Sunday,
July 6, 2003
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Youth play with neighbourhood kids
By PAUL SCHRAG
Mennonite Weekly Review Saturday, July 5, 2003
Some big balloons. Soap to blow bubbles. A wad of newspaper and tape for a baseball. Sidewalk chalk. A jump rope. And a group of Mennonite teenagers ready to have fun. “I like to see the kids smile,” said Nichole Irving of First Mennonite Church in Canton, Ohio. “They’re all so cute!” Members of Irving’s youth group were among approximately 615 Mennonite youth convention participants who worked — or, in Irving’s case, played — on servant projects Friday. More than 200 youth served with Wyndham Missions, a Christian ministry that organizes outreach events in 52 apartment complexes in Atlanta. By the end of the convention, approximately 4,046 MYFers will have served, said Arloa Bontrager, servant project coordinator. At the Wyndham Creek apartments, about 20 Mennonite teenagers from Ohio and 15 Hispanic children ate ice cream bars, played simple games like freeze tag and generally had fun in whatever ways they could think of. The hard part was knocking on doors to ask wary parents, many of whom spoke little English, to send their children outside. “At first it was boring,” said Raymon Mayfield of Canton. “But now it’s cool. The kids are real cool, especially karate man.” Karate man would be Rameses Peralta, 11, who enjoyed practicing martial arts moves with Mayfield. Then Peralta noticed a hopscotch game that one of the teenagers had drawn on the sidewalk. “Who likes that game?” he asked. “Do you?” a teenager asked. “Yeah.” So karate man became hopscotch man. “Having fun?” someone asked him. “Yeah.” “What do you like?” “Everything.” Playing with kids for a couple of hours might not change a life, but different groups can develop healthier perceptions of each other. “The most important thing you can do is get to know somebody and understand them,” said Darin Nissley, youth pastor at First Mennonite of Canton. “It’s that knowledge that can transform you as far as some of the judgments you make about people. . . . Evangelism is about building relationships.” When it was time to go, and hugs and goodbyes were exchanged, several children asked if the youth were coming back. They weren’t. But, perhaps just as good, another group of Mennonite youth would be back the next day. “My prayer is that these young people will catch the vision to do their own ministries back home,” said Tim Cummins, Wyndham Missions director. They just might, especially knowing that sometimes, Christian ministry can be all play and no work.  |
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