Nancy and I had worked with disadvantaged young people who lived near our church for some time. We were determined to give at least some of them a chance to be successful. At best, it was always a “three steps forward, two steps back” proposition.
Most of the kids lived in cramped apartments characterized by poor living conditions. Many of their parents had substance abuse problems and the kids had very little supervision. Crack dealers operated openly where they lived, no one seemed to care.
The young people were quick to get angry and were always one smart remark away from a fight. The girls all knew how to fight, they had to.
We really tried hard to mainstream the kids into our church. They cooperated most of the time. The most disappointing thing was that they seemed to be happy as long as things were going their way, but they would rebel the moment that Nancy or I would have to reprimand them.
The attempt to mainstream them failed miserably. There were several theft incidents that could be traced directly to them. One young man had to be asked to leave when he got flustered over a foosball game. The incident ended when he got in the face of a policeman who was working security in the church parking lot. To make matters worse, his brother walked up to a fourteen year old church girl and made a very indecent proposal.
Their home environments were very bad. Most of them had older siblings and even parents who were in jail or prison. Some of these young teenagers would not see a parent for four or five days at a time.
As they got older, the boys were first directed to alternative schools, where they just sat all day and did nothing. They eventually drifted into petty crimes and drug use, winding up incarcerated. Starting at about age fifteen, the girls were at risk for pregnancy. Some of them intentionally tried to get pregnant so that they would qualify for housing and be free of parental controls. They would then start this vicious cycle all over again because they would birth multiple children with no way to support them.
We gave these kids a lot of time, attention, and prayer with few favorable results. It became clear that we were not going to be successful with any of them. We were forced to reexamine our strategy.
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