These 'good-byes' are good-ones

At the detention center we say good-bye many times. In fact, each week, our hope as we enter this door that when we get there they will be all gone. We come to serve the 11-17 year old girls at the juvenile remand center.

It's not because we don't love going. We do.

We just hope and pray that they will make right choices and learn that there is a God that loves them, who desperately wants to be the center of their lives. He knows being in a true friendship with Him will satisfy even their deepest desire.

I volunteer with an organization in Perth, Australia to bring life and visit the girls in this center, but today was the day we had to say our final good-byes. Just as we were leaving one of the girls we had just seen "on the outside" this weekend came stumbling up the walkway dressed in the red shirt and green sweatshirt uniform of the remand center.

 "It's good to see you," I said, but I thought, "not here. I love seeing you, but not back in here." Even our director said it well, we are happy to see these girls--we really love them, but we want to see them on the outside. Not in this juvenile detention center.

Today we had made pancakes for them--even these random ones with chocolate in them. Plus decorated and brought cards we could leave with them where we asked about thair lives and shared with them what we thought about them and how God sees them.

I met a new girl. She was 14. "J" had been in the center for 4 days and would be leaving in 3. I pray. I hope she will be leaving Friday.

That day God opened a door that otherwise we may never have had if we had not come today. We talked about her life, what she was good at, what she liked, and how God sees her. A very out-going girl. After awhile the Lord shared with me that she loves stories.

That opened the door. She loves stories. To tell them and to hear them.

So for the next hour it was all story time. Her story about how following the crowd got her in that place.  Me, telling her about the Lord who gave her strength to say, "no" and still love her friends (2 Tim 1:7).  Telling her that the Lord has a plan for her, not to harm her, but to give her hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). We talked that He never intended for bad to happen to her.

Next, we got to play basketball. Another chance to tell a story happened when it started to sprinkle as an odd gray, yet sunny, sky tried to rain us out. A rainbow appeared. Blanketing us in hope. Two of us, staff--without knowing the other was doing it--began telling the story of the very first rainbow. The story of how all the people, except Noah, turned from God. God asked Noah to build a huge boat, long before the first rain ever fell. Trusting God but getting laughed at the whole time. Sharing that sometimes it is not "easy" to follow God. But there is a huge reward. If we hurt God, if we deny Him with our choices there are consequences for our behavior.

Also sharing with her that after the flood was over, the Lord promised to never destroy us by a flood again.

Each of the girls got to understand the revelation that God keeps His promises. And He gave us Jesus to give us a way to God. He knows that is the best thing for us--a deep active relationship with God. To follow after the Lord's ways, to know Jesus and to have a deep friendship with the Holy Spirit, to obey God's voice--even in spite of what other people think.

It was a tender time when we had to leave. For us mostly. The girls are used to people leaving. But one of the girls who had been one of the hardest to get to know 3 months ago when we first started going in, gave a huge hug. A few of them.

I told her, "We are leaving, but that feeling that you have when we are around, that is the presence of God and you can have it, too. We may be leaving but once you've invited Him in your life, He never will."

I asked lovingly, "Do you know that?" And I prayed with her...

Lord Jesus, I pray that you would touch, "K's", heart right now. Father, I ask that you guard her life and her mind so that she will come to know a deep personal relationship with you. That the enemy will have NO authority in her life. That she will be able to stand strong and operate in the self-control you gave her--choosing You over her own ways. Yes, Holy Spirit do a huge work in her life and give her a fresh understanding of who You are. In Jesus' name. AMEN