The phone rang a couple weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon. “Hey Ken, how you doin’?” I knew exactly who it was. *Terry and I really connected several months ago. He was detained at the Indianapolis detention center for months and is now in another facility. He will be released soon to go home. I go each week to visit him during a “family session” at the facility he is in now. All the teens in the family session are joined by their parents and siblings. I am there to be with him as his “family.” When he called, he was checking to make sure I was coming on the following Tuesday. He said, “Ken, I really hope you can come this week. It encourages me so much to see you.” I hung up the phone and kept thinking about that comment, “it encourages me so much to see you.”
During my “family session” visit, *Terry leaned forward to whisper as an instructor was talking. He said, “Ken, will you promise to spend time with me when I am released from here? I really want to follow God but I know I will need help to stay on track. Would it be possible for you to have a Bible study with me, my mom and my little brother? And will you pray with me before you leave today? And I want you to know I pray for you and your family and can’t wait to meet them.”
The ministry God has given me with troubled youth in Indianapolis is very rewarding. You get the feeling that ten years from now, people’s lives will be completely different because you stopped and listened and invested in them at a crucial time. I guess that makes the words of James 1:27 mean more to me than ever before. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
There are approximately 2000 youth who pass through the detention center in Indianapolis each year. Every one of them has a “story.” You look for those “God moments” when He connects you in a unique way to another person.
*I use an alternate name to protect the identity of the youth I minister to each week.
