There was a young girl who encapsulated the response I felt as a Pastor in Point Douglas.
We were holding a day camp for the kids in the community, and one of the little girls (about 8 years old) was having a hard time listening, and was causing all kinds of difficulty for our leaders. I took her aside and was talking to her for a while, but wasn’t getting anywhere, and eventually she ran away from me and out the door of the church, I took off after her, and she stood just down the stairs of the front porch, looked me in the eye, and yelled, “F-you Pastor Trevor!” except she didn’t say ‘F’, if you know what I mean.
I found it a little jarring to hear an 8 year old girl yell that word at me with such anger. But I took a moment, and thought to myself, ‘she called me Pastor!’ That’s a title that holds some respect.
When you work at an inner-city church you take respect any way you can get it.
The moment has stuck out to me for a few reasons. First of all, I find it funny, the juxtaposition of the diss and the respect in a short four word sentence. Second of all, it encapsulated what I felt many times over as a Pastor in Point Douglas.
One moment I might feel great respect and appreciation for what I did, and the ministry that I was part of…and the next minute, someone might be cursing me out for something I did, or something I didn’t do, or won’t do. To be honest, it’s probably one of the qualities I love the most about the people I worked with…you always know where you stand, no appearances or pretences.
I love children and spent many years doing childcare at home, Sunday School, an lt learning centre etc. This was my favorite job. Even the children that pushed my buttons were precious to me. It didn’t take me long to realize that some children had experienced so much rejection that they refused to allow the walls to come down in fear that they would be rejected again. Some would purposely see how far they could push me. If we had a bad day, I always wiped the slate clean and started fresh the next time. It took awhile, but eventually the walls did come down. They learned that I wasn’t going to abandon them because they acted out.