The Icing on the Cupcakes
With
a shoestring budget and a volunteer-led team in an urban setting, Glendale,
Ariz., Young Life is welcoming more than 100 kids a week to club. And in that
beautiful sea of faces, one in particular has become precious to the Glendale
leadership team.
Charlie
seemed like an unlikely kid — or at the very least a “furthest out kid.” He
attends an alternative school in Glendale where he is guided by an IEP
(individualized education program) created for kids with learning disabilities.
Living in a kind of poverty that most of us cannot imagine, Charlie has
struggled with self-image and anger issues which once landed him in jail. But
at the root of it, according to leader Kim Tobey, “Charlie has struggled to
believe that in spite of it all, he is loved unconditionally by our Savior. No
one ever shared with him the love of Jesus. And so he continued in this battle,
‘Am I worthy?’”
A team of
Young Life leaders joined that battle on Charlie’s behalf. The first was a
Young Life leader who was dating Charlie’s brother. Naturally, she invited
Charlie to club. He agreed but he positioned himself in the back of the room
where he could make an easy exit. As the weeks went by, Charlie moved from the
back of the room into the midst of a team of guy leaders who sat shoulder-to-shoulder
with him in club and in friendship.
Wanting to
include Charlie as a closer part of their community, his new friends invited
him to leadership meetings. “Our leaders have rallied around Charlie, they’ve
promoted him to ‘junior leader’ and walked alongside of him to help him believe
in himself and ultimately to understand the hope and grace of Christ,” said
Tobey.
This summer,
Charlie turned 17. Not a milestone birthday for most high school kids, but
Charlie’s college-age leader friends wanted to throw him a party. Glendale
supporters, Ty and Michelle Lorts, opened up their home and swimming pool, to
host an informal gathering. This was a simple affair, no DJ, decorations or
gift bags for guests. This party featured burgers on the grill, plastic squirt
guns and store-bought cupcakes.
According to
Tobey, that evening “Charlie laughed his contagious laugh and used those
99-cent squirt guns like they were full-throttle, high-powered Nerf water
propellers!”
Eventually
the guys toweled off and gathered for dinner and dessert. After the assembled
group sang a simple chorus of “Happy Birthday” around
a paper tray of candlelit cupcakes, Charlie shared a little more about his
past. He hadn’t had a birthday cake since he was five and he’d never had a
birthday party with friends.
And on this
birthday — before the candles were lit — the battle was won.
Charlie
understood the truth of the prophet’s proclamation that God was not only with
him; God delighted in him. God Himself rejoiced over him with singing (see
Zephaniah 3:17). And the chorus of “Happy Birthday” that his friends sang to
Charlie that night?
That was the icing on the
cupcakes.