The Lake
It was 4 pm on a Friday, and I was on my way to an early dinner while riding a Lime scooter. I had wrapped up my next-to-last whole week at YFC, thinking I was done for the day. I felt my phone buzz and realized I had missed a call from one of our other City Life Directors, Lexi. I quickly called her back, and she told me with excitement that one of our students, who had attended Collide camp with her and Morgan, had spoken to his cabin leaders and was going to be baptized after the message and worship, sometime after 9 pm.
This student is one that I have seen grow from a little middle school boy into a high schooler. This student has been kicked out of the center, cursed me out, and run away from home multiple times. I have had the opportunity to watch Jesus slowly change this student’s heart, as well as the hearts of his siblings, and I’ve seen his parents’ hearts soften towards Jesus.
I rode my Lime scooter back home, took a shower, and hopped in my car to head to camp. As I walked into the end of the message with a guest pass and stood in the back, thinking I would find the student after the message ended, he walked in, immediately saw me, and his eyes lit up. He daps me up and the first thing he says to me is, “Did you see the bass I caught?” I laugh and try to redirect him to the response time of the message, to which he responds, “I also found a girlfriend,” and he winks at me.
We get to the response time, and the speaker had asked students to pray for those in students’ lives that had not decided to follow Jesus, and the student told me he wanted to pray for his parents, siblings, and his grandfather, as he had a deep desire to see his family changed. The speaker wrapped up, worship ended, and we headed out to the lake with some other students and leaders to witness a student and a couple of others get baptized.
Two other students went first, and when it was time for this student to be baptized, the camp director asked me and Jake, our Director of Ministry Operations, to pray for him, as she knew this was a student we had invested in for years. We had the privilege of praying for him, and then he walked into the lake to be baptized.
The lake was dark; it was nearly 10 pm, and there were no lights around. The water was warm, but we could see nothing beyond, as the lake looked like a dark pool with who knows what below the surface. The student looked up right as he was about to be baptized and said, “You guys better get in here with me too.” Jake and I tossed our phones, wallets, and keys aside and stepped into the water with him, standing beside him as he made a public declaration that Jesus was his Lord and Savior. On my drive home, with the windows down and the cool air blowing through, I began to reflect on what we had just been a part of and what I have been a part of for the last two years.
Part of this job, and part of the Christian calling, is to walk into dark waters with those among us. We may not be able to see beyond what sits directly in front of us, and we may not know what lies beneath the surface, but we are called to step in nevertheless. In this role, the dark waters have been students being arrested, parents getting divorced, students using substances to cope with difficult circumstances, navigating housing for students sleeping on the streets, and much more. In this circumstance, I got to step into the dark waters, still not knowing what was below my feet, but with the sole purpose of a student declaring that Jesus was their Lord and Savior. There were a few phone flashlights out illuminating the way in, and that was enough. The dark waters are unknown, but a day will come when all will be set right. I will not have to fear what lies beneath them, and this student will stand beside us in Glory, praising the King of Kings in a new Earth where chaos has been put into order as it was designed to be.