Troublemakers to Disciples

 

In late December I have the
opportunity to lead a group of middle school students from Gainesville on a
mission trip to Atlanta. This will be the first trip that I get to lead in
Atlanta which is pretty exciting seeing how it is the place I live and do ministry
in already. The other day I set up a meeting with the youth pastor just to talk
over logistic things and what his goals are for the trip. After we got all of
that out of the way we started just talking about past mission trips that we
had taken and he said that a couple of years ago he took his group on a trip to
New Orleans with AIM and the stories that he had from that trip were awesome.
One of them in particular is the reason why we do what we do at AIM.

There were a couple boys in
the youth group who were known as the troublemakers. They were the guys who
were always doing things they shouldn’t and any time there was a problem within
the youth group the leaders would always suspect these two first. They were
doing drugs, steeling, fighting and it seemed they only came on Sunday nights
to hit on the girls.

At one point these boys
decided to sign up for a mission trip to New Orleans with the youth group for a
week. I’m sure the youth pastor was dreading spending a week with them. At the
beginning of the trip things were just like usual. “Guys, don’t go over there.
Don’t do that. This I your last chance guys…” But one day something switched in
them. God got a hold of their spirits and they went from being the worst kids
of the group to being the first ones sharing Jesus with the homeless man on the
street. They were constantly looking for ways that they could love God and love
people.

This kind of stuff happens
frequently on mission trips but rarely does the life change stick around. A lot
of people get these “mountain top experiences” and then it wares off many times
in less than a few weeks. But a couple months after this trip to New Orleans
this youth pastor got a call from a pastor of another church. He answered the
phone and the man began to ask him about a couple of boys that he was with and
he named them off. “Are these two from your youth group?” Immediately the youth
pastor started apologizing. “I am so sorry sir for whatever they have done…”
The man on the other end began, ” No, no, no that’s not it at all. I was here
at the store walking down the isle when I overheard a couple of guys sharing
the gospel with some guy who was apparently an atheist. I waited until they
were done and then went to talk to them and they said they were from your youth
group. I just want you to know that whatever is going on in your group is
excellent and I am so proud of your students.”

These are the stories we
live for at AIM.