Robbed at gun point...

Recently, I heard that Luke, one of the kids who has grown up in our Champions youth program, was robbed. I knew he had just graduated from high school and was taking steps towards college and getting a job. When I heard of the robbery, it broke my heart.

So, I called Luke that day to check on him and see how he was doing. He shared that he was robbed at gun point and made to strip down (which I’m sure was humiliating) and give the thief everything he had. Later on that night, the person who robbed him came to his house and fired gun shots into his apartment two different times throughout the night. Thankfully no one was hurt.

As Luke was speaking, my first thoughts went to, “He seems to be going somewhere with his life; I hope he doesn’t try to retaliate.” Over the phone I prayed for him that God would protect him and that justice would be done.

When I got off the phone, I was still very concerned that he may try to take matters into his own hands with retaliation. I emailed one of our male volunteers to call and check on him, to encourage him not to retaliate. When the volunteer called, Luke shared that he had no plans to retaliate. This was such GOOD NEWS!

When incidents like this happen, it is very common for the person who was taken advantage of to retaliate or get a group of his people to retaliate. This is how “wars” in the ghetto start. I was so proud of Luke- that even though he was humiliated and stolen from, he didn’t take things into his own hands. I’m sure he felt tempted to retaliate, but he chose not to.

I stopped by his apartment a week later to check on him one more time and he said, “I’m signing up for college classes in a week.” Thank you God!

This is part of our vision: that we would be a part of raising up young people to be Champions in life and go against the flow of everything they are surrounded by.