This fall I’ve had an opportunity to volunteer in White Swan Middle School for just 1/2 hour on Tuesdays each week. I would love to be able to spend more time there, but right now that is all my schedule can afford. At first I was unsure what the kids would think when they saw my walking around campus. The middle school and high school are connected, so I have a chance to see a lot of kids I know. When the kids see me they hug me like they are imprisoned in school and I am their only link to the outside world. The school also appreciates me being there. There have been no other volunteers in the school for at least three years- probably more. When I sign the visitor book in the office each week, I sign two spaces down from where I signed the week before. So there are not a lot of other people visiting the school either. The first day the teacher I was helping had tears in her eyes when she discovered I would be helping in her half hour study hall for all the kids who are failing. I thought is this half hour class so bad that she would cry with joy that I am volunteering? My second week in going the teacher pulled me aside and said they had had a staff meeting about me and they would like to find a way to get more church people to volunteer to help kids. What the school doesn’t know is that they are barking up the right tree for the answer. What the school does need is the church because, hopefully, in the center of the church is God. The school seems to be a place with no light.
This past Tuesday, as I was signing out in the office, one of the teachers brought in a girl I know because she comes to church and youth group. She was in tears and I could over hear what the teacher was telling the office staff. She had gotten mad and was yelling every curse word in the book in the middle of the hall. I looked at her and I asked her what happened and she replied, “I’m having a really bad day.” I have gathered that she does not really have any friends. She is lonely and she is constantly made fun of. She has had a life beyond rough. She had had enough and lost her temper. She definitely was crying out for help. At school and even at church she is seen as a girl who just causes trouble and is disrespectful to all authority. When I saw her in such a state at the school my heart broke. How miserable to be constantly living in a nightmare and to be pushing away the people who want to help. Today when I sit thinking about her I pray that her day would be better today; that she would find other kids in the youth group at school who would really want to be her friend. But more importantly, I pray that she would turn to Jesus and the Lord would bring to her mind all of the promises she has heard while at church and youth group.
