Why SGC partners with The Crossing: Reason #1

Something to Believe in through Someone to Believe in....

School is school is school, right? Students end up at the Crossing for a myriad of reasons ranging from poor performance in school to violence to arrogance to resistance to any kind of authority or very poor attendance. For the stubborn child we have found they need something to believe in and to be a part of…something, anything! Most of our kids were never eligible to be in the sports programs at school even if they wanted to because their grades kept them ineligible. Most of our kids, actually all kids, learn behavior and response patterns from their parents, many of which are inappropriate, so they act out. I teach an evening elective class for our Butler students. We are building a 1958 Buick street rod. This will be a high horsepower street machine on a light ‘94 extended Caprice chassis with a squeezed 455 dual quad power plant. The powerless among us embrace any opportunity to be empowered by any means possible which makes big horsepower cars a real hit! I wish you could all experience an evening with our young men getting dirty, busting knuckles, and turning wrenches! We all love the smell of axel grease and welding smoke and the growls that come with every successful accomplishment. We presently have the entire project disassembled to the last bolt! Sandblasting the frame, painting and reassembly are the next events in the process. Our kids love adventure, activity, and hands-on life! We have discovered that when kids find acceptance and actually become an “innie” rather than an “outie,” everything else flows a whole lot smoother. When we do life with them in the “club,” they find it easier to do life with us in the day-to-day business of school. Another awesome perk in this whole relationship is that they become deeply loyal to those who chose to care enough to include them in the “fun” parts of their personal lives. We love our kids deeply and they love us deeply too. Did you catch that? They love us deeply, too. That is the work of God in their lives that occurs because we choose to behave with them as Jesus would. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This Blog was written by Don Riley of The Crossing Educational Center, a partner of SGC.