I never thought I'd be afraid of ninth grade girls. I mean, I used to be one of them less than ten years ago. What could be so hard about leading a small group of them for an hour on Wednesday nights? After all, wouldn't they want to hang on my every word as I poured into their lives the wisdom from my 23 years of living? Apparently not. I walked into our first meeting completely hopeful and walked out completely angry. I'd never felt so disrespected in all my life. While I tried to take roll, learn names, and get the little motor mouths to sign covenants and fill out information sheets, they talked over me, chatting back and forth about who was breaking up with whom, what classes they hated, and what boy they all thought was cute that day. I felt invisible, snubbed by ninth graders. I was frustrated with them until it hit me: they're acting just like I did in the ninth grade.
I realized that I have my work cut out for me with these ninth graders. I genuinely want to spare them from the pain I endured from the mistakes I made. After a pep talk from the girls' minister about how she put me with these specific girls because a lot of them are on the verge of making some destructive decisions, I came back the next week with new resolve.
Armed with brownies, I tried to herd them down to the minister's office in which we meet. During the walk, I noticed three of them make eye contact and stop walking. Then they bolted. Seriously?, I thought to myself. Did three of the eight girls just run away from me?
I yelled at them to come back, but they were out of eyesight (although I know they heard me). I stopped the group, attempted to find the renegades, gave up, and walked with the rest of the group to our meeting room. Little did I know this would become a little ritual, instigated by a ringleader I'll call "Jessica."
The first time I met Jessica, I was a little afraid she'd kill me. She's a good bit bigger than I am, quite rude, expresses her spiritual gift of sarcasm constantly, and scares the mess out of me. Whether she's answering my questions in Spanish (just to show off the new words she's learned in her foreign language class), finding ways to distract the other girls, or organizing the latest escape attempt, I'm starting to see the lack of self-confidence that fuels her attention-getting activities. Quite honestly, I hoped she would lose interest in our group and quit coming. But every week, she's there with her little posse who frustrate me to no end with their disruptions.
So I wasn't all that surprised when an envelope arrived in my mailbox from our church's student ministry office containing a picture of the student I'd been assigned to pray for through our student prayer ministry. The face staring back at me was none other than Jessica's.
God's sense of humor really gets on my nerves sometimes. But as I've started to pray for her, my feelings toward her have changed. She's quit running away, for the most part. (Well, the little "heart-to-heart" I had with the girls in which I laid down the law may have had something to do with that.) She's the only one who brings her Bible, although she's not really sure where to find the verses I ask her to read. And I've also discovered that she is hilarious. Sometimes, I have to put down my book and just laugh at her comments.
Looking back, I realize that I learned a lot those first few weeks. I should have established a "no gossip" rule, especially when taking prayer requests. Hands-on activities keep girls quiet and interested (just don't let them keep the markers after the activity, or else everyone ends with drawings all over on their skin). Food is always good.
I've also learned that no matter how much I study ahead of time and plan my lesson, we're not going to stick to it. Life is messy, and I should embrace those opportunities when we get off track to take the girls' everyday situations and show them how God and His Word relate to them. There's a stark separation of church activities and real life with my girls, and I want them to see how God should be a part of everything they do. At any rate, I'm hoping that at least on some subconscious level, my words are seeping in and will one day influence their decision-making. And if not, at least I can be oh-so-thankful that I'm no longer in ninth grade!
