Tink & Terry

Meet Tink and Terry.  They are in third grade and sixth grade respectively.  Both boys live within walking distance of the n2n center (1200 S. Blount St.) and are regular faces around n2n and the surrounding neighborhood.  They are involved in bible studies at Ship of Zion church up the road and in our HOSTS mentoring program.  They sometimes visit Tapestry Church they even stop by on a day when there is no program to watch a movie or play connect 4 with some of the staff.

Without trying to sound cliché, kids like Tink and Terry are our future.  More specifically the future of the neighborhood in which they live.  I strongly believe that there is a strong correlation to their future and the future health of their neighborhood.  If they (or youth like them) continue to fall into the same destructive patterns, their neighborhood will reflect that.  However, if they replace those destructive patterns with new patterns of living, their neighborhood will reflect that instead.  Thus making it all the more important that we learn to listen and make time for them in our lives right now.  I’m reminded of these words:

“The fundamental building blocks of the kingdom are relationships.  Not programs, systems, or productivity.  But inconvenient, time-consuming, intrusive relationships.  The kingdom is built on personal involvements that disrupt schedules and drain energy.  When I enter into redemptive relationships with others, I lose much of my “capacity to produce desires results with a minimum expenditure of energy, time, money, or materials.”  In short, relationships sabotage my efficiency.  A part of me dies.  Is this perhaps what our Lord meant when He said we must lay down our lives for each other?”  -Theirs is the Kingdom by Bob Lupton

Between the staff at n2n, volunteers, mentors, and other community leaders, God has been putting people in the lives of youth just like Tink and Terry.  These ‘redemptive relationships’ are happening.  In our HOSTS mentoring program, Tink and Terry have been placed with wonderful adult mentors (Tom, Emily, Lindsay, and Alex).  In about two months Terry will be playing MAD House Basketball and will have a MAD House Coach.  I hear stories from Tink about how Pastor Chris from Ship of Zion takes him fishing.  Tink and Terry have bible study leaders.  When I asked Tink what he was learning in bible study he told me about his favorite person in the bible, Paul, and how God rescued him from jail.  He also told me about Joseph and Peter.  Pretty amazing isn’t it?

At the same time God is putting people in the lives of these youth, God is also putting them into our lives.  The teaching and subsequent learning not only occurs from the mentor to the mentee but also from the mentee to the mentor. Both benefit and grow from their relationships with each other and whether we realize it or not, we need each other.  We are not complete without one another.  Maybe we haven’t thought of it like that, but that seems to be the way the kingdom works.