College Reflection: The Mayfield Days

Last weekend I got to travel to Florida for a bit of a conference on youth ministry & such.  It was sweet, I saw some old friends and met lots of new ones from all around the US & Canada.  My preconceived notions about the South were challenged as I met some genuine people who live down there.  I spent a significant amount of time with a mentor of mine who now lives in South Carolina.  I worked under him while at SNU in Oklahoma City.  He's got to be one of the funniest people I've ever known.  I was reminded of the ministry I was a part of and have gone back to something I wrote now over 5 years ago.  Posted below is this writing that came from those days.  It's basically reflections & questions from inner city ministry & my last year of college.  It was a crazy time for me in my journey, filled with many ups and downs & questions about life & faith.  It's pretty long, so heads up if you're up for reading for a while.  Keep in mind that I wrote this a long time ago and it reflects specific circumstances & contexts in my life.  I feel like I've continued to grow in my faith, but this reflects a major transitional time in my perspective & theology. 

THE MAYFIELD DAYS

Luke Duerre

January 2002-May 2003

All I wanted was to get plugged in somewhere.  Sherry and I had just moved to Oklahoma City from our other colleges (Northwest and MidAmerica Nazarene Universities), and we were strangers at Southern Nazarene.  We had only two real friends around there, the Roaches whom we knew from working at Golden Bell.  They went to Lake O Church of the Nazarene right here in Bethany, so we went ahead with them to church our first Sunday morning.

One of the hardest parts of leaving Idaho was the students I worked with at Canyon Hill Church in Caldwell.  Matt S. was the youth pastor whom I had known my whole life and he got me involved with a lot of the leadership of the youth at his church.  I learned a lot from him, and so I wanted to get involved right away with another group.  The first Sunday at Lake O the youth pastor announced that they needed van drivers for apartment kids on Wednesday nights.  Justin and I got excited about it, and I figured it would be a good way to get involved. 

I got to know Mike, the youth pastor, and he got Roach and I rolling on picking up kids from apartments around Oklahoma City.  He didn’t give us much instruction, just the locations of the apartments.  I wondered how we would know the kids to pick up, but he said the kids would find us, and flock to the van like white on rice.  We went into the new adventure blind, but we our eyes were opened to inner-city ministry within minutes.  Little did I know that our desire to help out the youth would change my life forever.  I will never forget the days of ministry that were to come over the next year and a half.   

I had never really noticed the apartments on South Rockwell, 10^th and 16^th Streets.  They were kind of hidden.  Pine Creek apartment complex like all the others were home to many low-income families, the majority African American and Hispanic.  That area of the city is a sea of apartments, basketball hoops, strip clubs, and barred windows.  On our first pick up Roach and I drove up wondering how the kids will know we’re there, that we are the ones from the church, and even who we were.  But as we pulled in, the mob of kids playing basketball at the run-down hoop dropped the ball, and yelled out for their other friends.  There was a frenzy of pushing and shoving to get into the van.  It was crazy.  Were these kids registered with the church to be in the vans?  Did their parents know where they were going?  Would they be upset at us driving off with their kids when they did not even know us or had ever seen us?  These questions I would soon realize do not exist in inner-city ministry.  The parents don’t care; we’re just free babysitters for the night.  They don’t seem to mind what we did, or if their kids were gone.  Roach and I just looked at each other puzzled, what were we supposed to do?  So we took a head count, shut the door, and drove back to the church.  At church, it was just as chaotic as in the bus, but they were there, and I was beaming.  This was the trend for the next few months, I would pick up the kids on Wednesday, hope we didn’t get into something over our heads where there could be lawsuits, and drove the kids back and forth. 

I loved getting to know the kids, mainly by listening to their conversations and playing ball with them after church.  Gavin is the first contact I ever had with the African American culture, and I will never forget him.  He was a 6^th grader that first year and always so excited to get to church.  He would always be the first to the van and to say what up to us.  The enthusiasm eventually died down with the majority of the kids, so I would have to go hunting to find them inside the buildings.  That was an adventure in itself, so new to me.  The smell was overwhelming of B.O., pot, and cigarettes, but I have come to relish that smell, like Mike would say, as the smell of real ministry being done.  Most of the time I would go into Gavin’s apartment, knock on the door, and he would yell to the back at his mom if he could come or not.  It was always a toss up, because she didn’t like him being out past 9.  Most of the time we got them all back by 9:15 or so, and there is a 9 pm curfew for the kids on the street.  Gavin’s apartment was always thick with the smell of cigarettes and marijuana.  Mike often told me of times when he would go in there and Gavin’s dad would be passed out on the couch smoking dope and could hardly get up to shake Mike’s hand.  Dad didn’t care, he was just happy to get Gavin out of the house for a while.  That is the life there, and Gavin knew nothing different.  So, that was my routine on Wednesdays, hoping that Gavin could come to church, and that he could round up some friends with him.  Some days we would have none, others 20- 25 stuffed into a 15-passenger van, no joke.  I was always weary of getting into an accident with all those kids.  To get the kids to buckle any seat belts was a joke.  One guy who drove another bus got into a wreck once, luckily nothing come of it besides insurance issues  that I remember. 

Once I recall a boy named Shane was coming, and one night I took him home in my car.  Roach and I had picked him and Gavin up earlier, but I was dropping them off alone.  Roach had forgot his phone in my car earlier.  Shane swiped it on his way out without me noticing.  I stopped the car on the way out, went back and looked for him, but I never could find him.  He brought the cell to school that next day, made some calls, and got caught with it.  He made up some story about him finding it on the way to school, but the principal didn’t buy it.  Roach got his phone back, but unfortunately was the last time I saw Shane, he never came again.  We didn’t care about the phone, but he never was in the picture again.  My heart aches for that boy.  All because he stole a phone and didn’t want face us.    

I can’t exactly say how we transitioned from Wednesday night pick-ups, simply hoping it would lead somewhere, to our daily routine with the Mayfield boys.  I was really getting into this inner city stuff, and so was my buddy at the church & school named Blake.  We asked Mike if we could start going to a school and start some kind of ministry with the kids there.  Mike had been doing some intramural stuff at Western Oaks Middle School, so he thought it would be cool if we went to Mayfield, a Middle School in the 10^th & 16^th Street area.  We went in blindly one day, hoping they would let us eat with the students and get to know them.  The administration was very supportive, the vice-principal I got to know pretty well, but the head principal would never give us the time of day.  Mike was never able to start an intramural program at Mayfield, but our lunch conversations there lead to a ministry that changed my life.  We had begun what I now remember in my heart as the Mayfield days.      

Blake and I didn’t have a clue.  We were two white guy theology majors at SNU who wanted to get involved with some social injustices and inner city ministry.  So we would walk into a predominantly Black-Hispanic middle school, wanting to get to know some guys.  I was so new to me, very exciting, but intimidating.  That first lunch we just walked up to a table full of guys and started talking to them.  The last 20 minutes of lunch they could go into the gym and play basketball or just hang out.  There were some foosball tables in the cafeteria.  So that’s what we did, we just started talking and asked if we could play basketball with them.  Our routine was that each Tuesday and Thursday we would go to the end of the 7^th grade and the whole 8^th grade lunch.  The guys sat in the same spot every day, so we’d just meet them there.  Some days they’d totally ignore us, other days we’d be their best friend, you’d just never know who would show up and what personalities.  Gavin was in 7^th grade, so we never really spent much time with him, mainly the 8^th graders.  We got into their lives by talking NBA and college basketball, asking about their basketball teams and stuff like that.  The big hook came when we told them all we played basketball at our church each Tuesday night, and we could pick them up in the van if they wanted to go. 

That’s all it took.  So that’s what we did.  It started quickly, and multiplied over and over.  The core of the group was Ray, Devon, Cool J, Quantrell, Justin, Isaiah, Gavin, Godwin, David, and a few others.  Those guys were good players, very good. Roach, Pastor Mike, Blake, Jack, Josh and I would play ball with them, and I had to work hard.  It was crazy that these 8^th grade guys could play so well, better than I.  Devon could dunk, and easily.  We watched their school games and a few times he threw it down.   It was amazing.  Hardly any regular youth group kids came on Tuesdays, but mostly older cousins and friends of the Mayfield boys that Mike knew from before came.  Johnny was a regular, for one, and was a huge guy, strong and intimidating, but friendly.  He had a daughter, I think he was about 19 or 20.  They would roll up in their cars with this other guy named Akie.  Akie was something else, he could jump out of the gym, but half the time he was high and just sort of strolled around.  He was a dealer I was told, had a kid, and like Johnny was only about 19.  Other guys came with them, I most with serious histories.  I can’t think of his name, but there was this other kid who had a few weeks earlier run from the police in a stolen car and ran it into the Whataburger.  He had been arrested and spent a lot of time in jail for stealing cars.   Leon was a regular too.  He was 18 but looked and acted about 15.  The guy talked louder and more constantly than anyone I’ve ever met.  He was hilarious.  Once the ball rolled down the stairs into the Sunday school rooms and nobody wanted to go get it.  Disgusted, he shouted out, “What’s the matter with y’all, you afraid of the Holy Ghost?!!”  Most basketball nights were 8^th grade versions of the And 1 Mix Tapes and street ball.  It was chaos, full of trash talking, attempted dunks, and breaking up arguments.  It was awesome. 

This mixed with the ongoing Wednesday night busing filled those two nights to overflowing.  When we started to really get to know the guys better, we learned that nearly all of them didn’t ever have dinner.  They had to scrape something together on their own, usually because there wasn’t much food at home.  Their meals came during breakfast and lunch, both at Mayfield.  They were all on government food vouchers.  They’d go to school early for breakfast, and had free hot lunches.  Blake got the idea of getting a bunch of Top Ramen and fixing it on Tuesdays.  It didn’t last long, those guys at it all so fast.  They’d break into the kitchen and eat whatever they could find, no matter what.  I’d go in there and find them rummaging through the donuts for Sunday, old pickles, relish, and anything else you’d find left in a church refrigerator.  We got into trouble for all the stuff they ate and we ended up having to lock the door to the kitchen, only giving out the Ramen at a certain time.  I’ll never forget how Blake put it, “These guys are hungry, and we need to feed them.”  It was true not only physically, but those guys were hungry for someone to love them, give them attention.  They were hungry for God.  One Tuesday a few of them had gone up into the youth room and broke into and tipped over the candy machine, stealing more than $50 in quarters and dimes.  As I took them home, they wanted to stop at McDonalds.  They asked to stop for food nearly every week, but this time they insisted they had money.  So as I pulled into the drive in, they paid for $15 dollars worth of burgers in quarters.  I questioned where they got the money and they said it was their phone money they got once a week.  I was so naïve, so very naïve, and they knew it, and took advantage of it.  I learned the next day what had really happened, and I was embarrassed to say that they had spent a lot of it in front of my eyes.  It still makes me laugh to think about those stupid quarters.       

So this was the world we got in to.  We were clueless, but willing to love these guys.  We got to the point where we would try to split them up as much as we could to take them home because we spent so much time in the van.  Kids would come from all over OKC, and we would easily spend an hour in the van both ways.  Van rides though were a different story.  It was comedy.  I got to know the hip hop/rap radio stations really well.  Nelly, 50 Cent, Snoop, etc, were the norm in the church bus.  I got the point where I knew a lot of those songs as well as the guys did.  Cool J would bang on the windows these amazing beats as Ray, Godwin, and Quantrell would freestyle.  They were so funny; the stuff they rapped about was so hilarious.  Godwin once brought his 3 year-old niece, JaNasia to church.  She’d sing along to “Air Force Ones,” the popular Nelly song at the time.  It was all so new to me, and I just soaked it in, trying to learn about their habits, culture, and dreams.  That’s the tragic part of the inner city life, too, dreams. 

The cycle is so vicious.  These guys grow up looking at their rap star idols, see their lives and think there’s nothing better.  So that’s all they care about, they emulate them, from dress to talk to how they treated girls.  I’d say only about 20% had a father they knew, so there were no male influences, only NBA players and rap stars.  They grew up quick, and by 8^th grade they wanted sex, drugs, and independence.  The girls knew nothing different, that’s why they give into the guys and have sex and kids at 14 or younger.  They’ve never known the love of a father, so they settled for the cheep love of the guys in their schools or hoods.  Poverty is so crazy.  I’ve heard some say that poverty isn’t so much a lack of money, as much as a lack of options.  What options do those guys have?  The cycle is so hard to break.  No fathers, so they grow up, have kids early because sex is cool, and there is no dedication to the next generation, so they grow up having kids earlier than the one before.  It’s so selfish, but the reality.  Many are abandoned by their mom and live with their grandma. 

I was rich to those guys, they asked for money constantly.  I mean I was a starving college student, but compared to them I was Donald Trump.  I didn’t have much money, but I was white, in college, and lived in the good part of the city.  I had options, what did they have?  They had to be good at basketball to prove themselves.  The girls had to be the best looking, to be popular with the guys and be sexually active, like on BET and MTV videos.  That’s the inner city dream, that’s success to them.  They’d ask us how much we will make as pastors, they thought we were lying when we said we’d not make much, but we weren’t in it for the money, we wanted to serve Jesus and others.  I doubt they believed us.  The real issue is priorities.  It’s easy for me to look at them and think a lot of problems would be solved it they’d just save a bit, budget out some unnecessary stuff…  But that’s not how it is.  We took about 8 guys to Youth Fest in Norman (the Northwest Oklahoma talent festival) and none of them could afford to go.  So we found sponsors for them.  But when we arrived to head up there, practically all of them had new $100 shoes and shorts.  Priorities.  They don’t have money for food, but when they need new shoes they find a way.  It still baffles me.

Ray lived with his mom.  He has been shifted around quite a bit throughout his life.  Some of the time he lived with mom, other times with friends.  He once told us a new place to pick him up instead of the regular apartments.  We learned that his mom had abandoned him, she didn’t want him anymore.  He was out on his own, no home.  This was an 8^th grade boy.  We came to learn that his AAU basketball coach took him in for the time being.  After that happened Ray was never the same, he always looked down, never quite as cheerful or humorous.  How could you blame him?  Nobody wanted him, he was totally rejected.

Devon had a dad, but only really saw him during his basketball season.  I went to a lot of their Mayfield games, it was crazy.  Devon’s dad was usually drunk, and was the most outspoken, out of control person I’d ever seen at a child’s game.  He cursed the refs continually, harassed the other team’s players and parents, and danced all around the bleachers.  On more than one occasion he had to be restrained from other parents.  I was often afraid for my own safety being in those gyms, it seemed like a riot was going to break out at almost every game.  Devon’s dad challenged other parents to fights, and once he took it outside with another man midway through the game.  A crowd followed, and I learned the next day from the guys at lunch that he was arrested.  Devon was noticeably downcast the day after his games, usually because his dad had been put in jail the night before.  It was hard for the kid.

The kid that I look back at and remember most was Godwin Icasanu (Like "Ica sign you to a contract," he would say).  The first time I met him it was during a Mayfield lunch.  He sort of sat with the guys, but when world got around that we played ball on Tuesday nights, he approached Blake and I.  He wanted to play, but didn’t live where most the other guys lived.  So we found out where he lived, and started to pick him up too.  I remember telling Mike one day that there was this guy named Godwin who’d been coming.  Mike was surprised; I guess he had met him before too.  Mike warned us about him, he was really rough.  It was true; Godwin had a lot of issues and problems.  The more we played and ate lunch with him, the closer we got though.  Godwin could hardly read or write, and was constantly suspended and spending lunch hours in the office.  The more we got to know him, the more we understood why.  He’d ask us to pray for his mom, constantly.  He’d call up Roach, Blake, and I crying about how bad stuff was.  His mom was in and out of jail, and was dying of cancer.  She was sick all the time.  His dad was actually sort of around, but didn’t get along with mom.  He was straight out of Ghana, Africa.  He had a family in Africa that he sent money to, and had about 3 kids in OKC.  The guy was intimidating.  He hardly spoke English, but worked as a security guard.  He worked a lot, but none of the money made it home.  Godwin’s mom’s health faded in and out, and was doing ok when we left Bethany.  But it was daily with Godwin, not just during lunch or on Tuesday or Wednesday.  He called us daily.  We saw him practically every day.  He called for rides to church on Sunday, and always wanted lunch afterwards.  So we did this sort of stuff for him.  He was unique.  Rough around the edges, but inside was a very scared little kid.  He was afraid of losing his mom.  To his dismay, he wasn’t very good at basketball either, which he disguised at all costs, trying to be a tough guy.  If you’re not good at ball in their 8th grade world, you’re at a huge disadvantage.  So we worked and worked with Godwin, it was frustrating.  He was needy, clingy, and annoying, but God had placed him in my life, so I did what I could.  My attitude was not what it should have been at times, but I grew a lot in that.  It was hard work.  Godwin really latched on to us for some reason, Blake, Roach and I.  He once confided in Roach that he had gotten a girl pregnant, and the baby was born, a boy.  He told me once, but I’m still skeptical.  The kid was 13 years old, and the girl he said was the same age.  I know it’s possible, but I wonder if he said it to get attention from us.  Lord, I hope that he was joking.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.  Anything’s possible, I know that now.

If there was one experience that I look back on in the Mayfield days, it’s Youthfest.  We took up about 8 guys to be our junior high team for Lake O.  There weren’t any other guys to play on the team, so it was basically Mayfield Middle School’s 8^th grade varsity.  We raised enough money for the guys to go because they couldn’t otherwise afford it.  As I said before, they all showed up with new shoes and shorts.  Roach, Jack, and I knew they’d kill everybody they played, and they did.  I don’t remember why, but Blake couldn’t go for some reason, I really wish he’d been there.  Here was the plan: We’d drive them down to Norman (University of Oklahoma) and back on Friday night to stay at the church.  It was chaos. None of the guys had sleeping bags or money for food.  So we scrapped up some money for breakfast that morning.  They won all their games on Friday night by at least 40 points, and we headed back to the church.  All they wanted to do was play ball at the church too, and we eventually got to sleep at about 2 or 3am.  Early the next day we went back to OU.  Saturday they dominated again.  It was fun, they did really well.  It’s easy for talented black guys to beat up on non-talented white guys in basketball.  We of course had to deal with the regular attitude issues, language, and sexual-centered conversation.  It was the norm by then, we were used to it.  The trouble started early in the afternoon on Saturday.  Godwin stole a microphone from the rec center soundboard, and Quantrell stole a few of the rec center basketballs.  We found them and confiscated them, making them apologize.  They weren’t happy.  About a half hour later we learned that some of the girls from other churches caught Quantrell, Ray, Cool J, and Godwin trying to sneak into the girls locker room.  Our hearts sank, it was horrible.  The police were called, and it started what I remember to be the worst few hours of my life.  There was a guy our age that was a Lake O sponsor there with the youth, he was a police officer and had somewhat of a temper.  The Mayfield guys knew him from life on the street; he’d been in contact with a lot of them away from church.  They hated him, and he didn’t have much patience with them, either.  When he found out what they’d been up to, his anger took over.  He marched all the guys out to the van, tearing them down every step of the way.  Roach, Jack and I had no say in what he did, he just took over.  It was terrible.  He demanded to know what they had been doing, why they did it, and so on, in not so Christlike terms.  They clammed up, silence.  The girls who’d accused them described the guys who they saw; it was Ray, Quan, Cool J, and Godwin.  So for the next two hours I sat in the drivers seat of the van guarding them from getting out.  The police questioned the four guys individually.  I really don’t know what was going on, I was in charge to keeping them in the van.  It sucked, they complained, cussed at me for what we were doing.  They were disqualified from the tournament and they were angry.  And I took the brunt of their anger.  I could care less, I was just trying to figure out what we should do.  Mike was gone, he has left OKC a month earlier for a church in Tennessee.  What had we gotten ourselves into?  How had we arrived at this place?  We just wanted to build relationships with some guys in the inner city.  This was more than we bargained for.

Eventually the whole matter was resolved, the girls and their parents didn’t press charges, and we just decided to head home.  They weren’t happy about that either.  As we loaded up the vans with the volleyball girls, we discovered the keys to the other van were missing.  The other sponsor accused the guys of hiding them, and so then for the next few hours we spent asking the guys if they had them, we looked all over the rec center, in the vans, in the grass, in their bags, on the sidewalks, all information desks, but nothing was ever found.  I asked the guys seriously probably at least 10 times if they had the keys it was cool, they weren’t in trouble, we just needed the keys.  There were no spares.  We needed the keys.  It was so stressful, all this after a long weekend of putting up with all the guys complaints and attitudes, having spent the night on a cold church floor with a sheet blanket, and having just resolved the police situation.  We just wanted to put the weekend behind us.  We were tired, emotionally drained, and stressed.  So we decided by this time, after about 5 hours of guarding the guys in the van that I’d drive them all home, and we’d call it done.  So I left OU with the 8 Mayfield Boys and took them to their homes scattered all over Oklahoma City.  Roach would call a locksmith and have them take apart the starter so they could drive the girls home.  It ended up costing them about $60 I think to do it. 

I dropped the first guy off, and before he got out, I talked to them for a minute.  I remember telling them all that their lives were too valuable to be acting this way.  God loved them too much.  We still loved them too.  I told them that things would have to change.  I started getting choked up, I was so drained and depressed about the weekend and how hopeless everything seemed.  They just laughed.  It was at that point I came to the brink.  I was lost, clueless.  Everything we’d been doing for the past year had been worthless.  These guys didn’t care.  I was at the point where I didn’t know what to do.  I can’t remember ever being so low.  Why had God not done anything through us?  Had he?  It was the longest bus ride home ever.  It took probably another 2 hours to drop them all off.  Ray was the last one.  He was quiet, really quiet, and Ray was never quiet.  I knew Ray well, almost like Godwin.  I just turned to him and said I’d see him later, and that I still cared about him even if he didn’t care about us.  What Ray did next I’ll never forget.  It’s burned into my memory forever.  He sat there, pulled out a flashlight, opened up the end, and he pulled out the keys to the other van and gave them to me.  I couldn’t believe it.  Why?  I asked him that, why, Ray?  Why would you guys do this after all we’ve tried to do for you guys?  I don’t understand.  He was teary eyed, and just shrugged his shoulders and got out of the van.  I cried as I drove away.  I couldn’t believe it.  I dropped off the van at church, and then drove to Roach’s house to see if he was home yet.  I showed him the keys; we just sat there and wondered what on earth we were trying to do.  It had failed.  It failed miserably.  It was hard.  It was a strange time.  The next day was spring break, and Sherry and I were driving home to Colorado.  I went over to her house, had her come out to the car with me, and I just lost it.  I’ve never cried so hard in my life.  I just cried in her arms.  I’m glad I had her.  I just told her all that happened, and that I couldn’t do it any longer.  It was rock bottom for that time of my life and for the ministry I was involved in.  In all honesty, it never recovered. 

What do we do now?  Blake and I had asked ourselves that many times.  We did again as we sat in the courtyard of SNU and I told him about the weekend.   Basketball on Tuesday nights was over for the year.  I have no idea what they did the next year, I had graduated, got married, and started youth pastoring in Colorado.  We still picked up a few guys for Wednesday nights here and there if they wanted to go, like Ray, Quan, Cool J, and Godwin.  But it was never as it was.  We thought working toward Youthfest was a good goal for the guys, but it failed, and failed in a big way. 

In the next few weeks and months a lot of change came about at Lake O.  A new youth minister came in who didn’t have the same vision as Mike, Blake, Roach, and I with the inner city guys.  He put a quick end to it.  I never really got as involved with him as I had been before.  I didn’t have it in me.  I was graduating soon, and moving back to Colorado.  Truthfully, inside I was very angry at him.  It was hard though to see it die like that, but maybe it was for the best.  It had its season.  Things were changing for everybody.  In hindsight, maybe I was just frustrated at the level of failure I felt inside.

I look back at those days and wonder why we did it.  Was it worth the efforts to build relationships with those guys?  We worked hard at it, to try to bring them to the place where they could see Christ, and maybe break the cycle where their lives would lead.  I think the hardest part is that we really did get to know these guys; we got to know them well.  We spent lots of time with them, our paths really crossed.  This was no small deal; we put our hearts and souls into it, along with our money, time, and gasoline.  I loved those guys.  Godwin meant a lot to me.  I think that’s why it hurt so much.  Maybe they meant more to us than we did to them.  Maybe it was all a test to see if what we, a bunch of ministry students were learning in school would work in the hardest of places.  My vote is still out.  Did we do any good for the kingdom?  Or did we just get some hopes up for a few kids to have some fun?  If so, I consider it worthless.  It’s my prayer that some seeds for the gospel were planted, that some of the truth of Christ stayed with at least one of those guys.  Those were tough seeds to plant, if any good does come, it will be something huge.  It would be worth it if even one of them lives a positive life where they can serve the Lord, and make a difference in their world. 

In hindsight, is it just be futile to bring in two cultures and force one of them to serve God like the other?  Is it really the job of the church to take urban black kids, bus them in to the upper class white kids youth group service and get frustrated when they don’t pay attention and act like the white kids?  It’s unfair if you ask me.  Looking back now a few years later, we need to be planting churches where they live, not make them be like us and our churches.  Does that excuse us from reaching out and building bridges?  No way, it makes us need to try harder to understand people who look and act differently than we do.  Our goal was and still is perfectly good, but maybe our approach was off.  Well, no maybe about it, we were way off.  I think maybe that’s what I think suffering for the gospel maybe can mean for a poor college student, and for the church universal.  I still have no understandings about what we tried to do, and why exactly it failed in such a big way, but I don’t regret it one bit.  My worldview is bigger than a lot of peoples, because my life has interacted in a big way with African American 8^th graders and their world so different than mine.  I’m no expert on cross-cultural ministry, I’m still pretty new to it, but I’m grateful for those experiences in Oklahoma City.  I know that I’m not doing my job if all I see are white upper class folks who think, act, look, and think like I do.  The gospel is bigger than that, and the kingdom’s borders want to expand beyond what my limited worldview can think of.  The Mayfield Days taught me that.       

Told you this was long :)