Friday Thoughts & Youth Night

I spent Friday morning visiting with Itzel, Katherine, Jose, Kenia, and Jessica about the jealousy problems in our youth group. Some issues from the past, and then again last night at service, have caused our youth group to have little clichés of friendships that do not and will not talk with each other or even be near each other in service. The people here think of friends as possessions and then when you put time into other people they get their feelings hurt. Other girls, and sometimes the boys, specifically say that when they want to talk or hangout with Sergio, Tommy, Daniel, or I people in other groups of friends tell them they are only their friends, or they don’t like you like they do us, etc. etc. The problem is usually between one person and another person, but they get their whole group involved so that it becomes 10 people that won’t associate with anyone from the other 10 people. Please pray for us, as they try and tell us it is our own fault for doing things with someone to bless them, or being closer with someone means that you don’t love anyone else. This all goes back to the kids coming from such broken homes and never being loved, so they cannot understand real love and friendships. They are so quick to get their feelings hurt and show bad attitudes toward us and even more towards each other.

Sergio and I met with the leadership in the afternoon and they seem to be doing pretty well. They are also dealing with some jealousy issues not between each other, but by other church members who all have their own opinions about the leadership. We let them know what things Tommy and Linda passed on to Sergio to share with them, and our schedule for the upcoming week.

We had our second youth service Friday night and only around twenty people were there. At first, we all felt kind of down by how empty things looked, but as the service continued we found out what a blessing it was to have a service with 20 people who really care about worshipping and listening to the word, with prayer and interactive discussion. Everyone was well behaved and you could feel God’s presence throughout the service. I think that this smaller number with 15 serious and interested youth out of the total 20 is where we can really get stronger and grow, compared to having 40 there with 25 being distractions.