My Cup Overflows

Here is FCHS looking like a good pasture!

For our Young Life training we have a certain list of books that we have to read. One of them is an in depth look of Psalm 23 from a Shepherd's perspective. Its fantastic. In Verse 5 David says that his 'cup overflows'. This is a statement that I've learned to love and its the only way I know how to describe what is going on in my heart in response to the Lord moving in Franklin County.

Yes, this is yet another example of a big, big thing the Lord has given us. It has almost become tiresome keeping everyone updated because of how much goodness is being poured out on us. Its almost too much to handle in the best way possible. There are many different biblical examples of different people seeing God and sheilding themselves from Him because He is just too good. That was such a strange concept to me until recently. Not because I feel even close to what they experienced, but because I can see how the relentless goodness of the Lord can be overwhelming. I'm not complaining.

Enough introduction, the moment we have all been waiting for finally came. For those of you new to the blog I would suggest reading from the beginning. I know get long-winded at points but I think it will be well worth your while. For those of you who know what I'm talking about, we got our decision from the schoolboard. Let me preface.



An impatient 22-year-old

As an impatient 22-year-old not wanting to wait weeks for a response I decided to set up a meeting with Principal Decker. We set Thursday the 20th at 10 a.m. as our time and I showed up 20 minutes early not wanting to miss it. She called me in and we shared in some small talk before she got to the point. The schoolboard had liked our presentation. They felt comfortable allowing Deb to set whatever parameters she felt would be work our for all parties involved. So, in some senses, we were back to square one. The ball was in Deb's court.

*Sidenote: This is something I would have seen as a negative if it weren't for the wisdom I've gained from men much wiser than I. While it may seem that we were right back where we started, just two weeks later, there are so many positives that came from the situation. First of all, the entire schoolboard knows who we are now, and is for us about as much as they can be. Secondly, the Lord's timing is perfect. All the things that have happened the pass week and a half happened outside the school. Lastly, the Lord loves to teach me patience. And I need that. And He did. Anyway, back to the narrative.

Deb said that she felt comfortable with the parameters we talked about a few weeks ago. This meant starting slow. No going to lunches for now, no hanging out after school ended, but if we wanted we could go the route that FCA does and have meetings within the school on club days. For those of you that know Young Life, thats not quite the way we operate. Our goal in going into the school isn't to form a club, but to build relationships with kids that will carry outside of the school. We aren't there to proselitize in the hallways, but rather to meet highschoolers where they are at. It wasn't quite the response I was looking for.

But the Lord is good. He knows what He is doing. And sometimes it takes weeks or months or even years before He gives us what we ask for. Sometimes He doesn't because He has something much better in mind. And sometimes He gives us more than what we wanted five minutes later. The saga continues.

At some point in our meeting Keith Pennington also joined us. You'll remember Keith as the Director of Curriculum who also joined us for our first meeting. If you don't remember that its probably because this is the first blog post you read and you need to go back and read from the beginning! Trust me already. Deb made and offhand comment to Keith about a meeting they had with the two teachers who are running the yearbook later that day. The teacher that had run it in previous years had left, and these two new teachers were left with the task of producing it and teaching the class with little or no experience in yearbook.

The FCYL Office, with a CHS chair.

In my time at CHS I took yearbook as many times as the Guidance Department would let me. Liz Hollie was one of the best teachers I've ever had and I would have done anything to hang out with her more. Also, yearbook class was easy. I had mixed motives. But, by my senior year, I was made co-editor along with my dear friend Mary Marcenelle. But enough about my outstanding accolades.

I suggested to Deb and Keith that I could help out with the yearbook. Deb looked at me and said "Would you really? We meet with them later today, we could introduce you to them and see how you could help." Before I started doing backflips about the possibility of gaining an 'in' at the school, we finished our conversations and I left the school for an hour before meeting with the two teachers later in the day.

As I came in Deb and Keith introduced me to the two new teachers, and left us to talk. The first introduced herself as Mrs. Deems and opened the conversation with "I've been praying for you. We needed help with this and needed someone with some experience."

I won't go into all the details, because this blog is already half of a novel by itself. But here is how it works. FCHS is broken up into four blocks. The last block of the day is yearbook class which I can come to any and all days that I want to. If I can't make it, no big deal, any help is great. This also means I will get to know the 25 kids in the class well, including the daughter of a committee member. This also means that I have a reason to walk around the school, meet kids in every group, take pictures at any game and have a legitimate reason to be in the school. It also means that when I hang out with Mr. Janney (again previously mentioned, go back and READ!) at the end of the day after I get done with class, its not a big deal. In fact once I met Deb at the end of the day to tell her what we'd worked out, she told me if I'm with a teacher I can really be there anytime. And now that I know teachers, I will be.

Took my boy AirMax to the HV V-ball game!

OK, OK, praise the Lord. How in the world. It has been less that a month sense I've been here and He is going crazy. Every door opened, prayers being answered, giant, giant stuff. As Alan Janney informed me; "This doesn't happen. I hope you know that." He meant that if you don't see that as God overflowing your cup, your nuts. Hallelujah. I hope you are inspired.



Now, here is a note for those of you whose cups are empty. I know there are points in my life where if I was reading this I would be jealous. I would loook at this and say "OK Lord when the heck is my turn? When do I get to have my ministry be blowing up?" But the thing is, it isn't our ministry. It is us being responsive to God and allowing Him to work in different circumstances. Right now He is teaching me through a time of prosperity. I thank Him for that. In many, many times in the past he has taught me through much more difficult circumstances; death, struggle, lack of money, lack of 'good ministry', etc. The point is, wherever I'm at in my life I want to say "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." So while it is easy for me to say this now, trust what He is doing. Find what He is trying to teach you. Don't scorn the moment because its not exactly what you want.

OK thats it. Send this blog to people you think it will encourage. I think thats one of the reasons I've had the heart to do this, to encourage.

Friday Night Lights

Starting an area isn't easy. There are a lot of things that need to happen before things can really get rolling. In my time at Virginia Tech I took for granted all the things that happen behind the scenes, committee work, fundraising, establishing a leadership at a college, etc. These are hard things to do from scratch. It has been incredible to be able to watch them get started. However, my passion is for high school kids knowing Christ. So while many things were starting to get rolling, I had yet to meet a single high school kid. That changed Friday.

Friday night Ben Brodin and I were excited to go to the home football game. Ben is a guy who knows Young Life, his dad was on staff back in the day, and he spent some time with YL in Montana. He is great with high-schoolers and loves the Lord. He is an asset to our two person team. He knows some high schoolers from his church, Trinity Ecumentical, so we had a few ins. We headed up a bit early excited for our first real oppurtunity to meet kids. He texted a few of his guys from Trinity that he though might be there, and figured we would meet up with them at some point. We left early so that we could get there in plenty of time and before we even made it to the gates we met one of the guys that Ben knew, Matt, and his friend Josh. As we talked with them for a bit we found out that it was neon night at the game, and that some in the student section would be wearing neon.

As we headed into the game Ben and I were talking about how we wished we would have known about neon night before so that we could have gotten shirts or something neon. Ben turned and asked me "Why don't we go to Wal-mart and grab a bunch of glowsticks and throw them out to the student section." Brilliant! We ran to Wal-Mart, found a neon shirt and bought out there entire section of glowsticks. We put them in a bag and headed back to the game.

At first we weren't sure how to get the student section. It was packed, and there wasn't much room to squeeze in. In addition to that, we didn't know any kids so we didn't just want to creep in behind them. So we decided to take a lap around to see what we could do. At that point I got a text from our very own Cheryle Aldridge, committee member extraordinaire, asking if I was at the game so that I could come meet some high schoolers that she knew. On the way over to meet her I ran into our favorite administrator Deb Decker. I got to introduce her to Ben and chat with her for ten or fifteen minutes about the goings on at the school (no word from School Board yet). She mentioned two kids to meet, one by the name of Ryan Peavy who was leading the student section and would be wearing a cowboy hat.

So we met with Cheryl and headed back to the student section, on a mission to find Ryan Peavy. It wasn't hard. He's was a big boy with a cowboy hat screaming his head off in the middle of the student section. For those of you familiar with Young Life he was the definition of a key kid. Not knowing quite what to say I told him Deb Decker had sent me to find him so I could give him the glow sticks to throw out to the student section. Upon showing him the giant bag full he, and the rest of the student section went nuts. They were so excited that they insisted that I sit with them and literally pulled me up by my arms into the student section. For the rest of the game I got to sit (stand really) the whole time in the student section meeting every kid around me that I could. I lost Ben in the shuffle only to look down and see him with a  completely different group of kids. It was crazy.

They I asked what I was doing there and I told them about Young Life, some of them knew it from family or friends. Ann Taylor Walker knew about it from her brothers, and we even started talking about Rockbridge. It was truly crazy. One kid, Max Harper (pictured left in his ketchup costume), was so stoked about me being there he told me HE was going to pick ME up the next morning and take me to the volleyball tournament and that we would hang out all day. In all we met about 30 kids, and countless more saw us in the crowd and must have wondered who the heck we were. Talk about going to where kids are at right?

Now I want to stop here and emphasize some things. This is our first 'contact work'. We knew a few kids in a school of 2,300 going into this football game. We had no prior set up, no former leaders to name drop, no game plan. What we did have was prayer and a humbled heart. It took me two and a half weeks to meet a kid, but with the Lord when it rains, it pours. I don't know what it was that made Ben think of glowsticks. There are two many coincidences involved from to to say it was all chance. The Lord is doing big, big things and responding to prayers in real ways. My time walking that very football field praying wasn't in vain. Don't worry about how long the Lord is taking. Don't be impatient or try and do things yourself. Be patient, be prayerful and listen. Follow where He leads.

In conclusion I hope this has been another encouraging update. There will be more soon, I'm having  a hard time keeping up with writing all that the Lord is doing. But trust me, I'm not complaining.

The School Board Meeting!

The Monday of the school board meeting was one where I realized my severe inadequacies. Thank the Lord that he chooses to work through broken vessels.

Steve Schmitt has worked for Young Life for the past 31 years. Currently he is the Regional Developer for Southwest Virginia, but before that he was the Area Director in Blacksburg a position currently held by Dave Sloop. This means that while I was a punk high school kid coming up through the ranks of Christiansburg High School and going to Young Life, Steve Schmitt knew me, or at least knew of me. In college Steve led a Bible study in my apartment and through our relationship he encouraged me to apply for staff and talked to me about Franklin County long before I was placed there. I'm honored that I get to walk through this process with him.

Steve and I talked on the phone that morning, as we would be presenting together, and came up with a basic outline of what we wanted to say. This wasn't Schmitty's first rodeo. He'd been in similar situations and knew what would be good for the school board to hear. We got off the phone and I practiced what I would say all the while checking the clock as I watched 7 o'clock get closer and closer and my butterflies become more and more numerous.

Schmitty came around 5 and we grabbed dinner together after practicing what we would say a few times. We showed up at the school board office around 6:30 and waited outside for a few of our committee members. Jane Jacobsen was the first to meet us. Jane is our committee chair and I thank God that she is. She is dedicated, driven, organized and above all she loves Jesus in a way that drives everything she does. I couldn't ask for a better captain of our ship. Second was Tom Rickard. Tom is the librarian at one of the local elementary schools. He is well known in the school system and an all around great guy. Going in to a meeting with school administration he is a great person to have backing you up. Lastly Al Flora arrived. I'm not sure if there is a person in the county that Al doesn't know. He had a comment for nearly every person that we walked by in the way to the office. It's good to know people that know people.

So in we walked, Steve and I flanked by our Franklin County family praying that the Lord would speak through us and allow us access to the school. Immediately upon walking in I saw Deb Decker, the principal at FCHS. I went up and made small talk with her and ended up sitting next to her as the meeting started. I remained unsure of how sold she was on Young Life, but I was glad she was my seat neighbor. As I looked at the schedule that she handed me, I saw that we were the first order of new business.

After a few quick orders of old business they moved on to new business. Sue Rogers, who we had met before, introduced us and the fact that we would be speaking on behalf of Young Life. We approached the podium that sat ten or so feet away from where the School Board sat. The tables that they sat at were raised about a foot so that we literally looked up to them as we gave our presentation. Many of them, there were ten or so, had painted their framed picture behind them on the wall. They were official. I was nervous.

So our time came. As Steve gave his part he introduced me saying that I was a VT grad to which the room responded with cheers. "Did you think we'd put a UVA grad here?"Steve quipped, giving way to laughter across the board which lightened the mood considerably. There is something to the way Young Life uses humor to allow people to be unguarded. From then on I felt free to just talk, rather than feeling I had to do perfectly.

-Side note: The whole week I'd been reading a lot of Scripture on the Holy Spirit. There are many examples in the Bible where believers come before authorities (most of them wanting to kill them, I realize my situation is a bit different) but they talk about not worrying about what you will say, because the Holy Spirit will speak through you.* This means it isn't our job to convince them. Of course I wanted to be as prepared as possible, but there was no argument that I could make that would seal the deal. That is where prayer comes in. That is where we have to fall on our knees, rely on the Lord and trust that He is going to work for His purposes. So I tried my best to humbly do that and when the moment came, I spoke.

Now, my part was by no means perfect. I said what I wanted to say. Steve concluded briefly and I had the feeling that there were a few important things we wanted to touch on that we left out. However, they gave time for the board to ask us questions.

As people began to ask, some prefaced saying something along the lines of "I want you to know that I'm for you, but what about . . . ". You could tell in their faces that they understood and supported what we wanted to in loving kids. As they asked questions I became more and more thankful that Steve was there. As I said, he had been here before. He understood the questions they had in a way that I couldn't. When they asked "What happens when [insert apparent problem]" He could respond "Well when I was Area Director in Blacksburg, this did happen in [insert school name] and we handled it by [insert super wise solution] and it was positive because we [insert more things that make us look like we know what we're doing]".

The ultimate 'God is with us' moment came as Steve was answering a question and I felt a tap on my shoulder. Note that the rest of those that came to the meeting were about 10 feet behind us, so someone had to leave there seat to get my attention. I turn to see Deb Decker who whispered to me to tell the board what I had told her about my getting involved in Young Life in high school. When the opportunity didn't immediately present itself, she piped up from the crowd allowing me a chance to answer. That was the moment that I knew that the principal of FCHS was for us in a big way. It was huge. The whole board saw her talk to me. The volumes that must have spoken, unreal.

As we finished, we told them what we were looking to do in the school and they said they would discuss is. No timetable for a response, and here I sit a week later and there is nothing yet. We know how busy they are and how many things they need to discuss, we know it could take a while. We know that the Lord is with us, and in His timing His purposes will be accomplished. That was demonstrated so clearly I have no grounds to question it.

The icing on the cake came as we once again took our seats the next gentleman, a member of the football booster club came to give his order of new business. He began with something along the lines of "I know this is off of my topic, but we had Young Life when I was in high school in South Carolina. It brought our school together and gave us a sense of unity. I can't say enough good things about it. But what I'm here for today is . . . ". He went on to talk about advertisements on the gates at the football field, a subject of which the school board had a million things to say about how unsure they were that this thing would work out. In the end, signs on the football field got more opposition than a 22-year-old man coming in to the school in hopes of bringing kids to Christ.

The Lord is with us.

I apologize for how long this post is, how late it is, and my lack of story telling ability. Above all though, I hope that you see what the Lord is doing through the prayers of his people. I hope you are as amped as I am about the doors He is opening in Franklin County. If the Lord is for us, who can stand against us? What a beautiful picture of Christ's love. Thank you for your support friends, more to come soon.

*A great resource for this is Francis Chan's Forgotten God. An even better resource is the Bible, specifically Mark 13:11 and Luke 12:12)

The Preamble to the School Board Meeting

One day soon I'll give a blog about my first to weeks being here and what they looked like. But today my time is crunched and I won't be able to write that much. Last night we were allowed to present at the school board meeting, one of our most significant steps forward to date. To set up that story, this one is necessary. I'll hopefully be able to post about the school board meeting in the next few days. Enough introduction.

One of the first things I was able to do upon coming to FranCo was meet Alan Janney for lunch. Alan was an Area Director in Radford, Virginia for five years before moving to Franklin County to teach. He and his wife have been involved with our committee and as soon as he heard I was in town he invited me out to the school for lunch. After we talked vision for the school for about twenty minutes or so the bell rang and he had to get back to teaching. As I went to leave though I wanted to see if I could set up a meeting with the school's principal; Deb Decker.

Deb Decker is a busy woman. After being bounced around to three different people I was told that she made her own appointments and that if I wanted to meet with her I could find her in the lunch room to set up an appointment. As I made my way into the cafeteria I saw that she was the only person in the room. After brief introductions we set up a meeting for the following day at 1:30. I was surprised that she could meet with me so soon and left feeling nervous but excited about meeting with her the next days.

When you are thrown into the fire it is easy to see how truly under qualified you are. For the rest of the day and the next morning as I talked to Steve Schmitt among others planning out what I was going to say I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I knew Young Life, I knew what it could be at FCHS but I had no idea how to communicate that to the principal of a school to whom you can't really say "Hey, I'm just a 22 year-old guy who wants to come into your school and hang out with high school kids. But don't worry, its not creepy, we talk about Jesus too."

But the Lord's power is made perfect in our weakness. Going in my prayer was that we would be able to have access to the school. That is so crucial to Young Life because it allows leaders a place where they can go and meet every single student at the school. There is no other place that offers that. There are tons of kids at football games, the local McDonalds and the local YMCA, but none that have the entire student body. That's why is it so important for us to have a working relationship with administration and be able to be involved in the day to day life at the school. To truly have a presence there. I knew the Principal Decker had the keys to that and I hoped she would see what incredible things could come from it.

The meeting went well. Instead of the 15 minutes I thought I would have, we met for over an hour. She even brought in the Director of Curriculum about halfway through to discuss how we could make this work. At the end of the meeting no decisions were made and I was left with the sense that it could be a while before things were decided upon. I felt that she wanted to make it work, but she just wasn't sure how she could. Separation of church and state is a tricky thing to work out. Its something that when done wrong can cause absolutely chaos between parents and administration. We realized that what were dealing with was fragile, and so she said she would get back to me in a few days.

So I went home and I prayed. I knew there was nothing I could do at that point. Really there was nothing I could do at any point, but I felt a healthy sense of helplessness as I drove back. Luckily I had a three day training session at Lake Champion to take my mind off of it. Lake Champion is a Young Life camp in New York and all of the first year Staff Associates and their trainers went up for three days to set the tone for the rest of the year; again a blog for another day. However, while up there I snuck away and used the computer in the kitchen office to see if they had sent me something. It turned out they had; and invitation to speak in front of the school board in 5 days. They wanted to decision to be one that the whole school board could stand behind. They said that if we couldn't present in five days we would have to wait until the October meeting. We knew the time was then, so we began preparing.

CLIFFHANGER!

More to come soon. I'm sorry for the spelling and gramatical errors. Get it? Gramatical errors?

My Hope

My hope in doing this blog is multi-faceted. First of all I hope to use a lot of big vocabulary words, such as multi-faceted. Honestly though, I hope this blog is a source of encouragement. In the two weeks since I've moved to Rocky Mount, right in the heart of Franklin County, I've been encouraged daily by what the Lord is doing and by what I get to watch Him do here.

So here are my goals in this blog:

1. To be an update to the many people supporting me in the great adventure. I am terrible at keeping people updated and I hope that this will help that. My desire is for those following to get to watch closely at what is going on in Franklin and be a part of the big things that are happening.

2. To be a trial and error blog that other Young Life staffers, among others can learn from. Starting a new area is incredible, but the process can be confusing at times and so I hope that others can learn from my experience.

3. To be a history of Young Life in Franklin County. At Virginia Tech I double majored in History and Sociology and my time studying history allowed me to see its importance. As I experience this exciting time I want to be able to capture it in words so that one day I, among others, can look back.

4. More than anything I hope that this blog glorifies what God is doing here. It is crazy, unpredictable, big, bold and awesome. I hope people see it for what it is, Jesus bring people to Himself.

With all that being said, thank you. Thank you for everyone reading this because your prayers, friendships and support have allowed me to live out this great adventure here. This blog is for you.