Two Fridays ago I began working in one of the local secondary schools, helping out the Religious Education teacher. I’ve loved it so far, partly because I’m not the one in charge, partly because I’m the new American who all the kids think is cool, partly because I now get to work with 60 more kids each week, but mostly because the classes are full of kids from my neighborhood who aren’t all avid churchgoers. I love my youth group. The kids in it are passionate about coming and incredibly energetic and excited when it comes to anything we do. But if I only worked with them, I would be missing out on meeting a huge percentage of youth in the community. Although most people here still identify themselves as either Protestant or Catholic, most of them don’t actually regularly practice being either. Like in the US, most youth will never be a part of a youth group. And they still need to be cared for just as much.

The first week I worked at the school, I was surprised at how open the kids were. I’m used to only superficial comments and questions, but the youth have been open about topics such as whether they go to church or not and fighting with Catholics in other parts of town. I couldn’t believe how many of them asked if I was a Christian or not. When I went to school, that would have been one of the last questions I would ask anyone. This past week I did a powerpoint presentation for them about my life and what I was doing here (it was actually the first powerpoint presentation I’ve ever done). I talked a lot about how important my college ministry group at Kent Prez meant to me and my past three summers with Youthworks. I never fully realized before the importance of having churches from any denomination working and worshipping together for a week. Everytime it came to my section on Youthworks I emphasized that both Catholic and Protestant youth worked together and that, when I worked in Davenport, it was a group of Catholic nuns that revitalized a neighborhood overrun with poverty, drugs, and crime. I don’t know how much any of it mattered to them, but as the year goes on  I’m hoping something sinks I’ve done affects the way they see their life and their community. Right now, it is just kind of nice that, since a lot of the youth live in my neighborhood, they recognize me and say hi to me when I walk by them on my street or when I ride on the same city bus as them.

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