Interesting night at the dropin center

Every Monday night the Youth hang out at the park in the Power Ranch Clubhouse area. We try to mingle with the kids in the park, hand out free sodas, free hot dogs, free hamburgers. Basically we just try and show them God's love. Awhile back we were going around handing out free freeze pops when a big fight was getting ready to go down between some skater kids and preps. The Amadeo youth just walked right between them as they were ready to throw down and started offering freeze pops to them. It was in the summertime so it was really hot outside too. Long story short, the fight never went down.

Tonight we arrived and the park was pretty crowded. I handed some of the guys a basketball and volleyball while I stayed in the clubhouse waiting for others to arrive. Bill made root beer floats and I then headed out to the park to see what was happening. Our kids were engaged in a volleyball game with some locals in the park. Some of these were "older" kids. By older, I mean they were probably in their 20's. The majority of them were older, but there were some teens in their group too. A lot of the locals were engaged in the volleyball game against the Amadeo kids and others were congregated on the basketball court, when I smelled the distinct odor of marijuana. I observed them smoking it and they did not seem to mind that me and the other adults were around either. I then noticed one of the kids playing volleyball and he had a joint tucked in behind his ear.

At this point I did not really know what to do so I just prayed silently to myself. In the end, I did nothing and just observed our kids loving on them. When it was time for us to end the game and go into the clubhouse we thanked them for the game and for sharing the court with us.

I think that we are doing a good thing in that park. The sad thing is, their group was high, and they kicked our ass in the volleyball game. I am proud of our group who did not judge these guys, but mingled with them and showed them God's love.