Giving Thanks

     There's not really an easy way to say this, but my Texas summer is coming to its close.  My junior high kids have spent their last day at Summer JAM, and they'll be heading to Camp of the Hills next week.  In about a week, my internship at Fortress will be over and I'll start heading back to Nashville.  I would say heading back home, but I've really gained a home in Fort Worth over the last two months, and even though Nashville is my home, I hate that I have to leave this city.  It's been pointed out to me that this problem would all but go away if Arkansas were removed from the map.  Do you believe in miracles?

     As I'm getting ready for my final week here and thinking about the last seven weeks, I'm realizing that I have been incredibly blessed, both here and in Nashville, and that I have a lot to be thankful for.  Seriously, a whole lot  (sorry, this is more for my benefit than for yours):

     For the Summer JAM interns. For Payton and Claudia, for Cathy and Shelby, for Sarah and Sasha, for Chris and Michelle.  Without these 8 kids from cities and schools all over Texas and Oklahoma,  this would have been a completely different summer (and not for the better).  I came to Fort Worth knowing two people (my cousin and his wife) and by the end of my first week of work I had gained an incredible, hilarious, committed, and godly group of friends.  God brought nine specific people together for a specific reason, and I am awestruck at the beauty of His plan, even if I don't fully understand it.

     For the staff and volunteers at Fortress.  For Aundrea and Ms. D, for Dani and Daniel, for Stacy and Terri, for Brianna and Kelsey and Shanique, for the mentors in the Ignite program, for the youth groups from Tyler, Decatur, Round Rock, Little Rock, Searcy, and Conway who have sent mission teams to Fortress this summer, and for the past staff of Fortress and Fortress Church.  These people have given a LOT of their time and energy to be the hands and feet of Christ in the Southside.  Kelsey, Brianna, and Shanique practically run the Building Blocks program for the youngest Fortress kids.  Dani and Daniel planned Summer JAM while they were working in Fortress's after school program.  Stacy and Terri go way beyond their job descriptions every day to make Fortress the great organization that it is.  Aundrea and Ms. D do literally whatever is needed to keep Fortess running.  The Ignite mentoring program is probably the #1 reason why I wish Vanderbilt was in Ft. Worth, so I could be a part of it.  The past of Fortress and the Fortress Church is a powerful testimony to the plans and workings of our God.  Countless other people have contributed time, energy, and resources toward the incredible stronghold for the Kingdom that is Fortress, and I am just as thankful for them.

     For the Fortress kids:
For the little guys in Building Blocks: Willy and Billy and J-Mac and Peanut and Ray and Topanga and Alijah and Leonard and Caylon and a lot whose names I never learned.  Something about hearing those kids scream the ABCs from across the building just makes me happy.  Something about hearing them sing Jesus Loves Me just gives me hope.

For the youngest group at Summer JAM (Army). For Brenshay and Calei, for Ja'Caila and JaQuesha, for Mickayla and Unique (never was a child more aptly named), for Aisha and Ashley, for Asia and Robert, for Aalivia and Rodney.  These kids were the absolute best during games.  I had fun because they had fun, and I had joy because they showed me how.  When Christ said that only those like children could know the joys of the kingdom, he was talking about these guys.

For the second youngest (Navy).  For Derron and Lonnie, for Klarence and Elijah, for Kaliya and Lanajia, for Clara and Lilly, for Chassidy and Lazayiveya, for Devonte and Ja'Vuntae and Semierria.  These kids just make me laugh, and for that I could not be more thankful.

For the second oldest group (Marines).  For Alyssa and Daisy, for Keondrick and Dekendrick, for JJ and JayShawn, for Kya and Xzayvier, for Ian and Aidan and Taylor.  The future is so bright for these kids.  They give me hope, that maybe mankind isn't finished just yet.

For the oldest kids, my kids, the junior high, the Air Force.  For Britney and Cameron, for Chance and Breanna, for Jaialyn and Johnisha, for Brandon and Yasmeen, for Roy and Dre'Shawn, for Deabre and Adrian.  These kids have caused me more stress and frustration than any group I have ever encountered.  But for some reason I love them.  They have tested my patience and my faith, and I've come out stronger because of it.  What an indescribable blessing!

     For the men and women I met on Lancaster Avenue.  For Hector and Junior, for Joyce and Rodney, for Michael and Laura, for Clint and Dominic, for Carlos. For, once again, those whose names I never learned or have already forgotten.  I'm still struggling with many of the lessons I learned talking to these people.  I spoke with a man who, while waiting for a mat to sleep on in a shelter, told me what I great life he's had.  Carlos told me in a single breath that, by walking up and down Lancaster with water, bagels, and prayer, I was both doing the Lord's work and also enabling people to stay on the streets without looking for jobs.  The people I've met on Lancaster have made me question the meaning of words like treasure and home and blessing.

     For the leadership and the entire family at Ethos in Nashville.  For Dave and Sydney, for Brandon and Courtney, for Luke and Heather, for Will and Caity, for literally hundreds of others.  For mission teams in Moldova and in Guatemala and in Honduras and across the world.  For new churches and schools in India.  For everyone who wants nothing more than to Love God, Love Others, and to Awaken a Movement.  His movement.

     For the one and only Peace, Love, House Church.  For Todd and Andrew, for Brett and Charity, for Kacy and Ryane, for Jennifer and Annie, for Jamie and Garrett, for Mitchell and Shawn, for Mary Leigh and Shane, for Chad and Katie, for Elizabeth and Parker and George.  For all of our families.  For prayer and praise and the Spirit of God.

     For Harpeth Hills and the HHYG.  For Jason and Jennifer and Ayesha and Keith and Kim and David and Chris Anne and Mark and Beth and Laura.  For all the teachers and interns and camp counselors through the years.  For my grade who I haven't seen in way too long.  It's hard to describe what these people have done for me.  They made me into somebody that's willing to try to let Christ make me into somebody new.

     I'm thankful for a lot more things and a lot more people.  If you're reading this, chances are I'm thankful for you.  I'm obviously thankful for the love that let sinners kill it so that their sins could be forgotten one day.  I'm thankful that the nails I drove into him couldn't hold him down.  I'm thankful that God is the judge so that we don't have to be.  I'm thankful that the Spirit cries to God when we don't know how.
Christ, thank you
Father, thank you
Spriit, thank you     

What I Want to Be when I Grow Up

   It's the start of my off week at Fortress, so I have nine days to do basically whatever I want.  Due to the prices of gasoline and plane tickets, whatever I do will have to be here in sunny Fort Worth/Arlington, TX, and not in Tennessee.  Add to this the fact that half of my coworkers are out of town, and here I am with no plans for a week.  Now, when I have no plans for a week, my mind starts to think, which is always dangerous.  So here I am thinking in Texas, and I start to think about, of all things, the future. My future.  These kinds of thinking sessions hardly ever end well, but I've got kind of a good feeling about this one.

  But first, let's talk about Fortress.  This off week could not have come at a better time.  By the end of the third week of Summer JAM, I found myself tired.  Not giving up, not really discouraged, not unhappy, just tired.  My junior high kids (whom I still love after three weeks) were starting to get under my skin a little bit.  They just would not do what I or the staff told them to do last week, and when they did, it was after rolling their eyes or making some kind of smart remark.

*I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to every (yes, every) teacher I had going up through school.  I am beginning to realize just how big of a pain I was to each of you through the years.  It must have been torture. I am truly sorry, and I know that you will all have a great reward on high for what you put up with.*

   So I'm basically at the end of my rope with these kids by the end of the week. I even pull a kid aside and channel a little of my father, the master communicator of "you better buck up and start acting right" (the kid deserved it).  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, that glorious week of rest and rejuvenation.  Standing in my way, however, is a 14-hour work day on Thursday, culminating with a 6 hour field trip to the sweltering Six Flags theme park.  I'm kinda dreading it.  The first half of the day is no cup of tea, but then comes the field trip.  The kids are perfect.  Looking back, it seems obvious that they're okay following the rules on the field trip.  We took them to Six Flags, for goodness sake!  What reason could they possibly have to disobey or disrespect us?  So the day ends, everybody's happy, and everybody goes home.

   C'mon, Zachary, what's with all the negativity?  You wrote two (only two!?) positive sentences about the last two weeks at Fortress.  Well, we're halfway through and these kids aren't perfect.  I just guess I figured they would be, that I would swoop in and turn a bunch of inner-city junior highers into a group of perfect little middle class future businessmen and -women.  Unfortunately (holy absent attitude adjustment, Batman!), I'm not a superhero, and they're still a bunch of inner-city junior highers.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Fortunately (and this is where it gets good), these kids who were born halfway down the road to lifelong poverty have been placed by their parents and by Fortress on a new path, one that leads to self-respect, education, and a better life than their parents had.  It's a long path, and they're definitely not there yet, but I'm just lucky enough to get to see one or two steps along the way. 

  Now I'm back on long paths, the future, etc.   This week, I want to decide what to be when I grow up (I'm actually not sure how much time I have before I'm grown up).  So far, I've crossed off mobster, astronaut, and major leaguer; how hard could this be?    A guy came to Fortress for a kind of career day.  He said that a job should meet three requirements: 1) it should be something good, 2) it should be something fun, and 3) it should be something that makes good money.  I agree with #1 completely.  I agree with #2 only if #1 is true.  I agree with #3 only if #1 and #2 are true.  So first, I look for something that is good.  I want to help people; that is good.  Ok, #1 is settled.  Now for something that is fun, something that I like.  This is where I am stuck. (I'm not too worried about #3, since the groups that help people the most are usually classified as 501(c) non-profit.) 

   I also think that above all, kind of a rule #0, job or direction in life should be determined by the will of God.  God has a plan.  This is good because I love plans/order/detail.  This is bad (in my mind) because I do not understand God's will.  I do not have a chart or timeline of God's plan, and even if I did, it would be way over my head.  Not knowking God's plan, I am left with the scary idea that there is a right choice to be made about my future.  For me, a right choice implies an almost infinite number of wrong choices.  I'm not the kind of guy who finds a lot of needles in haystacks, so this worries me.  Luckily, I believe that God will one day hand me that needle, or lead me to it without my even realizing it. 

   Here's what I do know: I want to work with people, and I don't want to be in politics.  When I say I want to help people, I mean people that probably won't get help otherwise.  I just watched a documentary called The Human Experience.  I highly recommend it, and it illustrates exactly the kind of people that I'm talking about.  It's about two brothers, Jeff and Cliff, who decide that they want to find out what it truly is to be a human.  Now, most of us know what it's like to be middle-class.  If we're not middle-class ourselves, then we can see it at school or at work or in the media.  And we've all seen how the wealthy live; TV and magazines are filled with the stories  of the rich and famous.  But these brothers, two boys who endured emotional abuse in their home as children, chose to document the humanity of the ignored, the abandoned, the outcast.

  The first thing the brothers decide to do is to spend a week in the middle of winter living on the streets of Brooklyn, their hometown.  They slept in boxes with a group of homeless men, they begged for food and for money, and they tried to figure out what made their new friends get up in the morning.  Like most of the homeless folks I've encountered, these men and women accepted their situation, either willingly as part of God's plan or begrudgingly with a bottle in hand.  Almost all of them had a message for the viewers of the film, and one man summed it up pretty perfectly:  "They say, 'Oh, they aren't human.'  Well, we're not automatons, either.  We have blood, heart, mind, soul, and spirit."  People, man. Humanity. I want to be a part of it.

   Sidenote: I was out on Lancaster Avenue the other day for work, and I met a really cool guy.  Unfortunately, I didn't get his name, but I really enjoyed talking to him.  He mostly talked about traveling, how the experience, the aura, of Times Square can literally take your breath away, and how beautiful the monuments in D.C. are at night.  Then he said something I didn't see coming: "I've had a really good life."  Not what I expected at all.  See, this guy doesn't have a job.  He doesn't have a home.  When we met, he was sitting on a bench outside the Union Gospel Mission on a stretch of Lancaster known as Homeless Row.  When I think of the guys I've met down there, I don't usually think, "Man, they've had a good life."  I think, "I love these guys, but I hope to God that I don't end up like them."  How twisted is that?  I have a home and a family and a job, I go to a great school, and yet I worry about my life, I complain about the tiniest things.  But this guy, he is at peace with the world.  He's had a good life.  How beautiful is his heart?  How ugly is mine? 
 
   The film's second experience takes the brothers to a children's home in Peru with Surfers for a Cause, a group of guys that surf around the world and volunteer in the communities that they visit.  Watching this part of the film reminded me of the two weeks that I spent volunteering in Honduras during high school.  It also was an encouragement to me, because I tend to think that no one is trying to make a difference in the lives of the broken.  Of course they are, but they could still use an extra set of hands.

  The final experience for the brothers was a trip to Ghana to visit a leper colony and to meet people suffering from HIV/AIDS.  This part got me excited and upset at the same time.  It was incredible to see the strength and trust in God displayed by a woman with AIDS and the mother of a child with AIDS.  The people they interviewed were truly remarkable individuals.  The segment in the leper colony is what upsets me.  I liked what the guys with the film were doing (being love to the outcast), but the whole idea of the leper colony doesn't sit right with me at all.  One of the guys in the film said he didn't know that leper colonies still existed.  The fact that Hansen's Disease, which can be cured in as little as 6 months, is still a curse and a life sentence for millions of people today, and that many of the people best equipped to help don't even know about it, makes me sick.  It's a cause that I've given thought to before.  Who knows, you guys may be witness to an important moment for me, right here in this blog post.  Wouldn't that be something?

   Well, I may be a little closer to finding out what I want to be when I grow up.  We may figure this out by the end of the week after all.  Maybe I won't figure it out for years.  But if I just try to listen for God's voice in all this and follow his path for me, then I'll be able to say I've had a really good life, whether I have a home or a job or not.

   Thanks for listening to my rambling, guys, it means a lot.  Love always and God bless.  Zachary

Hitting My Stride

   Week 2 of Summer JAM started today.  I couldn't be more excited for the rest of this summer.  Only one thing bothers me: it's already week 2.  That means there's only four more weeks after this one.  I already don't want to leave.

   Week 1 was incredible.  Sure, there were some bumps getting things started, but now we're hitting our stride.  Our daily schedule is locked down, and we're familiar with all our kids now.  Payton and I have firmly established ourselves as games masters, and we're having a blast giving the kids a short break from math and reading.  All the interns are getting along great, and we're comfortable interacting with our youth group volunteers who come in each week to help with the program.  Basically, life is good at Fortress.

   I love my junior high kids.  I really do.  I've spent five days with them and they're already the coolest thing that has happened to me this summer.  These are the kids that set the example for Fortress.  The kids look up to these guys because they're the oldest ones there; Fortress runs through high school and then directs the kids to a different ministry.  So junior high are the 'big kids' at Fortress.  They get to go on some special field trips this summer (Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor, yeah I'm pumped), but they have to work to earn these trips because they're more expensive.  So the junior high does some work around the building on Thursdays to earn their spot on the field trip.  Last week we split up into groups and rotated through three stations: working with the little kids in Building Blocks, leveling a pretty big pile of dirt behind the building around the basketball area, and free time.  30 minutes each, pretty easy stuff.  I think it's a really cool lesson about the 'real world', though. 

   They are junior high, so they are a handful.  They can sometimes get into it with each other or have a bad attitude about following directions, but I love them anyway.  It's so much more satisfying to see them step up and act like responsible, Christian adults when you know that they act up sometimes and have trouble following the rules.

   First, a story about one of the leaders in the junior high group.  Most of the guys back him up if he gets into it with somebody, and when he talks, they'll listen.  He can also show a lot of attitude to me and the other staff members.  Sometimes, I'll ask him to stop talking or go sit in his seat like he's supposed to, and he'll just look at me like I told him to dig ditches all day.  Ironically, there was no problem when we actually moved dirt last Thursday, but at lunch this kid gave me some serious attitude for asking him to behave like a civilized human (as my mother would say).  He calmed down when I explained to him that his behavior directly affects his spot on field trips, but it was still a little discouraging.  That same day, though, he did something that completely made my day. 

   On our way back in from working outside, we walked through the Building Blocks area.  My junior high kid hung back a little, and I, a little annoyed, told him to hurry up.  Then I realized why he was hesitating to leave: one of the little kids had gotten in trouble for throwing part of his lunch and was sitting in the corner.  My kid pulled up a chair next to him, asked what he had done, and calmly told him that he should have followed the rules and respected the teacher.  I told my guy to join the group when he was done, and I left high as a kite. 

   There are two sisters in the junior high.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that I pretty much wrote them off in the first couple of days.  It seemed like they did not want to be at Fortress. At all.  They didnt want to participate at all during games, which is where I had them the most. Games! I figured that if they didn't like games, there was nothing I could do to help them.  When Thursday rolled around, I had a bad feeling that they either wouldn't show up, or they wouldn't do any work to earn their field trip.  I'm happy to say that they proved me wrong.  With a little coaxing (they weren't the only ones who needed it), they both did their share of the work without any attitude.  And today at the Money Factory (one of the junior high's smaller field trips) they both genuinely had a good time, and it showed.

   Now for another leader in the group.  He's tall, he's cocky (according to him, he's the best basketball player at Fortress, and will wear 10 NBA rings someday), and he's a really likeable guy.  He also has trouble getting along with some of the other junior high kids.  He constantly bothers one of the girls in particular, and he's also had little spats with some of the guys.  Today, though, he stepped up as a real servant leader in the group.  He had no real problems with anyone on the trip to the Money Factory.  No one did, really.  So Terri (one of our terrific staff members) took the group by McDonald's for drinks on the way home.  The kids were pretty tired, so they just kinda sat and had their drinks.  Close to when we left, though, this kid quietly gathered the trash of everyone who was done (including the girl who he normally cannot get along with), and he took it to the trash for them without a word and sat back down.  Pretty Christ-like move, I think.

   Hopefully I've conveyed a small fragment of what makes me love Fortress and hate the idea of leaving it.  Allow me to be cliche: It's the kids. It's the people. It's the little things.  Ask me about it sometime, I'd love to share some stories.

Why I'm Here? Because Kids Are People, Too

   No, I'm not in hiding, Nashville. I'm in Fort Worth, Texas, for the summer.  I'm interning at Fortress Youth Development Center, an organization that is dedicated to showing at-risk youth in inner city Fort Worth that God is more powerful than any of their circumstances, and that poverty and misfortune are not life sentences.  Fortress operates a number of programs, including an after-school literacy program and a program for pre-kindergarten kids. 

   The program that brought me to Fortress is Summer JAM (Jesus and Me), a six-week summer program that runs during June and July.  Summer JAM serves about 70 kids who are entering the 2nd through the 8th grades.  I'm working with the Junior High age group (their group is called Air Force), and I'm also co-games master with Payton, one of my fellow interns.  I'm kinda like a camp counselor crossed with a P.E. teacher. Kinda.  My real job is to be the kind of role model that these kids might not have had in their lives without Fortress.

   So why Fortress? Why Texas? Why the inner city? Why kids?
Good question.

   Going into my spring semester, I knew that I needed to find either a solid job or an internship for the summer.  I waited most of the semester before I made any effort to nail down my summer plans.  When April came around, I started to get a little more motivated. I decided that I wanted some sort of internship instead of a job doing random work like I had last summer. I briefly looked into some opportunities that I found through Vandy's Office of Active Citizenship and service (OACS in Vandy's language of acronyms).  I found a lot of listings for internships in the administrative offices of various nonprofits around Nashville. They looked really boring. Boring enough that I never sent in any applications.

   During this time, I saw on Facebook (this has been the year of social networks actually being useful) that my the organization where my cousin Daniel works was still looking for interns for their summer program. They had my attention.  I knew that Daniel worked with kids at some kind of nonprofit; that was all I knew.  I went to the website and did a little research.  The job wasn't back in an office filing and faxing and filling out paperwork.  For the summer, these interns would play a big, direct role in an awesome mission.  Fortress had me, hook, line, and sinker.  I called Daniel, and a few days later I sent in my application.

   An internship should have something to do with a person's intended career.  At least, I thought it should.  My problem is that, at 19, I don't know what my intended carreer is.  And I don't think I should have to know.  Not to dog on Religious Studies, but I sometimes tell people (jokingly, mostly) that when I realized I didn't want to work in government, I changed my major to something that doesn't lead to a job.  When people ask what I want to do after college, my answer is usually 1) I don't know (truer than they think), or 2) Move to a village in Africa and be happy about it (not as much of a joke as they think).  So, summer camp in the Metroplex doesn't exactly seem to fit in perfectly with the master plan (I do have one, even though its vague and a little ridiculous), but I can make it make sense, to me at least.  I'll say here what I said to my fellow interns when I was introducing myself to them: 
  I don't necessarily feel called to work with kids.  I do feel called to work with people, and kids are people, too.

  
   (Keep up with Fortress on Facebook, on Twitter @FortressYDC, and at http://www.fortressydc.blogspot.com/. Seriously, do it).