Tuesday the 19 was our last day of training. Originally it was planned as a rest day before walking into the mission, but God had other plans and looking back I sure don't argue with Him. The morning I was really falling on God like I was a couple days back just in desperation for the mission and for things going on in my heart that were taking my focus off my two key objectives:
1. Equipping the youth group to love the migrant kids with the love of Jesus
2. Passing the ministry on into their capable hands so they could continue without me
In the afternoon the activity originally planned for my speaking time two days before was set to happen - the famed and feared No Hope Room. This is an activity that is built up in stories every year by word of mouth as intense and pretty brutal emotionally. Students walk into a room and witness a lot of horrible events acted out by a drama team (domestic violence, drug abuse, prostitutes etc). The first time through they can only observe and the second time they can interact and try to improve the situation.
I'd been on a trip to the Philippines with Adventure last year, however I'd had to leave training camp early to go on another mission trip to Nicaragua, so I missed the No Hope Room. This year I was curious to see what it was all about even though I was a leader. I got the opportunity to go down twice. The first time was with the first group and I was just rather overwhelmed by it.
A strobe light provided the only light in the smoke filled room. Death metal was playing really loudly. I didn't really process what I was experiencing other than that it was really intense. It didn't hit my heart. I didn't want it to. I was a leader - I couldn't let it hit me (so I told myself). After leading other groups to it and leaving them to go through I went to join in on the conversation the groups who had gone through were having.
A lot of the youth (guys and girls) were in tears and overwhelmed. People didn't want to go back in. They were scared. Past memories of abuse were coming back to some. Others could only think about Erica with the domestic abuse scenario. I honestly didn't know what to do with a room full of crying teenagers, a lot of them practically my peers and all of them my friends. I wanted to hug them all, but I felt like that wasn't the right response in this case. Almost a voice saying "hold back, this is for them. Don't intervene." And sure enough they rose up and prayed for one another and fought for each other in a way that would not have been as powerful if I'd stepped in. Then I joined them and fought in prayer and with hugs and encouragement for them. But it was absolutely critical to the team that they initiated it.
As I sent each group out for the second round, I gave as many people hugs and encouraging words as I could. As groups came out the other side it was hard to listen to. People were crying loudly and even though I was a leader and knew it was all fake in there, I started to feel fear. I was going in with a small group (3 people instead of 4). The guy in the group was really shaken up and emotional. But he went in with a lot of courage.
This time I was really affected. Almost to the point of tears. It wasn't fear. All I could think about was the migrant kids and fighting for the three team members with me. As we tried interacting it became all we could do to keep ourselves together against an onslaught of people trying to sell us drugs and sex. We couldn't do a thing about the domestic abuse. The helplessness I think is what tore me up. Brought back the emotion that was just below the surface that I've felt so often in my life - the reality that I can't save everyone. All the emotions of not being able to save Erica really hit my heart. If I'd been in there much longer I would have broken down, but by the mercy of the way the experience works is it's only 1 or 2 minutes long.
The conversation afterward was excellent too. Some people had found hope and strength in the midst of the darkness and bonded closer together. Personally my emotional bandwidth was shot.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was time with God and free time. I know I had to fall pretty darn hard on Christ during both quiet time and different periods of the free time because of what was going on in me. One thing that if you don't know me and you're reading this you ought know is I'm a person who has battled depression for a lot of years and do have some deep seated inner battles that rear up frequently in addition to the intensity of training camp, and being so drained from the No Hope Room, I didn't have the bandwidth to stave off all that.
That said, the evening was exciting for me as we loaded up the trailer to roll out at long last to Burlington and the migrant kids I so desperately wanted to see. And the day was encouraging because I got to give a lot of hugs and get them and I'm a very touch oriented person.
The leaders' meeting that night was pretty stressful. Last minute plans for what we were even going to do the next day that hadn't been thought about by most of the leadership in detail had to be resolved. I'd wanted them to be laid out days before, but that's just not how the leadership worked, and by the end of the trip I was used to that. However at 12:30 or 1:00AM I was just plain stressed and had trouble communicating. I was really glad to finally step over the sleeping and awake forms of the high school guys and crawl into my sleeping bag for a bit of shut eye before we really stepped out onto the battlefield.
1. Equipping the youth group to love the migrant kids with the love of Jesus
2. Passing the ministry on into their capable hands so they could continue without me
In the afternoon the activity originally planned for my speaking time two days before was set to happen - the famed and feared No Hope Room. This is an activity that is built up in stories every year by word of mouth as intense and pretty brutal emotionally. Students walk into a room and witness a lot of horrible events acted out by a drama team (domestic violence, drug abuse, prostitutes etc). The first time through they can only observe and the second time they can interact and try to improve the situation.
I'd been on a trip to the Philippines with Adventure last year, however I'd had to leave training camp early to go on another mission trip to Nicaragua, so I missed the No Hope Room. This year I was curious to see what it was all about even though I was a leader. I got the opportunity to go down twice. The first time was with the first group and I was just rather overwhelmed by it.
A strobe light provided the only light in the smoke filled room. Death metal was playing really loudly. I didn't really process what I was experiencing other than that it was really intense. It didn't hit my heart. I didn't want it to. I was a leader - I couldn't let it hit me (so I told myself). After leading other groups to it and leaving them to go through I went to join in on the conversation the groups who had gone through were having.
A lot of the youth (guys and girls) were in tears and overwhelmed. People didn't want to go back in. They were scared. Past memories of abuse were coming back to some. Others could only think about Erica with the domestic abuse scenario. I honestly didn't know what to do with a room full of crying teenagers, a lot of them practically my peers and all of them my friends. I wanted to hug them all, but I felt like that wasn't the right response in this case. Almost a voice saying "hold back, this is for them. Don't intervene." And sure enough they rose up and prayed for one another and fought for each other in a way that would not have been as powerful if I'd stepped in. Then I joined them and fought in prayer and with hugs and encouragement for them. But it was absolutely critical to the team that they initiated it.
As I sent each group out for the second round, I gave as many people hugs and encouraging words as I could. As groups came out the other side it was hard to listen to. People were crying loudly and even though I was a leader and knew it was all fake in there, I started to feel fear. I was going in with a small group (3 people instead of 4). The guy in the group was really shaken up and emotional. But he went in with a lot of courage.
This time I was really affected. Almost to the point of tears. It wasn't fear. All I could think about was the migrant kids and fighting for the three team members with me. As we tried interacting it became all we could do to keep ourselves together against an onslaught of people trying to sell us drugs and sex. We couldn't do a thing about the domestic abuse. The helplessness I think is what tore me up. Brought back the emotion that was just below the surface that I've felt so often in my life - the reality that I can't save everyone. All the emotions of not being able to save Erica really hit my heart. If I'd been in there much longer I would have broken down, but by the mercy of the way the experience works is it's only 1 or 2 minutes long.
The conversation afterward was excellent too. Some people had found hope and strength in the midst of the darkness and bonded closer together. Personally my emotional bandwidth was shot.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was time with God and free time. I know I had to fall pretty darn hard on Christ during both quiet time and different periods of the free time because of what was going on in me. One thing that if you don't know me and you're reading this you ought know is I'm a person who has battled depression for a lot of years and do have some deep seated inner battles that rear up frequently in addition to the intensity of training camp, and being so drained from the No Hope Room, I didn't have the bandwidth to stave off all that.
That said, the evening was exciting for me as we loaded up the trailer to roll out at long last to Burlington and the migrant kids I so desperately wanted to see. And the day was encouraging because I got to give a lot of hugs and get them and I'm a very touch oriented person.
The leaders' meeting that night was pretty stressful. Last minute plans for what we were even going to do the next day that hadn't been thought about by most of the leadership in detail had to be resolved. I'd wanted them to be laid out days before, but that's just not how the leadership worked, and by the end of the trip I was used to that. However at 12:30 or 1:00AM I was just plain stressed and had trouble communicating. I was really glad to finally step over the sleeping and awake forms of the high school guys and crawl into my sleeping bag for a bit of shut eye before we really stepped out onto the battlefield.
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