Young Life Capernaum by Justin McRoberts

Singer, Songwriter and Artist Justin McRoberts wrote this incredible blog post after a fundraising concert for YL Capernaum with Christopher Williams and Elizabeth Hunnicutt.

Enjoy!

http://justinmcroberts.com/blog/capernaum-young-life-and-intrinsic-value/

We Need to Teach Kids to Dance by Lyn Ten Brink

I grew up in a Christian tradition that didn’t dance.  Not only did we NOT dance -there were very negative connotations with dance.  However, I grew up trying to watch every dance movie that came out.  How can dancing be so wrong that whenever I watch Sister Act I cry over the last scene every time.  The sheer unashamed authentic joy bubbling up from the inside out!!!???  Seriously, how do you not want that authenticity?

On a Friday night a few years ago 3 of my Capernaum friends, Sarah, Shawnzy,  Jessie, and I met at my house for pizza and then we were going to a concert.  We got there a bit early and got a great couch together near the front of the room.

We couldn’t wait for the music to start and when it did there were squeals of joy and smiles a mile wide.  It appeared that the rest of the room grew up in the same tradition I did but the 3 women on the couch I was sitting with wished they had a bit more floor space so they could dance. 

After about 15 minutes it was fairly evident that this couch was not going to suffice.  Sara, who oozes joy from every pore of her being, simply bubbled over every time a song was performed but tried to hold it in.  I finally leaned over and whispered to Sara, “Do you want to get up and dance in the back of the room?”  She jumped up, grabbed my hands and we danced our way to the back of the room and got our groove on for the rest of the concert. 

We had so much fun in our little corner of the world.  Delight and sheer joy bubbled out of Sara with every beat!  I couldn’t help it.  I just cried with joy and sorrow at the same time.  Joy at the authentic spirit in Sara that could not be suppressed, and sorrow on my behalf, for I had fought this authenticity deeply in order to fit in or be accepted.

That concert was a few years ago and I have been dancing ever since.  It’s not pretty; a Dutch, white, oldish woman dancing, but I am exhausted from suppressing joy and sorrow.  I am exhausted with my own inauthenticity!  My Capernaum friends have taught me the authenticity God yearns for from us.  They get it.  I need them in my life- God knew that.

A few weeks ago I was at Young Life New Staff training in Florida with about 200 YL new staff.  Chap Clark was leading the teaching on the characteristics of disciples of Jesus and shared 4 points to help kids toward an authentic relationship with Jesus.  He concluded that as leaders , “We need to help kids dance.” 

So, Young Life and ministry everywhere….in Capernaum we know the kids who can dance, with reckless abandon, anytime, anywhere, it bubbles out of the core of their being, God is there---- we just need a beat. 

God desires authenticity.  Who do you need in your life to move there?

Don't Let Your Hearts Be Troubled by Christen Morrow de Ara

Its been a decade since I walked the are high school campuses with the my good friend and Area Director at the time, Mark Statema. We prayed, listened, and watched for where we should begin the second Capernaum Club in our area. One lunch hour at Sunnyside High School as I rounded a corner I laid eyes on a group of guys, all in wheelchairs who clearly had varying stages of Muscular Dystrophy. They were way too cool to talk to us, had their Slipknot tee shirts, ear buds in their ears, they were talking about the latest video games. “That’s it, we are starting here!” I declared to Mark. He looked a little surprised… but I went on to explain, these guys need Young Life leaders to walk with them. They are facing an ugly disease that will take their lives in the next 10 years, they need to know the giver of LIFE eternal.”

And so it was. We began with Friday nights playing life sized video games and pizza. Slowly, a club was born and we got to be a part of their family and families. Its been a privilege to take most of these guys to camp, to see them come into a relationship with Jesus, to walk alongside of them and their families as they face a disease that ravages their body with such courage.

These guys and their families have become my friends, my extended family. In spite of having moved overseas for 5 years, I’ve had the incredible privilege of walking their final days with most of them.. a gift to me. This week I am walking with the “last man standing” from our Sunnyside Capernaum team. JC went from being the most disinterested kid of the bunch to our friend, a leader, a brother. He is courageous and strong. His concern in these final days isn’t for himself, but for his mom and how she will handle his absence.

As I sat next to his bed today, I shared pictures from previous camp trips, told him stories of some of our crazy friends and leaders, and then we sat with this Scripture

John 14:1-3

 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.

When everything is ready… my Heavenly Father is preparing a place for Him and it will soon be ready. In the meantime, I am learning from my friend JC how to NOT let my heart be troubled in the face of death….

The Forty Minute Journey by Suzanne Williams

She rolled through the bumpy dirt roads, over pieces of trash and around people who looked at her with scrutinizing eyes.  They saw her as cursed, as one who didn’t belong, as one who wasn’t welcome.  But her smile spoke differently. 

She churned the hand cranks on her donated wheelchair with a level of confidence that matched the width of her smile and showed each person that she passed that dirt roads, enormous potholes and help from no one wasn’t going to stop her.  She had dignity, courage and a place to get to where she knew she belonged.

Her Young Life leaders greeted her with matching grins, hugs and extra boosts to get her wheelchair into the room with only two light bulbs where Young Life club would take place.  They pushed her to the front of the room since the back corner, hidden from the rest of the kids, wasn’t an acceptable answer for any of those leaders.  As kids piled in and songs were sung, leaders intentionally sought her out.  They grabbed her hands and helped her dance.  They spun her wheelchair and included her in the evening.  And not once, did I see the radiant smile leave her face. 

Ruth’s forty-minute journey to get to Young Life club was worth every bit of it for the ninety minutes that she spent safe, valued, encouraged and a part of the group.

Early the next morning, we walked those same roads, past the room where club was, all the way to Ruth’s house.  We walked over the bumps and around the potholes and every person that we passed, looked intently at us.  The difference was that they didn’t look at us with disgust but with honor, we were two white people, walking with one of their own.  Little voices called out “Hellloooo, how are youuuu?” as we passed and when we answered, a mountain of giggles followed.  The same roads, the same people, the same beginning and end, but an entirely different journey.    

When we got to Ruth’s house in the slums, I asked her what she loved about Young Life.  After making fun of my English, she said that Young Life has given her courage, friends and a place to belong.  She said that her favorite part of club and camp is the club talks, where she gets to learn about Jesus.  And she shared with me about her desire to be a Young Life leader.  Her heart for Jesus and her desire to get other kids with disabilities that she knows involved in Young Life are equally enormous.  She has vision, determination, courage and people cheering her on.  There’s no doubt in my mind that she will be one of the best volunteers in the mission of Young Life.

We prayed together before we began the journey back and I couldn’t help but think as we walked home about Young Life everywhere.  Leaders offer kids who have been looked down upon a place of belonging in Christ, a host of friendships, courage to do the unknown and the chance to be a leader. 

It’s Young Life, working everywhere around the world for every kid. 

Profoundly Simple by Suzanne Williams

The sun was shining and my friend Molly was wildly playing air guitar to the High School Musical soundtrack as we drove around Nashville.  I decided at the end of the soundtrack that it was a great time to try and go a bit deeper with Molly, to see what she was thinking and how she was processing the things we had been talking about in club. 

The actual question that came out is irrelevant, while Molly's answer will never be forgotten.  She plainly said, "Jesus is in my heart and He loves me".  I agreed and pushed her a bit, knowing that tended to be Molly's pat answer.  Again, she replied with the same thing.  I reworded the question and tried again, again I got the same answer.  I kindly explained to Molly that I understood that, but I was really wondering what else she thought and tried again with the question, thinking maybe that she just didn't quite grasp what I was trying to say. 

She looked at me straight in the face and said "Suzanne, why can't it be enough for you that Jesus is in my heart and He loves me?" 

With that, she started the cd over and picked her air guitar back up, right where she left off.

I smiled and sat stunned.  She was right.  We live in a culture where life tends to be so complicated, so many questions, so much to think about, so many profound things to be pondered.  Yet we are loved by a God who certainly is profound but who calls us to be like little children. It was in that moment that God was reminding me that there may be far more profound in the simple than I ever knew. 

You are right Molly- it's enough, far more than enough.  I'm so glad that Jesus is in your heart and that He loves you... And me.

May this new year be one that is filled with profoundly simple moments.

Smart People Pray Short Prayers by Christen Morrow de Ara

It was about 4:30am and we were already in the car driving up highway 5 from the Central Valley of California to the Bay Area. My friend Megan, a Capernaum graduate, was coming with me to help me speak to a group of churches about how to include teens & young adults with disabilities in the church.

As we drove through the pre-sunset, pre-coffee morning, I was so sleepy. I said , “You better pray I can keep my eyes open or we might not make it there…” Without pausing in the conversation, without closing her eyes, Megan began “Praise the Lord, Christen’s eyes open, get there, I love you, God.”  When she finished she looked at me with the biggest smile and said “Smart people pray short prayers.”  When our laughter subsided and she had shown me how to slap my cheeks to wake myself up I was left with the thought “Smart people pray short prayers.”

I think of Megan’s prayer… no beginning or end to her conversations with Jesus, no fancy words, just short requests given with confidence. Part of this might be that her prayers are continual, and don’t need to be long. What if we would learn to continually, throughout the day “pray short prayers” with absolute confidence? What if we lived like Jesus was in the car with us?

God, give us your vision about friends with disabilities. Teach us. Help us grow to be more like you and to learn from one another. Use our friends. Provide the funds and leaders needed for Capernaum. Make us love you from our hearts. Amen

A Walk Around the Lake by Lyn Ten Brink

For some of us we pass by, and wonder. For others there was a birth in the family and we learn, and still others an accident or fall and we painfully adjust.  We all have been affected by the world of disability in a unique way.

It started for me by growing up in a community with many group homes, and eventually working in one of those group homes, to supervising a Capernaum Young Life club.  But things really changed for me on a walk around a lake the summer of 2006. 

While on assignment, at Timberwolf  Lake YL camp, I offered to give our Capernaum volunteers a “break” and take some of the girls for a walk around the lake.  My motives were selfish.  I was “serving” our volunteers and I was “helping” these 3 young ladies.  About half way around the lake something happened.  It wasn’t magical or miraculous but it was enough to make my legs slow down, my mind turn reflective, and my eyes to well up.   It was the awareness of a vacuum in me that these 3 girls were filling- I was being “helped.” I was being “served.”

Many things about me adjusted at that moment- my reality was that I needed to change my pace, I needed my conversations to model the conversation these 3 girls were having and I needed to care about the people around me the way they were caring for each other on this walk.  From pats on the back, to slowing down for each other, to clearing things off the path for a friend’s walker – God was there.  He knew I needed that walk.

God was doing to me what he was trying to do for his disciples and generations to come.  He was showing us that our view of who He is and how we respond to the world is incomplete when there are people just like us who surround us.  He walked by foot with his disciples for many miles taking them to lepers, tax collectors, Samaritans, commoners, deaf, blind, demon possessed, city officials…All those miles on foot walked, just so his disciples could get a complete picture of Him.

The purpose of this blog is to share some of our experiences in Capernaum. How our friends are working on us and helping us to work towards a more complete view of God and who we are in Him.  Jesus took his disciples on lots of walks.  Showing them lots of people very different from those showing up at the temple.  He knew what was needed then and he knows what we need now.  Join us.  Who are the people you need to walk with and who are the people you need to walk toward to see a more complete picture of yourself and God?