To be perfectly frank, this has been a really odd month. When we came back from Christmas break, I realized that I had lost around a dozen kids over the course of the first semester. Most of these kids had been asked to leave due to discipline issues or grades; only two or three had chosen to leave. It was a new experience for me, losing kids like that, but I was told that this was normal (albeit with a few more kids leaving than usual) for a year at Restoration. Kids leave. Then came February.
Around three weeks ago, we announced that, due to not having enough players, we were not going to have a varsity football program this fall. That sparked what will be known as (in our little circle anyway haha) as the Great Exodus. Over the last three weeks, we have lost about a dozen football players. They have transferred away to schools where they have football teams, and I have felt a tinge of sorrow over every single one of their departures. These are kids that I have prayed for and ministered to over the course of a year, and now they are gone. I know that it's not Restoration or Mr. Wood that is the key to their spiritual growth. I know that God can (and actually promised that he will) use everything in their life, even their mistakes, to transform them into the image of his Son. I know that God is sovereign, in control, and that he has these kids exactly where he wants them to be. I know all of that, but it still hurts when they leave.
Today, a senior transferred away to a local public school. 44 days away from graduation, a senior walked out of our school for, presumably, the last time. It's actually worse than that, however. This senior comes from a beyond broken home. His mother gave him up. His father gave him up. For years, he's been passed around and rejected. At the beginning of this year, however, our football coach took him in and became his legal guardian. It seemed like the beginning of a beautiful gospel story-the wealthy, NFL veteran football coach takes the poor, orphaned-by-neglect child into his home and loves on him all year. He gives him a key to his house and tells him to make himself at home. He buys him a car to get around town. He promises to help get him into college and help him there as well. Everything seems to be perfect. Unfortunately, sin hates a happy ending. Today that senior demanded to have his legal guardianship transferred back to his father-the man who has abandoned him for years. He left this school, the school with teachers that have loved him for years, and went to a failing public school. He walked away from a guaranteed, full ride to a great school. He did all of this for really no reason at all except that sin makes us fools.
If you all didn't know me so well, I'm sure that you would think that I made us this story so that I had an "urbanized" version of the prodigal son to tell to my kids. I wish that that was the case, but this is the truth. This really happened today. I don't have a happy ending to share with you beyond this: God can rescue even the runaway who is sleeping in the pigsty. I'm a living testimony to that beautiful fact. While this senior may be the most stark example of this "prodigal son tendency" that our kids have, he is by no means unique. We hold out the gospel and plead with these kids day after day, but many of them choose the pig sty. My request for you this month is that we teachers would not grow weary in our pleading and that the kids' hearts would be tender to respond.
Praise for: God sustaining me this far, growth in Marquan and Reggie
Pray for: All the kids who have left. Pray that they would hear the gospel and be protected in their new school.
