The Gas Station

I have many memories of traveling as a child. My family never really moved anywhere, but we would go on a lot of road trips. One time we drove to Florida. Another time Virginia. One time we even went to North Carolina as a family of five in a 1991 Blue/Green, Geo Prizm Sedan. I have a lot of pleasant childhood memories of road trip vacations.

My parents would also take us on “mini-vacations.” A lot of my favorite memories are in a hotel, waking up early on a Saturday morning to go to the hotel’s pool. These weekends were not anything special. We were not visiting Disney World or anything, but we would spend time together as a family. They were great.

One time were were on one of these road trips. I’m not sure if we were going out of state, or traveling to go on a mini-weekend-vacation, but I do remember a small part of the journey.

Once upon a time, my family owned a red van. My family would spend time in this van going very fast. Every now and again, this van would have to slow down and come to a stop to refuel before it could go fast again.

We stopped at a gas station. I was young, about five or six years old. Since I was young, I asked my dad for permission to go into the gas station with him.

My parents tell me I was a polite little boy.

My dad agreed to let me go inside.

This gas station was amazing! Well, actually, it was just like any other gas station. They had coffee, windshield wipers, overpriced toys, cigarettes with a camel that appealed to children because it was the 1990’s, and candy. I did not want windshield wipers or cigarettes, but candy was something that I really liked.

For my entire life, if I ever wanted something, I would ask my parents for it. If they said no, I would ask again with a “pretty please.” If I was lucky enough to coax my dad into getting a toy or whatever, I would ask my dad if I could open it in the car before I got home. Dad would always say, “No.” I would always go, “Awwww.” Most of the time he let me open it in the car, even though it made a mess.

I’m not sure what was going through my mind during this visit to the gas station. I decided that I wanted a candy bar... and I wasn’t going to ask for permission to take it. I was just going to take it.

I knew it was wrong. You could tell by my actions that I knew it was wrong to take the candy bar without asking for it, or paying for it.

Carefully, I hid behind the candy bar display and grabbed the candy bar. I then, promptly, ran out of the store into the red van.

Once my dad got into the van, I remember him saying something to my Mom that I will never ever forget.

“The person behind the counter saw some little boy steal a candy bar. It’s okay though, because he called the cops and they on their way to catch him and take him to jail.”

I was terrified.

After a lot of sobbing, I later found out that he saw me steal the candy bar and paid for it after I ran outside. To be honest, I don’t remember a speech about “how stealing is bad” from my father. He may have talked with me about it, but I don’t remember that.

What I do remember are those haunting words that will forever be in my brain. To a little boy, hearing that the cops are coming after you and that you are going to jail once they catch you is a terrifying thought.

I have never, and will never, forget this. Since this moment if I ever had the slightest thought about stealing something, I remembered this event. I remembered how scared I was, and I remembered that the cops would come after me and I would go to jail if I ever stole anything. Ever.

Thank you Dad, for keeping me out of jail.

A Perfect City

ONCE UPON A TIME...

There was a city.

Now, this city was like any other normal city.

It had one really tall building, and other tall buildings around it to keep it company.

Just like any good utopian environment, it was at peace.

And the people who lived in the city were at peace too.

Then one day, something unfortunate happened.

ASTEROIDS.

Rocks flew from the heavens.

This was not very pleasant.

The people of the city all agreed that this was not very pleasant.

Then the people of the city said,

"This is quite okay. All of our buildings are still standing. This situation could be worse."

And the truth was... it really could be worse.

Then extraterrestrial life started rampaging the city.

THIS WAS WORSE.

"Asteroids and Aliens?!?"

the people of the city cried,

"What next? A tidal wave?"

YUP.

Tidal Wave.

A massive flood was overtaking the once peaceful city.

The people of the city didn't say anything because most of them were dead by this point.

But there was one conversation between two people who were trying to "ride out the storm" that has significance to this tale.

A man on the twenty-first floor of the tallest building was looking out the window.

He looked over to his wife.

"Honey,"

said the husband,

"There is a giant potato heading this way. We should prepare for the worst."

The good news is, there was no giant potato heading for the city.

The bad news is, the wife had a hearing problem.

MORE BAD NEWS, THE POTATO WAS A TORNADO.

At this point, the government decided to take matters into their own hands.

You see, the government was not worried about the inhabitants of this city. They had an alien epidemic that needed fixed.

THEY FIXED IT.

And the moral of this story is,

Don't live in any city.

Ever.

(It's dangerous.)

THE END.

Plagues

Water turns to blood.

Frogs.

Gnats.

Flies.

Disease on Livestock.

Boils.

Hail.

Locusts.

Darkness.

Death of the Firstborn.

These are not good things.

So far this summer, all of the interns at my site joke around about our own "plagues." Although these plagues may not compare to Biblical wrath, they still are unpleasant to say the least.

Our site is in an old church building. I'm not exactly sure how old this building is, but some stained glass tells me that the "Young Married People's Class 1927" gave some financial support for the construction of the windows. This building is massive. This building has a main floor, a basement, a upper level, and a gymnasium. I am also fairly certain that there are hidden passages throughout the building that were once used in the underground railroad or for traveling to Narnia.

Simply put, this church is big and old. Big and old buildings have a problem. Most of them weren't created with any form of air conditioning. Even though this building has state-of-the-art windows that open 90º, I'm sure the other interns and I could cook a full Thanksgiving turkey in the middle our classrooms on any given day. Needless to say, we have a constant problem keeping cool. Thankfully though, we do have some small air conditioning units that work most of the time - as long as the kids are not trying to put the bottom of their shirt over the part that shoots out cold air. I can't blame them though, it feels great.

Keeping cool isn't the only problem that can arise from a gargantuan piece of elderly religious architecture. What I mean by this is, "When it rains, it floods."

If anyone in the greater Indianapolis area would ever ask me, "Would you happen to know if it rained last night?" I would promptly respond by saying, "I'm not sure. Let me check the basement." Whenever there is any precipitation, there is soon to be a small lake in the basement of the church. My classroom is in the basement of the church. The cafeteria is also in the basement. Thankfully, someone decided to hold off on the plan to install carpet into the lower level of the church.

Some other "plagues" include very small living things. A lot of these critters like to come to our location and live in the carpets. Most of them like to live on the children. Many of our children have to be screened on almost a daily basis for lice. We literally have a room for children with lice to stay in throughout the day to prevent them from sharing their little friends with other students.

Many of the children come from homes that most would not consider clean. Along with lice, some children are covered with flea bites and ring worm. At least two workers have contracted ring worm and I have personally killed over a dozen fleas that I have found living in my socks by squishing them in between my thumb nails. Also, just today we heard that a few of our students have a problem with bed bugs.

Extreme Heat.

Flooding.

Lice.

Fleas.

Ring Worm.

Bed Bugs.

By my count, we have four more "plagues" to experience over the next three weeks. Hopefully by the end of this summer I won't have to paint any door frames.

This may be a list of "plagues," but it is also the perfect definition of ministry. Most of me wants nothing more than to stay comfortable in an air conditioned room far away from parasites. Although part of me wants to be so close to these kids who are plagued by these on a daily basis. That part of me wants to hug a little girl who, literally, has ring worm all over her arm and lice living on her scalp.

To be honest, my mind has struggled. Part of me wants to hug this little girl. Part of me says, "You cannot do this. If you do, you *will* get ring worm and lice." I don't want ring worm. I don't want lice.

Jesus touched lepers. Perhaps I can hug a kid with lice. Ring worm isn't that bad after all… right?

--John D.

Attention

Many of the children who attend Day Camp have a tough home life. As I have mentioned before, the prayer requests of the students alone shows what kind of things these children have to deal with on a daily basis. Aside from the prayer requests, many children bring a lot of baggage from home with them to Day Camp. This can be seen how the children interact with other children, how they handle conflict, how they interact with adults, and how some respond to being punished.

Included in this are the attention seekers. Some of the children "act out" by doing everything they can to get the attention of the adults. Some attention seekers come from homes with large families. Many siblings means less attention from Mom. Some students are also just simply neglected. Whatever the reason, there are children that I interact with on a daily basis who seek attention from the adults.

Some will over react while playing a game. I can't count the number of times I've seen a child cry during a game because someone else bumped them on the arm. Several times I've had students argue over who sits next to an adult. Some will even sabotage their craft to get extra help from an adult.

Julie was working on her craft. The class was making a quilt. Square pieces of construction paper were being held together with small snippets of yarn. Little crayon colored pieces of paper were glued onto the square pieces of paper. I told the class, "Make sure you use 'baby dots' of glue."

"Baby dots" turned into globs of glue.

I was helping Greg work on his craft by tying many little pieces of yarn.

Julie yelled from across the room, "Mr. John! I need help! I'm missing my pieces."

I walked over and helped her look for her coloring pages. She had cut some of her creations into several pieces "on accident."

I grabbed her another piece of paper for coloring and told her to create them again. "I'll help you cut it out when you are finished, okay?"

She nodded her head and started attacking her paper with a blue crayon.

I went back to assisting the to her students who needed help.

A few minutes passed and I hear Julie yell again from across the room, "Ow! I cut myself with the scissors."

I look at Julie and see her holding her her index finger in her other hand. I promptly walk over to her across the room and notice a smile on her face. "Are you alright? Where did you cut yourself?"

"Uhm… on my finger. See?"

She shows me her index finger. I don't see any cut. I ask her to show me where the cut is.

"Right here!" She points to her red fingernail polish that has almost chipped completely off.

"Oh, you didn't cut yourself," I say with a smile, "Now go back to coloring okay?"

"Okay, Mr. John," Julie replies with a smile on her face.

A few more minutes pass and I hear Julie call from across the room.

"Mr. John! I need help. This is hard."

"Julie, I'll be over in a minute. A lot of other people need help too."

"But I need help now!"

"I'll be over in just a minute."

After I finish helping some of the other students, I walk over to Julie and see she hasn't made any progress on her coloring.

"Can you color this for me? I'll help you cut it out after you are finished, okay?"

She agree and goes back to coloring.

A minute or two passes while I am helping another student work on his craft. I look over to Julie and I see her trying to wrap the dull blade of the children's scissors around her index finger. She is trying to cut herself.

I rush over to her, take away her scissors, and get down on her level. The first thing I can think to say is, "We don't do that." I wanted to yell at her, but I refrained. I knew that wouldn't help the situation.

So I started talking to her.

"Julie, why were you doing that?"

She avoided eye contact.

I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something like this,

"Julie, I am upset with you right now. I don't want you to cut yourself because I don't want you to hurt yourself. I don't want you to get hurt. I care about you."

After I talked with her, I could tell that something clicked in her mind. She understood that she should not hurt herself to get attention. She understood that I was so worried about her because I cared about her.

I could have yelled at her and punished her because of her actions. I don't think that would have been wrong in that situation. Although, I feel like that would not have worked towards a solution.

Julie still seeks attention. Ever since the first day of class she has gone out of her way to get attention from one of the adults. I do not know what she deals with on a daily basis at home, but I know that I would not want to live in her situation.

She is only six years old and she will consider self injury to get attention. I am praying for Julie.

I am not quite sure why I shared this. All I know is that this event stood out in my mind and I decided to share it.

--John D.

"Greg"

As I look back at my first week of Day Camp, one thing stands out a little more than everything else. That "thing" is a person -- more specifically, a little boy named Greg.

On a normal day, I am scheduled to have 10 students in my class. To this day, I have never seen more than seven students in my class. On Wednesday for instance, there were only four students in my classroom for the entire day.

We were all scheduled to go to the park on Wednesday after lunch hour. The weather did not cooperate with our plans to go to the park for the afternoon. We did not go to the park.

Instead, all of the students watched a movie. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. I will abstain from commenting on the movie.

Greg was one of the four students in my class. He likes to do cartwheels wherever he is going. If Greg is told to come to the reading circle, he will do a cartwheel. If he getting in line to head to the library, he will do a cartwheel. Playing in the gym. Cartwheel. On his way to lunch. Cartwheel. Going down a small set of stairs. Cartwheel. (Seriously. It was both dangerous and impressive.)

Greg can be rebellious, but I have noticed that he is nothing short of a leader when he is with his peers. If I can get him to follow the rules and be excited about something, the other classmates will follow his lead. On Wednesday, I said to the class, "Hey guys, you know if we are really quiet in the cafeteria today we might get picked to get our food first." Greg wanted to get his food first.

In the cafeteria he sat down quietly with his hands folded on the table. The only audible sound he made was to hush his classmates.

Our class got picked to eat lunch first. A class full of 1st and 2nd graders were quieter than the "big kids" in the 5th and 6th grade class.

As much as I wanted my class to be quiet, I can guarantee that if Greg didn't encourage his classmates to be quiet they would have been rowdy. I've seen it happen on Monday and Tuesday.

Although Greg is a little leader, he is a also a little boy. He loses attention at times. He can get loud. He likes to talk about wrestling a lot. I have no idea who "The Big Show" or "John Cena" is, but I hear their names several times a day. Greg also believes that professional wrestling needs to be reenacted almost every day.

There was one instance where I had to rush over to Greg after he picked up a smaller classmate. As he held the smaller boy on his shoulders sideways, I had to tell him, "we just don't do that."

At the end of Wednesday, we were all waiting as a class to go home. The students were waiting for their parents. The interns were waiting with their students.

Greg was sitting next to me. He moved towards me and sat on my lap. He looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back.

Then he quickly go up, turned around, and laughed in my face.

Greg was not trying to sit on my lap, he had other plans.

Greg farted on me.

--John D.

Small Group with Small People

As I have mentioned previously, my favorite part of a normal day is small group.

Small group usually starts like this:

I ask my students, "Do any of you guys have any prayer requests?"

"What is a 'prayer request?'" one of the children in my class asks. (This has happened every day so far.)

I then explain to them that prayer requests are things that you want God to help with in your life. I then say something like, "Once we talk about these things, we are going to talk with God and ask him for help with these things. So, does anyone have any prayer requests? Does you have anything that you want to talk about with God?"

Several little hands fly up into the air connected to little arms that are constantly moving. Many of the 1st and 2nd graders are very anxious to share their prayer requests.

I pick one of the children and she says, "My dog ran away."

I ask, "How long ago did your do run away?"

"A long time ago. Like a couple of years ago," replies the little girl.

"Oh, my dog ran away too a long time ago." Shouts out one of the boys.

After quieting down all of the children who have lost a pet at one point in their life, I ask them if there is anything more relevant that they want to pray about. "Is there anything going on this week that you would like to pray about."

Tiny hands appear in the air again.

I choose them, one at a time, and they share what is on their mind.

"My mom smokes and I don't like it. It's not good for her and it smells bad."

"Hey, my dad smokes too."

"There is a dog next door and it's mean. I want to pray that it isn't mean anymore."

"My dad is getting off of house arrest in a couple of days."

"My brother is mean to me. I wish he wasn't so mean."

"My mom smokes. She smokes a 'blunt' and I want her to stop."

"My dad drinks."

"I want to pray that my grandma quits smoking."

"My hamster ran away."

"My dad does drugs."

To be completely honest, I was kind of skeptical about asking kids for prayer requests. I didn't think that the prayer requests of children would, by any means, be unimportant. I think I imagined that most of the concerns of children would be for missing pets or mean siblings. Although some of the prayer requests of the kids were about pets and bigger brothers and sisters, I was totally caught off guard.

Whenever I've asked teenagers for prayer requests, most of the time they would say "unspoken." These kids didn't hide anything.

I got to see a little bit into the lives of these children. I got to see how many of them had parents who would drink and smoke and how it bothered them. I got to see what these kids deal with on a daily basis.

My eyes were opened and my heart was broken.

--John D.

Indianapolis Disclaimer

Throughout this summer I plan to update this page and share my experiences. For confidentially and the simple fact that I care about each of these kids, their real names will not be used.

All of the boys will now be referred to as "Greg" and all of the girls will be "Julie."

Also, if there are several boys in a post, I will start making up names after "Greg" is used. The same applies for the females.

Example: "Greg punched Thomas in the face because he was picking on Waldo. Julie and Martarshala ran over to me and told me everything that happened."

--John D.

Summer Introduction

This summer I am in Indianapolis, IN. My summer will, literally, be consumed by my internship here at Shepherd Community.

As I am writing this, I have been through training week and one full week of work.

Training "week" consisted of about nine days of team building exercises and preliminary training for the summer. Most days did not blend the two. This means that some days consisted of hours and hours of sitting in a seat and absorbing information into my brain. I am delighted that training week is over.

"Work" means I am in charge of 1st and 2nd grade children during a summer day camp. Day camp helps the students recall and retain the information they learned throughout the school year so they can be ready when the school year rolls around. A normal day for me looks like this: I wake up at 6:00AM after being angry at myself for not waking up early enough to run before I need to get ready. After I go through my morning routine (which involves shutting the window blinds, brushing my hair, consuming a breath mint and putting a multivitamin in my pocket) I go downstairs to read until my carpool companion is ready.

We arrive at our location no later than 7:30am. After our morning meeting, I use the next half hour to do some last minute planning for the day before the kids start arriving. Once the kids arrive they get served breakfast through the program and I have breakfast with them. I pull the multivitamin out of my pocket and "consume with food."

[Some of the children in the program live near, or in, poverty. Day camp provides breakfast and lunch for every child in the program, including those students who would normally go without food if they were not in the program.]

After breakfast, the kids are all sent into the gymnasium. They are allowed to romp around to their hearts' content until classes start. I, along with the other interns, watch the kids play and play with them as soccer balls, basketballs, and the occasional giant parachute, move across the room being followed by children. After I blow a whistle, the kids line up and move to their classes. For the next three hours the children are under the authority of their teachers until lunch. Ten lucky children are in my classroom.

While in class we color, they read, I read to them, we take a study break to the gymnasium if the kids are getting restless, they earn gold stars, and if they are disobeying the rules, they get a stern "talking to." For the most part the kids are well behaved, but they are kids. There is the occasional "Mr. John, he is not sharing the crayons," or "Mr. John, he is on my carpet square."

Then we have lunch and have group games in the gym. After all of their energy has been drain we have about three more hours in the classroom until the children head home.

After that, my favorite part of the day takes place. We have Small Group where we sit around in a circle and the kids in my class share their prayer requests. I get to pray for the kids that have shared their day with me.

This is a normal day for me. I have never had a full time job, but I have put in well over 40 hours of work this week.

I am tired, but it is a good tired. It is a "tired" that comes about as a result of rewarding work. It is a "tired" that I can look back at and smile. I am tired, but it is a good tired.

I have told myself that I could never be a Children's pastor or work with kids for my career. If the rest of the summer is like this past week I am fairly certain my opinion will change.

--John D.

Life Without

The last two weeks for me have been different. I am currently in a coffee shop in Indianapolis using free wireless internet to do anything and everything that I need to do online -- and then some. (Note the blog update)

Ever since I have had internet, I can't remember a time when I have gone without it. Ever since I have had a television... ever since I have had three-pronged outlets in my wall... ever since I have had any kind of unnatural lighting in my living room... ever since I have had mostly unexpired of the food in my refrigerator... I have never gone without.

Right now all of these things are true.

I have been uncomfortable. By no means is this a bad thing.

At first I was kind of perturbed because of all of the previously mentioned things in my life right now, or rather, absence of things in my life right now. I am not going to go as far as saying, "Oh, I'm absolutely delighted that I don't have three pronged-outlets in the walls in my apartment!" but I am not going to say that it has left me bitter by any means.

I will say that I have not been distracted as much. Without a TV or internet connection easily accessible I have been spending more time with people. I have been spending more quality time with people. I feel like that alone is a fair trade.

Also, I have been a fool when it comes to reading. Without the distractions of internet or television, I have been a champion reader. My schedule has been much busier than I am used to, but I have been consistently reading oodles and oodles of text. I am seriously considering going without internet and TV for some time in my life after college. The feelings of happiness that I have gathered through reading has been so much more complete than the simple pleasures of watching a sitcom or random internet video phenomenon. Also, reading with only natural lighting is much more pleasant.

These are thoughts I have been mulling over in my mind recently. Don't worry friends, I am not going to give up all of my physical pleasures. I am still going appreciate things that make life a little easier (like electricity). I am not going to join a monastery or a hippie commune. I am still going to bathe.

Perhaps I can just live without some things as much.

-- John D.

Clothespins in Nashville

For the past four days I have been in Tennessee. Nashville Tennessee to be specific. Why have I been in Nashville Tennessee? I have been away because of a leadership conference, but that is irrelevant.

Some things are relevant though.

Today we went to the Hard Rock Café in Nashville. There were ten of us. We decided to go to the Hard Rock Café instead of another restaurant because the wait was significantly shorter at the Hard Rock Café.

While we waited our forty-or-so minutes until our table for ten was ready, we decided to entertain ourselves. We took pictures of ourselves, took pictures for other people, sat still, stood in a circle, and parkour of course.

For those that don't know, parkour (pronounced "Par Core") is best described as "skateboarding without a skateboard." At least that is the best way to describe it in my mind. We would jump off of stairs, spin around in an almost pathetic manner and scream, "Parkour!" We also swung around light poles and jumped over obstacles no higher than our knees. Parkour is also irrelevant.

Our wait was eventually over and we were in a restaurant filled with loud music. The people dining at the Hard Rock Café would, in most other situations, have seemed obnoxious because of the volume of their voice. In this situation such conversation methods were necessary because of the music permeating throughout the dining establishment.

We were seated and waited upon by Amanda. Amanda was a very nice lady. She was in her twenties and was very friendly. She noticed a clothespin on the table. She also inquired about the clothespin.

My friend explained the clothespin to Amanda. More importantly, my friend explained the significance of the clothespin to her. I did not hear the conversation at all but in my mind, the conversation sounded much like this:

"The clothespin, you see, is part of a game. My good friend John introduced this game to us a few days ago. Gee-golly-gosh, is he ever a swell fellow! Anyway, in this game someone has a clothespin. That person with a clothespin has an objective. He or she must attach the clothespin to someone else without them noticing. If they do this then a point is awarded. If they get caught by their target in the act of attaching a clothespin onto their target, then all of the points they have accumulated are reduced to zero."

Amanda apparently liked what she heard. She even proposed a challenge. "If you guys can get a clothespin on me by the end of the night, I will give you free desserts."

Almost everyone had a clothespin and the challenge was gladly accepted. Before the appetizer had arrived to the table a clothespin was already attached to one of the loops of the bow that tied Amanda's apron to her body. By the end of the meal, Amanda had two clothespins attached to her apron and one attached to her hair. (This was only possible because she had a pony tail. Scalps are extremely sensitive and are usually a difficult place to attach a clothespin without getting caught.)

We all got free desserts.

Amanda was a terrific person. We wrote her a note telling her just that. We also left her a nice tip because we appreciated her generosity, good sportsmanship, and her overall character.

Amanda was someone I met today for a short time and I thought my experience with her was worth sharing.

-- John D.