Fun day with the guys!

I have been in Knoxville for about a week now! This week included the following activities; Market on Tuesday morning, worship service, decorating the bulletin board, cleaning Shannon's office, and cleaning both the men's and women's bathrooms Wednesday, Market again Thursday morning, middle school girls Bible study Tuesday-Thursday afternoon, Nail painting party Thursday afternoon with the middle school girls, and Fun Day with the high school guys Friday. Friday we took close to 15 high school boys to one of our volunteers lake house where Mike (the volunteer) took the guys out on his boat, fed us and allowed us to treat his house as if it were our own for the day. It was amazing, I got to look at this beautiful scenery for the entire day, watch the guys play darts and pool, I played 3 games of checkers and won 2 of those games, and had a lot of fun getting to know the guys better. It was a great day.

On the way home I rode near the back of  one of the vans with 3 of our high schoolers and Jared who is one of the other summer staff, and just had fun listening to the guys talk, teasing them, being teased back, and asking them fun questions like "What animal would you be and why?" and listening to their responses. Then, when we arrived back to the Baptist Center at almost 10pm, we were all told to go back into the prayer room, where Jay (one of our high school graduates) gave us this announcement; "On the way here Mike called Shannon to say that someone had taken $50 from his wife's purse. He isn't concerned about the money, he's concerned that he just lost a group of friends." The room was silent. Nobody said anything, we all just sat there in silence. Jay continued to talk saying that "whoever did this needs to man-up and take responsibility for what he has done, that it's wrong to steal and that whoever did this has hurt Mike a lot." It broke my heart when I heard all this. I love being with the guys, I had a great time with them at the lake house, and they're a great group of boys. It just takes one mistake to ruin the day for everyone, to break the trust that one man had in the whole group is now damaged. My prayer is that God will convict whoever did this, that He would cause this young man to just feel sick to his stomach, and cause him to be miserable to the point that he has to tell someone. I also pray that whoever this young man goes to, whether it be Natalie, Shannon, Mike or any of the summer staff, that we would handle it in a way honoring to God, not condemning him, but loving him through his actions and showing him the love of Christ. Yes, stealing $50 from someone is terrible, but God can take this and use it as an opportunity for us to share the gospel with the young man, who knows, maybe this is what it takes for this young man to realize that he is in need of a Savior and he can't do it on his own. God will use this for His glory, we just don't know how. God will use this and turn it into something beautiful.