It's About More Than Just Reading Books

By: Ashley Larson


There was something in the air on Wednesday at the ILC. It seemed like we were sending kids to reroute about every five minutes and all of us as staff were getting pretty tired after chasing a few of the more rebellious kids around the church! Even after open rec the trend continued and at one point I looked around and realized that only 6 of the 11 students were present (the rest were in reroute!) I sent a few for arguing and saying hurtful things to each other, one for not following directions after several reminders, one for refusing to work in their binders, and one for rolling her eyes each time she was asked to do something. Finally, I just stopped our lesson and asked all the kids to just put their books away. We weren’t getting too much done anyway with all the distractions and I felt it was time for the class to look back at the promise we all wrote each other during our first week. Our promise stated that we would be kind, respectful, friendly, and we promised to make every person feel safe and accepted. After a brief review I just asked the simple question,” Someone raise your hand and tell me what is preventing you from upholding our promise today?” The answers I got were unexpected. I guess I really didn’t know how they would answer, but I opened up the discussion for honesty, and that is what I got. Right away one little girl’s hand went up in the air and when I called on her she quietly told me that she can’t concentrate because her mom is in the hospital, another relative was recently beat up by her boyfriend and then put in jail for drugs, and now she is living with her grandma. She then began to sob. Then another little girl raised her hand and told me that two weeks ago her mom was put in jail for seven years and that she also is living with her grandma. Then she began to cry. One boy hadn’t seen his dad in months, another girl’s mom was recently put in jail, and the stories kept coming. Wow. What a sad but beautiful moment it was. These kids in that moment created a safe place and opened up to one another. For the next twenty minutes I sat on the rug with them and hugged as many as I could and we prayed. The best part was watching them comfort each other by giving hugs, getting Kleenex, patting shoulders, it was a great picture. It was an eye opening moment for me, when I was honestly starting to get frustrated with all the poor behavior of the kids that day. I was able to remember the grace I need to give each of the kids at the same time I uphold high expectations for them. I was also so thankful that I work at a place like City Impact where Christ can come in and freely take over like he did on Wednesday.