Peacemakers

Things are rough in North Troy. For several months, I have been pondering and praying about how to be a peacemaker in the constant fighting and chaos. Yesterday, I saw it. It was beautiful.

First of all, there is Boy 1 who we've been working with for close to a year now. He had anger management problems, demon problems, family craziness - you name it, he had it. A week and a half ago, I baptized this kid. It was a beautiful, miraculous thing. And he changed.

So, phase two of working with this kid is: how to love your neighbor and live like Jesus wants us to. He's not so sure about this bit. In his baptismal vows, this was the question that he answered, "Well, sometimes. Okay, yeah." But I think that yesterday, he had a taste of how that can be really good. He had an experience of peace instead of the war he expected.

He messes with other kids. He starts things, he insults people; he's a fighter. So Boy 2 is a new boy in the cafe recently, who is really sweet; his mother is a pastor somewhere. Incidentally she is also REALLY tall. She makes Christina look like a midget. I didn't know that Boy 1 had been messing with the new kid - I was busy stopping riots on the other side of the room and I can only assume that he was swearing at him or something. I didn't know anything about it until Boy 2 and his mother and a whole posse of other people came in. She is imposing, and everything went dead quiet. She asked who had been fighting with her boy. Boy 1 suddenly disappeared into the bathroom.

The room was full of Boy 1's cousins and siblings who immediately all started yelling about how Boy 2 had sworn at Boy 1 and he started it. His mom very firmly told them all that she didn't raise her son that way and that she is a pastor. Realizing that this tactic wasn't going to work, Boy 1's family turned on him, started yelling at him, and tried to drag him out to meet his doom - not unlike a lynch mob.

The way things work in our neighborhood is: if you mess with a kid enough to get his mother involved, it's BAD. She will chew you up one side and down the other, make sure you get whupped, and possibly get your mother involved, where you'll get it again. Or the mothers will go at it. I don't blame Boy 1 for hiding in the bathroom. Seems like appropriate personal safety protocol to me. However, this woman was just trying to teach her son about reconciliation - making peace while sticking up for him.

I made Boy 1 come out of the bathroom and he hid behind the little partition we have in front of the bathrooms. I told him over and over, "She's not mad. She just wants to talk to you." Finally, when Christina came over and said exactly what I had said, he agreed to a private meeting in the kitchen. So the four of us went back in the kitchen. Boy 2's mother told him she wasn't going to do anything to him and gave them both a little talk about how things happen, and we can agree to disagree and be civil to one another even if we're mad at each other.

Then she told her son to shake hands with Boy 1. I have never seen anyone so taken aback as Boy 1. It was an absolutely beautiful moment. He shook hands, and I suggested that he apologize to Boy 2 for their "misunderstanding." Without hesitation or irony (which is definitely a first), he said, "Sorry." And so did Boy 2.

I think he understood grace.