipal theater) to see the musical, The Titanic. It was ok… most people didn’t like it. Our last free Saturday I spent most of the day helping Eric and Jake in the woodshop as they worked to get kids caught up on their projects, so their bookshelves would be ready to take home by the end of the program.

God is so faithful. I’m looking forward to catching you up completely in the next few days. We got back to Wisconsin last night. I sunburned one arm as it hung out the window, and we drove through some nasty storms and tornado warnings in southern Wisconsin, but we made it back to Black River Falls last night.