Trying to Rescue Disadvantaged Kids

by Fatherofeight | More from this Blogger

27 Jan 2007 06:31 PM

Nancy and I had worked with disadvantaged young people who lived near our church for some time. We were determined to give at least some of them a chance to be successful. At best, it was always a "three steps forward, two steps back" proposition.

Most of the kids lived in cramped apartments characterized by poor living conditions. Many of their parents had substance abuse problems and the kids had very little supervision. Crack dealers operated openly where they lived, no one seemed to care.

The young people were quick to get angry and were always one smart remark away from a fight. The girls all knew how to fight, they had to.

We really tried hard to mainstream the kids into our church. They cooperated most of the time. The most disappointing thing was that they seemed to be happy as long as things were going their way, but they would rebel the moment that Nancy or I would have to reprimand them.

The attempt to mainstream them failed miserably. There were several theft incidents that could be traced directly to them. One young man had to be asked to leave when he got flustered over a foosball game. The incident ended when he got in the face of a policeman who was working security in the church parking lot. To make matters worse, his brother walked up to a fourteen year old church girl and made a very indecent proposal.

Their home environments were very bad. Most of them had older siblings and even parents who were in jail or prison. Some of these young teenagers would not see a parent for four or five days at a time.

As they got older, the boys were first directed to alternative schools, where they just sat all day and did nothing. They eventually drifted into petty crimes and drug use, winding up incarcerated. Starting at about age fifteen, the girls were at risk for pregnancy. Some of them intentionally tried to get pregnant so that they would qualify for housing and be free of parental controls. They would then start this vicious cycle all over again because they would birth multiple children with no way to support them.

We gave these kids a lot of time, attention, and prayer with few favorable results. It became clear that we were not going to be successful with any of them. We were forced to reexamine our strategy.

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Being Prepared for the Future

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Valorie Delp (49340) 27 Jan 2007 07:01 PM

For sure this is a tough job. I am going to be writing soon about our experiences in the inner city in the Christian blog. Is there more to this story?

Fatherofeight (2475) 27 Jan 2007 07:28 PM

Yes, thanks for reading. It will be a series, but I am skipping around rather than going way back and working up to it. I am guessing that there are 50 blogs that get me from my childhood in white upper middle class Arkansas to where we are today. I want to detail the triumphs, trials and errors along the way that shaped how we look at things today. I look forward to reading about your experiences in the inner city.