the passion

It's excitement, dedication, devotion, ardor, and fervour. It's Spirit, zeal and fire. It's what drives me. Where did it come from? It was planted inside of me and grew. The seed was deposited one night in 2006 when I met a young girl who confided in me. She told me about her suicide attempts and her inner pain. God planted a seed of compassion and anger at injustice in my heart so deep that my heart broke. As my heart healed that passion for justice and compassion, the desire to see the lost ones saved, to help the orphans and destitute, to see hope given to the hopeless became apart of me.
My dream is too big, and I am too small to do this on my own. I would be swallowed up, overwhelmed and overcome by the hopelessness of it all. God is the one who planted this dream in my heart, and he is the one who helps me to do it. The image that comes to mind is of Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia. There is a scene in the movie Prince Caspian when little Lucy is at one end of a bridge and an army on the other end. She holds out her little dagger and stands her ground against hundreds of men in armour. The army turns back. Why? Aslan, the great Lion, the creator of Narnia is standing behind her.
That's how I feel everyday. I stand my ground, I hold out the miniature skills and wisdom that I have, and I have seen armies tremble.
My God is great, "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." -The bible (Philippians 4:13)

and so it continues...

2010 was a year of highs and lows like any other year. The lows mostly looked like moments of silence while sitting on a beach, in a coffee shop, or in my living room during a heavy moment of unspeakable sorrow. These teens that I love come to me and share their hurt and pain, and I feel it with them. I feel it to the depths of my soul. I hate slushies now. One evening I sat drinking a "recovery slushie" with a teen who had faced unspeakable pain and somehow was still alive. That was a low. Another low was hearing the words "where do I belong?" come from the mouth of a teen with immense amounts of emotion and hidden pain behind them. It took two Starbucks napkins to soak up her tears. Another low was saying goodbye to a precious teen who was suddenly moving across the country.
There were high points too though. I sat in Starbucks across from a teen I have walked with closely with this past year. I said "Ok, So February 6th we will baptize you in the river." Her eyes welled up with tears and she fanned her flushed face as the tears began to drop quickly down her cheeks. She smiled at me and said "These are happy tears, I feel like I just set the date for me wedding." I smiled so big that I've been smiling ever since. I smiled like that at a fundraiser when one teenager sang a song beautifully and I watched as her mom watched her daughter sing and was proud. That was a sacred moment. I have so enjoyed having a front row seat to one teen's life as she has been discovering herself and life and been cautiously and timidly letting God into her life.
Those conversations, those moments light up my heart with so much joy I'm afraid I will explode over some poor random Starbucks barista who made the unfortunate mistake to ask me how my day is going.
That was 2010, and 2011 will be a continuation. We are only on day three and already I've experienced high's a lows!

people-ed out

I spent the last week on Toronto at the Canadian Youth Workers Convention. You know that awkward moment when someone approaches you with a big smile and says "Hey, long time no see!" and you have no idea who they are, what there name is, or where you know them from? Ya, that happened to me about 20 times that week. No joke.
I love being around people, and its the conversations with people who are passionate about youth that I value the most about these sorts of conventions. I spent a significant amount of time in such conversations. I was not alone from wednesday at 9am, until saturday at 2pm. I was constantly surrounded by people, in conversation for days! I was even rooming with my mentor from Abbotsford and a youth worker friend of mine from Alberta. I was never alone. Don't get me wrong, I'm a people person. I love people! I'm an extrovert who loves socializing!
I got home and wanted nothing more then to spend a day alone. There was a death in the family so I was pulled out of my cave of self inflicted solitude and spent the day with my husband's family. Then I woke up today. I was done with being around people. So very done. I'm a people person! This has never happened to me before! It was strange and bad feeling.
My monthly expenses were due so I had to fill out some forms, drive to my boss's house, get his signature and go to the head office. When I got there my boss pointed out that I had done it wrong. I went back home, redid the forms, and on my way back out I backed into a pole with my car. It was not my best day.
I got home after being at the office and sat down to write thank you cards to some new supporters. I was not in a good mood. That's when I learned the best remedy for a bad mood. I'll share it with you... Thankfulness. It's incredible stuff! Thanking my supporters for their support reminded me of what I do and why. By the end I was refilled with passion and itching to get out the door and catch up with the teens I love so much! So much for being people-ed out!
So thank you to all my supporters! You don't just enable me to do this work financially, but also emotionally.

I am a Starbucks slogan

During the holidays Starbucks uses fancy Christmas cups that have neat little sayings on them. Comforting, Christmassy things to say like "Today I talked with a stranger over coffee for an hour, they aren't a stranger anymore." And "I lost a friend a while ago, today I found her again over coffee." Those sorts of things. Last week I was there drinking my tea with some of my friends. They started reading off the sayings on their cups. At the end one of them looked at me and said "Funny, I think I've heard Carmen say all of these sentences at one point or another." We all laughed.
The thing is, today I was in Starbucks talking with a friend and a stranger came and sat beside us and entered our conversation. We talked for two hours. It was fascinating. So yes, I did talk to a stranger over coffee for an hour, we aren't strangers anymore.

you may be a youth worker if...

You may be a youth worker if you go home after work and google "paroxetine".

You may be a youth worker if you know all the names of the barista's at your local coffee shop.

You may be a youth worker if you know all the words to a Justin Beiber song.

You may be a youth worker if the sound of your cell ringing gives you a nervous twitch.

You may be a youth worker if you get hand cramps from too much texting.

You may be a youth worker if you spot self injury scars from 20 paces.

You may be a youth worker if you depend on your support team to keep you encouraged.

You may be a youth worker if the words "how does that make you feel" come out of your mouth at least three times a day.

You may be a youth worker if you know 3 different names for Marijuana.

You may be a youth worker if you get into conversations about parenting regularly with strangers in line at the store.

You may be a youth worker if crying in public no longer makes you uncomfortable.

You may be a youth worker if a question you asked made someone cry in public today.

You may be a youth worker if vacation just means you talk to teens in Hawaii for a week.

I see you

It's struck me this week that my life is having more impact on people then I realize. And that's saying something, because it's my JOB to impact people's lives in a positive way! A someone shared something with me the other day that really opened my eyes to this. They told me that me noticing them when nobody else did is the reason they are here today.
Today I got to sit on a couch and listen to one of my teens play a song on the piano that she wrote herself. (She also taught herself how to play the piano in the first place!) After she finished playing I told her that I saw a story in her song. A story that's filled with imperfection. I told her that I think it's her story told in a song and that I thought it was beautiful but that it sounded unfinished. Or like that was just the soundtrack to the first act, and that there would be more to come. She really is incredible and I can't wait to hear the rest of her song once it gets written. We got on the subject of seeing people. Really seeing them. "Remember in the movie Avatar? How the indigenous people there had the expression 'I see you' but it meant something really deep? Like they truly see and understand that person. In your song today I see you. It's powerful to see people. We live in a world where we are constantly anonymous." We had a great conversation about the power of "seeing" people.
Talking about it reminded me of that conversation I had earlier. The reason why that girl was so impacted was because I saw her. I noticed her. And that's why she is here today.
I challenge everyone who reads this to take the time today to truly see someone.

Delete

I was hanging out with a teen the other day and we had some time to kill before going to my house for Girls Monday. I've been keeping some books in my car for her and so we took this opportunity to read some. I was quickly trying to read the five chapters of my bible study book that I was supposed to have finished by that night, and she picked up the book "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Millar. We sat in Starbucks reading while sipping some hot holiday drinks. Every once in a while she would giggle and read to me something that she found amusing or profound. At one of these times she read to me a passage that talked about how we edit bible stories to make them G rated. We teach the story of Noah's arc in sunday school classes to kindergarteners because it's a story with animals. We have murals on the walls of our nurseries of a boat with giraffe's heads sticking out the top. What if we painted the rest of the story? The bloated floating bodies of all the people who died in the flood? That's an R rated story if I've ever heard one! This teen and I talked about how we edit bible stories so they don't mean what God intended for them to mean. Then we get an image of what God is like that isn't true.
The truth is that we try to change what God looks like to make Him seem more appealing, but we shouldn't. Because that fake God we make up isn't as appealing as we think he is. People who are honest don't want a soft gooey god, they want a strong disciplining challenging God they can trust. Let me rephrase that. I don't want a giant soft bunny with Santa Clause traits for a god. I want a God that I can follow into battle with full confidence.
This teen told the story of Noah's arc this way "It's like God sat down at his galactic computer, selected the world and hit Delete. Then a little box popped up that said "Are you sure you want to Delete this file?" and he hit "Yes".