more from tour

I'm currently enjoying a few minutes of peace at this gorgeous home in North Carolina. I got to sleep in til after 10 today... yeah, my mind is pretty much blown. Such a blessing. This week has been a little tiring, but with some incredibly cool moments.

This Monday, I had a few really significant conversations at a camp for delinquent youth called Broken Shackle Ranch. Got to talk with a guy named Corey, who described his journey as "the rough life"... but he didn't want things to stay that way. He told me he was trying to fix up his life by reading his Bible and attending church services. I asked him... had he ever had a moment where he invited Jesus into his life, into the mess? The answer was no... Corey was trying to do all the right stuff, but didn't know Christ in a personal way. I asked, and he was willing to go through the KGP booklet with me. As I was explaining eternal life to him as knowing God, and the punishment for our sin as being separation from God, he said, "yeah, that would be worse than death." It was so evident that he was hungry for Him. When I asked if he wanted to pray at the end, said “Yeah, I NEED this in my life. I need it bad.” Corey invited Christ into his life... and things are not gonna be the same for him. Praise God.

After Corey and I talked a little more about getting started knowing God, he left, and I talked a bit with a guy named Ronnie. Ronnie knew Jesus, but life had been hard. He opened up to me about all the anger he had in his life-understandable anger. His mom and her boyfriend beat him growing up, and his aunt and uncle took him away from her about 9 years ago, and he hasn't seen his father or little brother since. It broke his heart. He was upset with his aunt and uncle for not letting him see them, and for not listening when he talked about spiritual things. And Ronnie told me how he was often discouraged about living life Jesus's way. He told me that he sometimes wondered what it would be like to try drugs, alcohol, other stuff he knew he shouldn't, knowing that God would take him back after everything. I took the moment to tell him that I'd known Jesus for a long time, but had broken away in high school to try my own thing. And that it had ended up really breaking my heart, and I still have to live with the effects of that time. I prayed for him... then I had to take off. It just blows my mind how some people younger than I am have been through so much.

I just can't get over how hungry people are for Him. It breaks my heart. I had one short interaction that really haunts me. It was as a guy was needing to leave a facility, so he only had the opportunity to point to his Bible, telling me, "I KNOW God, but I don't KNOW Him, you know? I need this. I need to." He had the most fervent, desperate look in his eyes. Then the correctional officer called him away.

I didn't even catch that guy's name.

It's hard to watch. Like, so much great stuff is happening, and so many people are meeting Him. But for all the ones that do, there are so many that don't... that either don't want to, or don't know how. Sharing in God's work is sharing in His joy and His heartbreak, I guess.

.... I am gonna need some serious process time after this summer.