Ok, so it’s not free tacos for you, sorry. It’s my latest adventure in contact work.
10:24 am – About to leave for Verdugo Hills. Nervous, like usual, but a bit more than I have been, maybe because last week there was no school because of Thanksgiving, or maybe because I plan on bringing in some food from Taco Bell (hence the free tacos). I’m not sure how they’ll respond, and I’m not sure I care, but it still makes me nervous.
10:53 am – In line at the drive-thru for Taco Bell. Ordering 20 tacos. All three kinds of sauce.
11:00 am – On campus. Run into Tamar, her brother, and Amanda (three Believer’s Club leaders). Head up to the library for a second to say “Hi” before the bell rings.
11:06 am – Bell rings and lunch begins! I head down out into the common area where everyone eats lunch and found where the kids I’ve been hanging out with lately were at. I start handing out a few tacos and they are thrilled to have some free food.
I hand out tacos to all of the kids I know by name and have a bunch of kids I do not know come up and ask for some. I meet a few new kids and try to have some conversations with them.
At one point this one kid, whose name I cannot remember, came over and asked for a couple of tacos for his friends, a couple girls who were too nervous to come down and ask for one themselves (I later found out he was just lying for a couple of tacos). But not satisfied with his request, I ask who the girls were and shouted out one of their names and toss a taco up to her. She had no idea I why I was throwing a taco at her, but the shot was bad and I hit another kid nearby (another kid I luckily knew already) and the taco exploded all over the place. It lands on the ground and another kid runs by and picks it up.
I tried to convince one of the kids, Arin, to eat nothing but the hot sauce. I even said I’d give him a dollar. So he went for it, but he didn’t get very far, and almost started to throw up! It was pretty gross. Another kid, CJ, though ate the hottest sauce and didn’t even flinch. I gave him the dollar.
I could tell most of the kids there were at least beginning to get comfortable around me because they kind of began to circle around me and all I did was sit there. With that in mind, it feels a lot easier to meet new kids, sometimes they join the circle and I make a point to find out their name, or I sit next to them and just chat for a little bit. I offered one kid a taco and make some light conversation with him. His name was Paul and I found out his dad lives in Chicago. The dollar I gave CJ was actually his, so I owe him money now! I never thought I’d be so happy to know I owe this kid a dollar. He had obvious seen me around because he asked me if I came every Friday to lunch–even though I didn’t recognize him before.
11:36 am – The bell rings to end lunch and I head over to the coach’s office to talk to Coach Mojica about helping out with track. The meets are usually on Friday, which works great for me. Practices are every other day, with the hard days being Tuesday and Wednesday. I think what I’ll do is go for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and try to work in my 20 hours the rest of the week so that I can still hang out at lunch on Fridays.
12:03 pm - I head over to Olde Town Cafe on Commerce in Tujunga with Chris from Chapel of the Hills to talk about Life Hurts. God Heals., a program designed like Celebrate Recovery for students. We talk about possibly doing a program like this together for our kids and some of the kids in the community, for those who might need such a program to help them deal with the problem they are going through. We also get into a conversation about sharing leadership resources and even doing some “training” together. “Why reinvent the wheel?” He asks. We talk a bit about Phyllis Tickle’s analysis of the church today, and how churches can accomplish so much more for a community by working together instead of working against each other, even inadvertently. It was a good conversation.
Now I’m back home working on a final paper for a class!
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