At intern retreat at the beginning of the summer, Brother Joe pointed out something discouraging to us. He reminded us how few (if any) people that he knows in the inner city of Tulsa have come to have a THRIVING relationship with Jesus.In some ways, this discouragement has marked my summer. Several of the students from last summer that I had been excited to see had moved or were no longer attending One Hope activities for other reasons. I can only pray that God will bring other influences into their lives that will teach them the joy of repenting and following Him.
As I work in the second youngest classroom (6-8 year olds), I realize that many of these kids will probably drift in and out of our One Hope family over the next years. As much as we try to “hold on” to our students and keep them involved at church and our other programs, it’s not unlikely that their time at One Hope will be a fairly small phase in their childhood. Is there any hope that they will remember the truth they are learning now?
One thing that comforts me is the interesting ways that God has drawn great Christian men and women in the past. I think of how God had been working on the heart of Augustine (the one that wrote “Confessions”) for a long time through the prayers of his Christian mother Monica and other experiences in Augustine’s life. It wasn’t until Augustine randomly heard a child in a yard nearby (or whatever the 4th century equivalent of a yard was) singing, “Take it up and read it; take it up and read it” that he thought maybe God was telling him to read the Scriptures. He never found out why the child sang that (he couldn’t remember it being the lyric to any song he knew), but he was converted that day after reading a verse in Romans. So, sometimes I imagine one of our getAHEAD students all grown-up. Something tells her, “Take it up and read it!” When she opens her Bible, all those floor times with Mr. Nate and the missionary stories at Project61 and discipline conversations with Miss Miriam and Christian rap songs on the van route home come flooding back, and she finally sees that God has been wooing her heart all the time.
One of my dearest dreams is seeing the day when these students become interns. We often sing the song “Jesus, Thank-you.” There is a line that says, “Once your enemy, now seated at Your table.” I love having “family dinners” with my beloved fellow interns. It is some of our best times to laugh and sympathize and plan and tell stories and prayers from the week. I imagine that someday kids who had been some of our most difficult students – the ones that earnestly display their sin nature and enmity with God through their bad behavior at GetAHEAD – will come to love Jesus and will become interns, enjoying these sweet mealtimes. This will be a beautiful picture of the feast at God’s table when we become part of His family.
Written by: Courtney Martin
