Boys in da Hood

One of the main ministries that we have found ourselves in here in Noble Park is amongst young boys. This is mostly out of organic growth, a direct result of having 3 boys ourselves. Most afternoons and weekends we have at least 2 extra kids hanging around our home, sometimes we will even have up to six extra kids hanging out, running up and down the driveway, riding bikes, rollerblading, playing on Playstation, board games or computer… it can sometimes be quite mad, and always very noisy…

We were confronted a night or two ago about the importance of this ministry, and has changed my view point on it, to view it as an actual ministry, rather than just a bunch of kids hanging around giving me a headache (yes… I am a grumpy old fart). Two nights ago we had a kid that often hangs around our place turn up with a gang of five or six early-pubescent friends to beat up on another kid who was hanging around our place that night for a sleepover…

As you may or may not be aware, Noble Park has a bit of a reputation for its gangs, they are a bit of a problem, and there are certain areas your average Joe Bloggs would not like to go at night. That night, we were confronted with the next generation of NP gang members, six 12-14 year olds, leaning up against our car, with the body language of the worst of the U.S. gangs, talking tough to Jake and his friend, that was until I came on the scene, then all of a sudden these kids seemed to have messed their pants (it is nice to have that sort of a presence in this sort of a situation, though it wont last long I’m sure…). The next day, this same boy who brought his gang to our house turned up, and was happy to play with his enemy again, in fun innocent kids games, there was a bit of tension to start with, but that quickly melted away, and soon these hardened gang-bangers that I saw the night before, were fun loving innocent kids, running around playing hide and seek.

We have the opportunity here to be at a cross-road of these children’s lives. We have the opportunity to impact their lives, to give them a safe haven to hang around in, where they can be kids, where they can have safe, innocent enjoyment, rather than hanging around on the streets, learning how to behave from those they inevitably will look up to, the real gangs out on our streets. These kids are at the point where they will be choosing the sort of life that they want to live, we pray and hope that the experience of seeing the life we live, of having input from our own children as well as ourselves, and the opportunity to speak a word of wisdom into their lives when the opportunity arises, will see these children start to take the correct choices. It would be naïve to believe that we would solve all of these kids problems and protect them from the dark path that many of them will choose in the future, but any impact we can have is better than none at all, any seed that we can sow, has to be better than allowing the field to remain barren.