A Life-Changing Moment for a Student
At Youth Frontiers, it’s our mission to positively impact school communities through our retreats. One wonderful part of our job is that the same students we reach often impact us in turn. For our staff, these students and their stories are unforgettable. In this series, we remember them.
This is a story of a student and his life-changing moment.
I remember Abdul.
It was one of my first speaking experiences at Youth Frontiers in around 2002. And, I remember being in Evergreen Elementary in the gymnasium, staring at the clock on the wall, watching the second-hand slowly make its way around.
Tick-tick-tick.
For me, this was going to be one of my first talks that I was going to give in front of a live audience and I was nervous.
I instantly knew when it came time to give my talk that I was in way over my head.
I started talking but they could tell that I was struggling, which meant that they couldn’t stop wiggling. And the teachers are no doubt judging. And my face is intensely sweating when…
I looked up.
And when I did, I made eye contact with a young student who’s nametag I read said, Abdul.
I don’t know, it was like one of those things where there was this voice in my soul that said…
“Joe. Connect.”
And so I did the only thing I could do in that moment. I held his eyes a little bit longer than normal. I gave him a small little smile. One that said,
“I see you, brother”.
Afterwards, I was connecting with Adbul’s teachers. They told me that it had been a very difficult year for him. It had been a struggle even to get a smile on his face somedays.
I remember as we were walking out of the gymnasium, I made eye contact with him one more time.
Walking over to him, I got down on a knee. I placed a hand on his shoulder. Beaming smile on his face and a beaming smile on my face. And he just says,
“Mr. Joe, you make my heart so happy”.
Now, nearly fifteen years later, I haven’t seen Adbul since that time.
Yet, I reached out to him on Facebook because I had never forgotten about him. And I said,
“Hey dude, I don’t know if you remember me but around fifteen years ago I led a retreat at your school for a company called, Youth Frontiers. You made a huge impact on me and I’ve never forgotten about it. Would you be willing to meet me for coffee?”
And he said, “Yes”.
Abdul’s now 24 years old and I said, “What are you up to?” He said,
“I’m working for this organization called, Youth Frontiers”
I said, “No way! That’s the company I was working for when I led that retreat so many years ago”.
He’s doing the same work. Inspiring the same kind of kids.
I knew that this one moment of connection with this student was life-changing.
This year, on The Character Movement, we are trying something new. We’ll be delving into one of our retreat values each month, examining it on our blog and in our Character Challenges. This month’s theme is mind.