Revolution

Tonight we had Revolution, our youth group. We pick up over 400 teens, ages 11 through 18, every Tuesday night for the service. It's always kinda crazy, but lots of fun! We split the teens into two groups: 11-13(Junior) and 14-18(Senior). I work with the Junior class right now. I really enjoy it. I never really thought about if I enjoyed working with teenagers or not, but I've realized that I really like them. When everyone is annoyed at them yelling and being crazy, I find myself not even bothered by them. Hopefully this is a good sign and not a sign that I'm neglecting my duties of making sure they're acting right!
There's always some kid that gets kicked off the bus every week...or so it seems. Tonight 3 teens got kicked off for a week. Last week I had to kick off 2 of my own teenagers...I hate doing that! But it has to be done, otherwise they just keep on abusing your generous second chances. They got a lot to live up to on our busses - we know it and they know it. So it can be real hard for them. I mean, every day is filled with cursing, fighting, and things like that. And when they get on the bus to go to "church", for them it is changing everything they're used to doing.
Let me give you an idea of what these kids are faced with everyday: Tonight at Revolution 3 of our teens that are really involved in the ministry and are living for God told the the youth group some of the things they're facing. Brian told us about how everytime he goes home, his mom starts screaming at him for no reason. His mom has told him that he's worthless, a mistake, in the way of her living the life she wants to live. Pretty much she wishes she never had him. Lawrence told us how his mom is in jail right now and his dad is one of the drug dealers on the street corner. He has a place to live, but when he goes "home" there's no one to welcome him home, nobody to ask him how his day went. No one really cares. Shaniqua's mom died a year ago. She had a massive asthma attack and was gone. Her mom held the family together. And now that Shaniqua's mom is gone, the family is falling apart. That was just 3 kids sharing their struggles. Man, I could keep on writing and writing story after story. These kids live in a world completely different then what most people are used to living in. These "kids" are fooling around and having sex starting at the age of 9-10 years. And these "kids" are having babies by 13-14 years. Their world is so screwed up. It's the type of thing you really gotta see for yourself to understand. Even I'm still struggling to understand it all. I'm still learning what life is really like for some of these kids I know. It breaks my heart to know what they're going through, yet not being able to go in and cure the problem.