About a year ago I went to St. Louis. East St. Louis, to be correct - the poorest zip code in the country. I was a volunteer at a place called the CAC (Christian Activity Center) where kids from the neighborhood came during the day or after school, depending on their age. I was really skeptical about going at first. They warned us that we would have to stay really close as a group, and even that we would have to hold our bags a certain way because the risk for them getting stolen was that big. When we first pulled into the neighborhood that the CAC is in, I was honestly at a loss for words. The conditions there were ridiculous. It seemed everyone was crammed into the shabby apartments that lined the streets. There were SO many kids, and when they saw us, their faces lit up. "Friends! Our friends are here!" They knew that we were there to help them, to play with them, and teach them about Jesus. We first met the director, Chet, who explained to us that we had to be really careful with what we said and how we treated the kids. Most of them had the worst home life imaginable. Some of them would just come out and tell you their life story, and others were more shy about it. One of the girls in my group said that a little girl at the CAC told her about her situation at home. She said that her mom had different guys every night, and every time a guy would come over, her mom would lock her out of the house. This girl was maybe 8 or 9, if that. I must say that the best friend I made there was a little boy named Torry (pictured above). As my friend Miranda said, he had a smile that "could break your heart and heal your soul". He was so full of energy; so happy, despite everything he was going through at home. The kids there were completely satisfied with things as simple as piggyback rides, or just being read to. I was amazed by how different they were from the kids back at home. They weren't upset because we didn't bring playstations or Barbie jeeps or whatever. They were happy with just us being there; someone to play with.
Then there was the food line. We each served on different days, and one day that I was up there, several kids kept coming back and asking for more. The director told us that this was probably the only meal that they would get all day, and that if we had food left over, we should be generous. We weren't slow to do this at all. I can't count how many pieces of watermelon Torry ate one day. :)
I must say though, the most rewarding part was teaching these little kids about Jesus, and how to love each other. Some kids would say the saddest things, like "Jesus might not love me because I don't have pretty clothes." or "Jesus doesn't love my mommy because she does bad things." It was really hard to explain to a child that despite what we do, Jesus still loves us because He promised He would. I loved teaching them Bible stories and being completely real and honest with them about who God was and how much He loved them.
This trip is what inspired me to adopt an impoverished child later on in life, a goal that is one of the first things I want to accomplish. Before I went to ESt.L, I was questioning the whole thing. But I knew that I would get something awesome out of this. And I did. I realized that everyone, no matter how hard-hearted they are, wants to be loved, everyone deserves a second chance, and things in my life are not nearly as bad as what they seem.
Photo: MW
