Letters from 6th Graders

     Joel's Place regularly hosts field trips for individual classrooms.  The typical visit looks something like this:

• Show up and the class oohs and ahhs over how cool the park is.
• We play dodgeball so the kids get used to moving up and down the ramps with helmets on.
• We spend a half hour rotating through 5 separate skating skill stations.
• Water and snack break
• Free time where they can skate in the park or play in the rest of the building.
• Time to go...which is when the pleas begin with their teacher about not wanting to go back to school and never wanting to leave.

The trips are a lot of fun for me to lead and a great opportunity to raise awareness of Joel's Place among the community.  I received a batch of thank you letters from a recent trip and I just had to share some excerpts.

"Thank you for treating us to Joel's Place! It was a big learning expirence for me because I had never ridden a skateboard in my life before that point! It's hard for me to belive that people can do jumping tricks on skateboards while on big ramps, but the holes and marks proves that they can! Out of all the fun field trips I have been on, I think that this was the most fun-and awesomest (I don't know if that's even a word, but it describes Joel's Place in my opinion!)"

"...I learned how challenging it is to learn how to skateboard.  Have you learned how to skateboard yet? I bet your getting alot better. I am hoping to come back sometime, I had alot of fun."

"...To be honest, I thought Joel's Place was going to be boring, but I was SO wrong! It is cool and a good place for kids to learn how to skateboard and become great some day. I could not even control how awesome it is that you led kids just do their own thing..."

The words are great, but I cannot adequately describe the amazing pictures they drew on the cards.  Kids flying off their boards with sound effects, stick figures strapping pillows to their bodies for the next time they come, skating on rainbows and waterfalls.  I always have a smile on my face after a class leaves.  Having been here when the building is full and when it is empty, I can safely say that this facility is so much more joyful when there are children here. 

If you know of a classroom that would like to have a field trip here, feel free to let me know or have the teacher contact me.  We have a great resource to share here and I am always happy to introduce our community to what we do here.

Reflections

     This has been a long, draining week.  We have program audits and summer preparations, grant reporting and daily operations, fires to put out with staff and members and the Board...all the normal pieces that go into the job.  However on top of all that, this past week two dear family friends passed away on consecutive days.  This week has been full of tears and questions and reflection. 

     Scott was almost 60 and had been battling with MS for around 20 years.  Sarah was almost 22 and, due to complications around her birth, had been profoundly disabled for her entire life.  News about their rapidly deteriorating health came across Facebook and for each of them I found myself in the same place...not sure of how to pray.  Was the faithful response to pray for their healing and survival or was it to pray that God would release them from their suffering and welcome them into eternity?  I found that as I thought about Sarah's passing I felt such sorrow for her family's loss...and I felt such joy for her as she was finally free of her broken body, able to run and laugh and see and sing for her Creator.  Both feelings brought tears.

     Both memorials were packed.  The community poured out love and support for the families of these two remarkable individuals and I was struck by their immense impact.  Scott and Sarah, both wheelchair-bound for decades, inspired stories of love and laughter and hope and support.  How does that happen?  How do people who are so completely dependent on others for their own survival become so deeply entrenched in other people's hearts?

     I love teaching Bible Studies.  I love walking through Scripture with people and helping them discover who God is and what He is like.  I tell the Bible Study Leaders that I train that studying scripture can be like meeting Jesus Face to Face.  I am coming to believe that spending time with the disabled and crippled can be like meeting Jesus Heart to Heart.  In many cases they possess a simple heart that loves quickly and reflects their heavenly Father.  There is an internal purity that is often disguised by the awkwardness and brokenness of their body.  

     The Heart of God is also on display in the parable of their lives.  It is easy to romanticize the life of the disabled and God's love of the weak and the broken if you are not the ones who are taking care of them.  The bills, the back-breaking work of moving them, the sleepless nights, the medications and operations, the countless prayers for healing that never came.  The lives of my dear friends have been full of long-term struggle and isolation as they have cared for their loved ones.  And it is not the hard work that ends in a promotion or a scholarship, it is literally the labor of love.  The work that one person invests for another because their hearts beat together.  This self-sacrificing love is the very picture of the love the Father has for all of us. It is a love that holds nothing back, even when we are unable to give anything in return.  For everyone watching, it is a picture of patience and affection, strength and endurance, joy and the hope of a better eternity.  A better example of evangelism I have never seen.

     I mourn for my friends who have lost a piece of their hearts from this world.  I rejoice for my brother and sister who now run wildly throughout heaven.  I am grateful for Scott and for Sarah and for all the other people who God has placed in my life who are disabled or crippled or atypical.  I am grateful for the opportunity to approach the Heart of God by learning from those whom the world would cast aside.  May God grant us eyes to see.

A Typical Friday

It is a typical Friday at Joel's Place Skate Park and Youth Center.  Our Financial Manager arrives at 8 and begins reconciling account, answering phones and managing grant requirements.  I arrive at 9 and check in before diving into cleaning and preparing.  You see, we have a field trip coming over today.  By 9:30 we have 20 helmeted second graders running up and down the ramps, ripping their pants when they slide and yelling like banshees.  I lead the kids through skill stations, snack, free play and lunch with one of our other staff before they all head back to school, grudgingly, at 11:30.  As they are leaving they all say thank you and I hear many iterations of "I wish we didn't have to leave," "That was the funnest field trip ever," and "Can I have my birthday party here?"

     11:30-12:30 are spent cleaning up, readjusting helmet straps and answering the messages that came in while the field trip was around.  The next hour and a half are used to answer e-mails, make connections and complete paperwork.  2:00 the Joel's Place staff and some Board Members meet together for a presentation on Autism in teens.  We cover subjects like what Autism is, how it manifests in teenage boys, how to communicate and conflict de-escalation.  As we talk, we realize that several of our members likely will fall onto the spectrum and we think through how to best serve them. 

     3:00 the doors open.  The skate park is cleaned, the Red Room is ready and there is food available for the kids who are famished after school.  The youth trickle in and then begin arriving in waves.  Fridays we will generally have 40-60 kids come through our doors.  There is skating and biking going on.  Video games are going.  The pool table, ping-pong table and foosball set are all constantly being used.

     6pm is a busy time:  Drum lessons start.  A Pokemon tournament gets underway up in the conference room.  A homemade dinner is served for free. Every room has someone doing something fun.  Kelli, Jon, Leah, Darius, Rhema and Stokes make the rounds, ensuring that everyone is safe while a few volunteers help clean up dinner and talk with the kids. There are a couple of closed door conversations going on in the midst of the cacophany as our staff help a few kids work through recent crises.

     9pm we close...kind of.  From 9:09-10:10 we host 1080, a gathering of church youth groups and their friends to play dodgeball, eat and learn.  It is a time full laughter and joy.  The building finally empties out between 10:30 and 11 as the staff turn everything off and lock everything up.  It has been 15 hours of energy and activity; the building, and staff, needs a rest before we start again on Saturday.

    It is because of your generosity and support that all of this is able to happen.  Thank you so much for everything that you do to help us invest in youth.  This is a safe place full of fun and opportunity for dozens and dozens of young people every day.  I feel blessed to work here and know that we are supported by such a great network of partners.