There's something about a child's excitement and energy that is contagious...and sometimes overwhelming. The moment we said TAG when trying to explain the rules to link tag at least three 1st grade boys barreled forward and latched onto Bethany's waist, screaming their Harembee cheer. Not deterred by their behavior, Bethany employed the tried and true teacher technique of "ignore the bad behavior" and continued explaining the rules; boys are still latched to waist and now leaping for the shoulders for a piggy back ride. At this point more of the children, excited by their Harembee cheer and the word TAG, have begun running around the room. Bethany, resourceful and gifted educator that she is, tries to use ENVoY techniques to re-gain their attention. Much to her dismay, the children are not responsive and continue yelling and running around the room. I stood to the side, mouth agape, brain frozen, unable to even conceive of the next step. At least Bethany was trying. All of our limited educator tricks had been used up! We finally just started running with them and yelling out the rules as we went. Fun times!
For adults it is so easy to forget what child-like faith looks like and it is only when we spend time with children that we can see why Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." I was not sure how all of these precious African American children would respond to us when we first walked onto the Harambee campus. I mean, we're white girls from Oregon whose drug knowledge is from DARE and have learned about prison from newspaper articles, not because daddy lives there...what do we know about inner-city life? There was a worry inside of me that they would sense our utter naivete and not want to play with us. But my worry was for naught. All I needed to do was say hello to the little girl playing on the playground and I was in. Children are so quick to trust, even if you're a white girl from Oregon who knows nothing about the city or the hard life. By the first half hour, there were children hugging us and hanging on us, begging us to sit next to them at "Family Time." As we played it was good to be reminded that God loves it when we trust Him that quickly, even commands it when He says, "Don't be afraid because I am your God. I will make you strong and will help you; I will support you with my right hand that saves you."
Harambee is a ministry that has been creating a safe-haven for the children of Pasadena for over 20 years. The street corner where they are located is in a part of town that used to be called "blood corner" because it was where the most daytime drive-by shootings and failed drug deals occurred. Today there is still a struggle against gang and drug activity, but now it happens at night. God has blessed the work of Harambee and residents call the place where Harembee sits, "God's Corner."
One of the ways Harambee has been so successful is that they create a family within their staff. We were greeted by the receptionist, Ilene and we immediately became her "babies"...but by the way she was answering the phones, she must have had at least 100 different "babies." We were then led to Flo (in the picture below) who wears many different leadership hats at Harambee. She has an AWESOME Ghana meets UK accent and is clearly anointed by the Holy Spirit. The students respect her for the depth of relationship that she has with them as well as with her Creator. We also were able to spend some good time with Charlotte, the outgoing executive director of the whole program. She modeled leadership that is aware of what's going on and open to all feedback that will make things improve, an outstanding and often rare characteristic in a leader.
We spent our time there helping out with summer camp. The day was broken down as follows: academic time, recess, lunch, swimming, nap time, VBS. We got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with the kids which renewed my love for teaching and mentoring.
Every Friday is field trip day so today we went ice skating at the Pasadena Ice Rink. It was quite a task to round up 40 kids, get them sized for shoes, help them fit their feet into the shoes and then tie up their shoelaces. "Ms. Becca/Bethany can you help me?" was a phrase that was thick in the air for a good half hour until we had them outfitted. Those who got their shoes on first amused themselves by walking, wobbly-ankled on the rubber mat surrounding the rink. You could tell they felt pretty good about their skills in their new shoes. Then came the 10 minute skating lessons followed by the trek onto the ice. As they marched up to the rink, there was a confident and excited buzz, zinging through the line. But as they proceeded onto the rink the excited buzz quickly turned to yelps of terror as they tried to navigate wobble legs. One by one they moved onto the rink, desperately clutching the blue edge and trying to control their lower half. I know this is almost awful, but once they were all out, I couldn't help but giggle inside when I observed the line of once-confident but now terrified children yelping from the wall as the instructor tried to give advice. Some kids took on the challenge, falling flat on their butts from the get-go, arms flailing windmill style, exactly as they had been instructed not to do. Others cautiously moved along the wall. Still others wailed until a leader came to their rescue. Bethany was good with these ones as she herself is a wall-clinger who has recovered from her wailing ways.
The cool thing was that within 15 minutes all the kids were skating. Various levels, obviously, but they all found some kind of success. I couldn't help but think that as adults we approach situations in the same way. God gives us a new task and we run forward, guns blazing until we suddenly find ourselves outside our league and skill set and are instantly terrified. Somehow we age backwards about 20 years and cling to the blue edge of the ice rink, wailing for God to get us out of the situation. Or, we go for it too soon and go down extremities flailing. Or, we creep along the ice rink wall hoping God won't notice as we try to find another way to escape what He has given us to do. If we would just listen to Him, accept His belief in us and the help/direction He gives us from the beginning we would find in not much time we are more than capable of doing what He has asked us to do. The cool thing is that once we listen to His loving help and obey his direction, we are ice skating within 15 minutes, full of joy and confidence because He is the one skating with us.
One of the ways Harambee has been so successful is that they create a family within their staff. We were greeted by the receptionist, Ilene and we immediately became her "babies"...but by the way she was answering the phones, she must have had at least 100 different "babies." We were then led to Flo (in the picture below) who wears many different leadership hats at Harambee. She has an AWESOME Ghana meets UK accent and is clearly anointed by the Holy Spirit. The students respect her for the depth of relationship that she has with them as well as with her Creator. We also were able to spend some good time with Charlotte, the outgoing executive director of the whole program. She modeled leadership that is aware of what's going on and open to all feedback that will make things improve, an outstanding and often rare characteristic in a leader.
We spent our time there helping out with summer camp. The day was broken down as follows: academic time, recess, lunch, swimming, nap time, VBS. We got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with the kids which renewed my love for teaching and mentoring.
Every Friday is field trip day so today we went ice skating at the Pasadena Ice Rink. It was quite a task to round up 40 kids, get them sized for shoes, help them fit their feet into the shoes and then tie up their shoelaces. "Ms. Becca/Bethany can you help me?" was a phrase that was thick in the air for a good half hour until we had them outfitted. Those who got their shoes on first amused themselves by walking, wobbly-ankled on the rubber mat surrounding the rink. You could tell they felt pretty good about their skills in their new shoes. Then came the 10 minute skating lessons followed by the trek onto the ice. As they marched up to the rink, there was a confident and excited buzz, zinging through the line. But as they proceeded onto the rink the excited buzz quickly turned to yelps of terror as they tried to navigate wobble legs. One by one they moved onto the rink, desperately clutching the blue edge and trying to control their lower half. I know this is almost awful, but once they were all out, I couldn't help but giggle inside when I observed the line of once-confident but now terrified children yelping from the wall as the instructor tried to give advice. Some kids took on the challenge, falling flat on their butts from the get-go, arms flailing windmill style, exactly as they had been instructed not to do. Others cautiously moved along the wall. Still others wailed until a leader came to their rescue. Bethany was good with these ones as she herself is a wall-clinger who has recovered from her wailing ways.
The cool thing was that within 15 minutes all the kids were skating. Various levels, obviously, but they all found some kind of success. I couldn't help but think that as adults we approach situations in the same way. God gives us a new task and we run forward, guns blazing until we suddenly find ourselves outside our league and skill set and are instantly terrified. Somehow we age backwards about 20 years and cling to the blue edge of the ice rink, wailing for God to get us out of the situation. Or, we go for it too soon and go down extremities flailing. Or, we creep along the ice rink wall hoping God won't notice as we try to find another way to escape what He has given us to do. If we would just listen to Him, accept His belief in us and the help/direction He gives us from the beginning we would find in not much time we are more than capable of doing what He has asked us to do. The cool thing is that once we listen to His loving help and obey his direction, we are ice skating within 15 minutes, full of joy and confidence because He is the one skating with us.
Well said Becca!
ReplyDelete