Saturday Surprise

First of all...I feel honored that my picture is gracing the inaugural post of this blog! On to my story...

Friday night after our stellar leadership meeting I hopped in bed and begrudgingly set my alarm to wake up at 7a.m. the next morning. My boss had pulled a last minute "I need you to be at this volunteer event Saturday morning." A colleague picked me up around 8am and we set out to the Geico building at Chevy Chase for a Boys & Girls Club event. I was feeling somewhat frustrated with the disorganization of the set up and lamenting over lost hours of sleep when two young men came up to me asking how they could help. Apparently I looked like I knew what I was doing. We got to talking and it turns out they both attend Wilson High School. Suddenly my morning just got better! I was so excited to just talk to them and see what they were about.

Alonzo is a Senior at Wilson and plays on the football team. (Awesome, I thought...someone to cheer for at the next game.) Louis is a Senior as well. He doesn't play sports but has trombone and clarinet lessons on Wednesdays. Like most high school kids they had left the majority of their 100 hours of required community service to finish their Senior year. That is why they were at the event on Saturday morning helping kids throw bean bags through a hole and playing Geico "plinko". Both of them live off the Georgia Ave. metro stop and neither of them had heard of Young Life. Louis continued asking questions about it though and at the end of the conversation sounded interested in checking it out at one of our kick off events.

My lesson learned (one God unfortunately has to continually beat me over the head with) is that God strategically positions us where He wants us. So as we think about contact work with kids it's good to remember that we just need to be ready and willing to talk and God will provide opportunities whether on campus at Wilson or on a random Saturday morning.