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Since the middle of last month I’ve been working in substitute as our Boy’s Dorm Parent. I have found a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment from getting to serve the boys as their guardian, and a few of them refer to me as “dad” now. While there are those moments of frustration and enduring immaturity, there are many more moments where I have the privilege to speak truth into their lives in the same way that I would seek to instill it into my own son.
Even tonight I had two profound moments that are only a tiny snapshot of the immense responsibility of serving as a parent to these boys. We have a student who lost one of his parents and is deeply troubled with the other. He sat outside and through tears we talked about the tragedy of this corrupt world and the way in which Jesus illuminates the darkness and gives hope to the hopeless. I was able to tell him the danger of allowing anger to control you and that real world consequences are only months away as these boys will soon grow into men. It was a tender moment as the two of us got to sit under the stars and I was privileged to convey to this young man that God loves him and won’t ever leave or forsake him.
Then as I was making my rounds to send the boys to bed, as we meet together to pray each night, our conversation turned to our recent string of losses for our Junior Boys Basketball Team. They’re concerned about our upcoming game, and they were asking me to cheat by playing older boys on the team as if they were under the age limit. Another teachable moment. One boy pronounced that he was going to strike the boy on the other team if he hit him first, which lead to an important conversation about what true strength and weakness are and how they are manifested in our lives through our actions, by what we do and by what we do not do. It takes a much stronger man to resist the urge to fight when some coward strikes you first.
The other night I rewarded the boys with a nighttime fishing trip. They loved it. We never caught any fish, but with flashlights and freedom they were in heaven.
Please keep us all in your prayers, these boys live in a culture where gossip and reputation as the “big man” is so enticing and desirous. They all long for significance and respect, and the world hands these virtues out with every condescension to vanity and lust; “turning the other cheek” is an unthinkable impossibility. It has been a privilege to serve these boys for the past weeks and I’m thankful for the way they’ve allowed me to shepherd them and teach them towards Godly living.