Archive for July, 2010
And sometimes I think I played a roll in helping him in the right direction. To be completely honest, and thanks to Revolution Hawaii, if it weren’t for God’s effort in sitting us next to Nick every Saturday night then I can safely say that Nick would have gone nowhere. He’d be sitting there, as I write this, in the rain being swarmed by darkness and all that those streets can unleash. Thankfully that’s not the case. Thankfully, we faced the weather.
Sometimes, in the midst of reflecting on that dreary night, I think hard about our intentions and then the results. I remember praying in a circle just before we were divided but only to conquer and revolutionize. According to our intentions I could have never imagined the results, since the rain and the laziness and the dark cold bitterness that won us in the beginning seemed so dominant. But we prevailed, only because God had His way, through us, and now I think of how misleading that rain really was. Imagine how many times on a day to day basis we middle class or upper class bums ignore what is so blatantly hurting only because we are distracted by the weather. And the weather could be the rain, or it could be your schedule. It could be your wallet, or mood. Overall, our intentions, if you ask me, are always distracted from doing the best things in life unless we work with God. No matter the matter. Work with God and next thing you know there is fruit raining from the sky instead of cold uncomfortable droplets of water.
And Nick is in a clean and sober house now. Amazing.
Sometimes I think we take for granted the outreach that Revolution Hawaii performs – whether its at our volunteer sites or every Saturday downtown. But all the time, I say according to how dark our world has become, we as children of God need to make a stand and run through the rain. Never mind the storm. After all, what’s really at stake? Put it all on the line. Take a chance.
Run.
Over the next few weeks we will be posting some vintage Revolution Hawaii blogs from past years team members. Here is a classic to kick things off…
Big Kid Blake Webb
“Big Kid” by Blake Webb
11.20.07
I’m sure when the Boys & Girls Club in Waianae decided to let me join as a volunteer three days a week they didn’t realize they were trusting a six foot tall, 280 pound, 21 year old child to be a responsible adult and effectively, with respect and authority, control the large group of rambunctious children who come kicking and screaming through their doors each day to finish homework, socialize, and impatiently wait for their parents to come save the day and pick them up. From day one having kids hanging on to each one of my limbs as I desperately tried to get all twenty of them to listen silently as I read to them in the Harry Potter room; the whole responsible adult who commands respect and authority was long gone.
Every Friday at RevHi we fill out a weekly reflection paper where we take the time to write about our week and what we plan on accomplishing in weeks future. There is a section titled community service where we are supposed to reflect on praises and problems and how we are effectively being a witness at our designated service sites. Every week I feel like there is not much more to my responses than that I pretended to be ten years old and had the time of my life reading third grade books, having coloring contests, and making friends half my age for six hours a week. I mean the original intention of our volunteering in the community was to build relationships with hurting, broken people with the hope of bringing them close or closer to Jesus. And to be honest having coloring contests with bright eyed, joyful children all day didn’t feel like sharing the gospel to the hurting or broken.
It wasn’t until last Thursday when we went to pass out some free meal tickets for the annual Thanksgiving dinner at the Blaisdell that I was convinced I was sharing the gospel in the most affective and maybe the only way that was possible at the Boys & Girls Club. While passing out the tickets at one of the beach-side homeless communities in Waianae called “Sewers” we ran into a soft-spoken eleven year old girl named Maya who happened to be one of my new friends at the Boys & Girls Club. When it all sunk in that this was her home where she lived with her mother, uncle, cousins, and three dogs I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming feeling of compassion for the whole situation.
Seeing Maya’s situation really put the past month of volunteering in perspective. Not all the kids, as happy as they may seem playing Foosball, making paper airplanes, and testing my patience, go home to that same ecstatic happiness when they see mom or dad, auntie or uncle, walk through the double glass doors of the Boys & Girls Club to take them home. Maybe, just maybe those six hours a week, two hours a day acting like a child being the best friend I can be is exactly what these kids need the most. I can imagine Jesus, even being in his early thirties, acting like a child when he saw the smiles on the faces of children running just to touch him with their innocent hands and joyful laughs. I would imagine Jesus never had to act like the strict adult who told the children repent or else. Maybe this is what Paul meant when he claimed to be all things to all men that by all means he could save some. It would make perfect sense to drop all your big, bad, tough rules as an adult and act like a child around children to by all means, if they are anything like Maya, save some.
Seeing Maya out there homeless for all reasons makes every smile, every laugh, every hug so precious knowing that sharing the gospel of Jesus at the Boys & Girls club has little to do with preaching and a whole lot to do with just being big kid.
The Revolution Micronesia team has been doing an amazing job this summer in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Janet, Brigette, Emily and Tasha have been ministering in both Rita and Laura, on the island of Majuro. They only have a few more weeks until the end of their mission. We are excited to hear all that God has been doing in their lives. Here is a quick update from Capt. Jill Steiner, who serves alongside her husband Robert as the RMI Coordinators.
They (the team) have been doing Mission Literacy classes with our kids, and helping out in a lot of our programs as well as neighborhood outreachs. They ran VBS for us at two of our corps, Rita and Laura. We had around 200 kids at Rita and around 100 in Laura. Last week, all the girls were together with the Service Corps team and they all camped out at our Laura Corps for a week-long troop camp. We had a little over 200 attend that camp and it was wild but went very well and the girls loved being able to team up with the Service Corps for a week.
Brigette and Tasha went in a boat to an outer island to do some outreach there with our Corps officers the first weekend they were here. They stayed over a weekend and had a good outer island adventure. Emily and Janet will go to the same place this weekend and help with a VBS out there. We were going to send them today but the weather was too bad and the water was too rough to let them go.
They all love their families they have been staying with and they have adjusted very well to Marshallese life-style. They are already sad that their time is coming to an end and they will miss their families. But, I think they will love being home!!
They have been pretty healthy here with few mishaps: Brigette got strep throat but we got her meds and she is fine now, Janet had a stomach flu but is totally over that and doing great now, Emily did cut her leg and had to get two stitches in it but has been excellent at keeping it cleaned and covered and it is healing very quickly and she will get stitches out this week (I have forbidden her to use a machete ever again!).
Other than all that, they are happy and healthy.
Praise God! Please continue to keep these warriors in your prayers as they finish up this important mission!