movin' on.

if there's one thing they say about youth ministry, it's that you gotta be prepared to move on. and man is it hard. i've spent the past 9 months...hours upon hours...working with the first baptist youth group, and tonight i spent my last evening there as an intern. it's weird to think that over the past school year this has been the most consistent part of my life - about 6-8 hours a week, and i don't know if i've ever even blogged about it.

it certainly wasn't an easy road. coming out of the chicken nuggets and nightgames of camp ministry into this youth group was like hitting a brick wall. having to earn not only love and affection, but respect from these kids was intimidating and complicated. 9 months later they're finally starting to let me in (good timing eh?).

working with these kids has humbled me beyond belief. knowing that any sermon i'm delivering is being heard by someone who's mom is in a coma, someone who saw their sister get shot and bleed to death, someone who has been evicted from three different houses this year...it's a little hard to do.

i guess all i can say is that you gotta meet kids where they're at. a lot of these kids have terrible parents and unless we want them to have no future, we have to strive to fill that void.

i'm gonna miss these kids a lot. they changed me. for the better. and there's nothing cliche about that. so thanks mike, lakia, antonio, justice, jaemani, matt, james, steve, ben, tinu, yemi, mark, sola, kola, trey, patrick, chuck, charlie, kahjuan, brandon, rachel, joelle, and drew. "keep it real."