Tonight marked the third straight Christmas season that we have taken the student ministry from Journey Church to what has become a very special place for myself, our adult volunteers, and our students. The place is Brookside Extended Care in Mason, Ohio. Brookside is an AMAZING long term care and learning center for the severely mentally and/or physically handicapped. Many of the residents at Brookside are teenagers or young children… all of them are wheelchair bound, and only a couple can audibly communicate.
For the third year in a row the group of teenagers that we brought to Brookside absolutely blew me away. Here are a bunch of cookie cutter suburban teenagers walking into a room full of kids, teens, and adults in wheelchairs, and unable to physically function at a high level… I can’t imagine the mindset of our teens walking into that moment. Each time we’ve gone, our students have stepped out of their comfort zone, and into the lives that they can hardly imagine. They color with (for) the residents, they make crafts to hang in their rooms and on their wheelchairs, they talk to them, they joke about cute boys and pretty girls, they talk about sports and TV shows, most of the time with the only response being a moan, or a stare from a drooped head. It’s sobering to witness and participate in.
Tonight when we left, on the drive back to the high school, I asked my car full of junior high boys what they thought of the experience, and if it reminded them of anything from Scripture. Here are some responses:
- It was really cool for us to visit them since they don’t get many visitors.
- It’s hard to believe that’s how/where they live their lives everyday.
- It’s tough to think about the fact that they are just teenagers like us.
- On Scripture: It reminded each of them about the stories they had heard about the lepers. Specifically how in our society, we often outcast the handicapped, and avoid them when we encounter them in public.
The most amazing thing about our trips to Brookside is how each time we intend on “blessing” those residents, and each time we leave feeling so much more “blessed” by them. (I put those words in quotes because I’m not even sure what that means… it’s a churchy way of saying that we feel fuzzy inside I think.) Our teams from Journey Church that go to Guatemala each year end up telling a similar story. We go to show love to those people, and end up feeling as much or even more love in return.
What’s up with that? I think the answer lies somewhere in Jesus’ words at the end of Matthew 25. When we serve the “least of these”… we are serving Jesus Himself. Jesus is pleased when we serve the downtrodden, the forgotten, the handicapped, the unloved, the ostracized, etc… When we do this, we make Jesus happy, and we make our own hearts happy… it “blesses” us. It makes me wonder whey we don’t do it more often…
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With all due respect I must disagree with a phrase from your post – “a bunch of cookie cutter suburban teenagers”. Hardly. Each teen in Big Student Ministries, and the entire world’s population for that matter, represents a unique individual created by God in his own image.
Even scripture reminds us of our individuality in God’s eyes:
*God knows the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30)
*we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)
Each student in BSM has been created with individual gifts, personalities, likes/dislikes, and so much more. Imagine if each person’s uniqueness was celebrated and individuals were challenged to bring their gifts to the table.
Food for thought…
Aimee,
Thanks for your thoughts. I hope that the primary message of the post isn’t lost in one fairly insignificant phrase. I certainly don’t disagree with anything you’ve said about each of us being a unique piece of God’s Creation. I’m familiar with the verses you mentioned. Your thoughts are spot on… but that was not the subject matter of my post. I was speaking to the phenomenon of receiving blessing while attempting to give blessing… I believe this happens because when we’re in these situations, we’re living as we were created to live: selflessly, others centered, serving those who are largely forgotten.
I hope you notice the context that I used the “cookie cutter” phrase. I was speaking to the radically different positions in life that our teenagers come from as opposed to the residents of Brookside.
Without exception, our teens are: caucasian, healthy, wealthy, suburban teenagers with budding social lives, massive amounts of love, affection, and full opportunity for a bright future. The residents we hang out with at Brookside are: multi-cultural, far from healthy, largely impoverished, receive little to no visitors, experience very little love and affection outside of what they receive from the Brookside staff, and the only future many of them realize is a trip to the hospital, and more complications from their disability.
So yes, while each of our DNA, gifts, and talents are beautifully individualistic, in the sense of life situation, we (us and our BSM teens) are fairly cookie cutter. Maybe a better word for our group would be homogeneous. Our teens are largely the same kind, cut from similar cloth.
-Luke-
Luke Dooley´s last blog ..I Feel “Blessed”
Great stuff Luke … thrilled that you take the Journey BSM’ers to Brookside year after year. Hoping my son was in your car and that he might have made one of the observations you’ve mentioned. Peace to all!
I guess we’ll agree to disagree.
I do agree the evening provided a great opportunity for both BSM kids and residents of Brookside. No question.
The fairly insignificant phrase could be perceived otherwise by some of your readers.