Last Night = OTC...

Last night at Young Life was OTC (Off The Chain!)! We had our 1st Annual (or better yet Bi-Annual!) Kidnap Club last night and it was really incredible ... to say the least! I feel like me writing about it will not do it justice, but I am gonna give it a try.

Kidnap Club ... kids show up to Young Life at 7:59 on Monday as usual and we hand the kids and leaders a sheet o' paper that has a list of 30 people / animals on there that they need to go, find and bring back to Texas Boat World. For example: a bearded high schooler (250 points), a sophomore softball player(200), a kid with lots of freckles (325), a gerbil (50), a student under 5 foot tall (135), and so on and so on...

The kids bought into it Hook, Line and Sinker!!! We had one hour. Be back in 1 hour or your team will be deducted 500 points per minute that you are late! We started with 10 kids and ended the evening with 31 kids! There was so much energy in the room. It was marvelous!!! We sang two songs and then I gave the quickest, most precise club talk of my life. I drew out the Bridge Illustration and shared Romans 3:23-24, Romans 6:23 and Ephesians 2:8-9 with the kids. You could have heard a pin drop during my talk. It was most amazing!

I had picked up two guys before club to take to club. One of them being the young man that I wrote about several weeks ago from our Campaigners night. Black hood. Long black hair. Shy at first and then opened up like a Champion. Ring a bell? If not, check out the old blog and read up on it... www.johnnyrussell.wordpress.com.

I will call him Tony for writings sake ... Tony invited his next door neighbor to come to Club with us. This guy had a Mohawk and was wound tighter than a snare drum. He had WAY TOO much energy. He was excited about the night! His mouth was offensive, but it had only just begun.

These two guys ride with me as we drive around town calling people and picking others up for Kidnap Club. They are both in Alternative School, so they don't know many kids that are not in Alternative with them. We go and pick up one girl who has a mouth like a Marine (this is a stereotype). I could not believe it. Tony started to tell her to watch her mouth because she did not know who I was and what I did. People tend to 'straighten up' around me once they find out what I do. Tony calls me his Pastor. Pretty funny. He later called me his Mentor. We ended the evening by running this girl by a friends house who happens to be Tony's best friend. They had to go and pick up 'something.' A shirt is what she claimed. I found an Adderall in my front seat today after all of the kids were gone. Adderall is the drug used to help 'cure' those that have ADHD. It is also the drug of choice for many kids to help them 'chill out.' You can buy them on the street for about $5 a pop. Not a bad deal if you are looking to 'calm down.' Tony asked if he could talk to me later that night about some very stressful things that were going on in his life. I was interested in what he was going to share.

Tony asked me how I felt about Weed (marijuana, pot, etc...). Good? Bad? Ugly? I have never done any drugs because I think that I would like them. I have an addictive personality and so I knew that I would never have the time nor the money to get involved in that so I never did. I told Tony that it was against the law. His response, 'yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.' Wow, I didn't know that! I thought that is exactly what it meant! Tony likes to smoke weed. Daily. But he says that he not a 'druggy' or addicted to it by any means. Nor does he do any other drugs ... although the Adderall in my front seat would speak differently.

Next, he was in a rock and hard place. He met this girl the other day while 'smoking out' and he feels like they just hit it off! They talk often. The only problem is ... is that she is ENGAGED! To a Large, Black man. 'Johnny, what should I do?' he asked. This was the big stress in his life. He said that he thinks he loves her. Tony is a 20 year old senior in high school. We talked through what all of that looked like from each persons perspective. He really values my opinion. How did this kid walk in to my life? It's the strangest thing!

I need to write more, but I also must head to the high school.

So, until next time, make today count!