over the past year our corps has engaged in providing a place for an education program called "Catalyst" to run from our premises.
It engages with at risk youth of high school age who have either been expelled or do not even attend. These kids are rated in the top 10 most at risk kids at spiraling into the life of crime drugs and all that goes with these types of activity. The program is founded by a Lutheran pastor who saw an opportunity to reach out to these lost kids and give them what would be considered their last hope in getting back on the straight and narrow in education and life. Our corps saw a wonderful opportunity to network and value add to this program. To help reach out to the least last and lost of our community for salvation in body mind and spirit. a holistic salvation is something i like to call it. incidently this was a vision of our corps that has only just been established at the beginning of the year.
This program is in its first year of operation and we have had some really significant wins for many of the students. The wins consist of attendance firstly they have been regularly coming to an education program that was rare for 99% of the students. They would be lucky to get to school at all almost all. The students are engaging with the program over 70% of the time which is remarkable. We thank god for this.
We have only scratched the surface with these kids lives they are still tender and on a knifes edge every day. We don't know if it could blow up one minute or the kids engage positively into the curriculum the next.
The education provided is a project base learning experience, quite different to the main stream learning. yet its working for these kids. these student will probably never be "A" grade students actually if we put them in the normal school setting they would probably still struggle to pass . The point is the education and learning they are getting is about helping them move from the class room to the work force to set about the students becoming a more positive participant in society than one that is negitive.
Where is God in all this some may say? God is there before we open the doors and He is last to leave Each and every day. We look into to the eyes of these kids and we see Jesus. Each day we hear Jesus say to us "When did you feed me, when did you clothe me, when did you visit me" I also hear him say "When did you educate me". Then, when we see the kids eyes look back to us we see jesus and he says through their eyes,
"When you feed us each day, when you work along side me and clothe me
with support and encouragement, when you pick me up and drop me home each day, when you sit with me and help me read the paper."
That is when we see Jesus.
So God is with us we have no doubt, my only hope and prayer now is, that the students will also see Jesus as I see him and through that they may accept him as their lord and savior.
that would just about make this effort perfect in reaching the least last and lost for salvation in body mind and spirit. An holistic salvation
