February 2004
House of
Concord
House of Concord
is an open-custody
youth facility run
by the Salvation
Army. Young men
between the
ages of 15 and
18 who are
charged and
convicted of a
crime could be
sentenced to
serve time
there. I spent
almost 3 years
as a youth
worker there
before we
began
working for
Healing Hearts. A
typical scentence is
anywhere from 3 to
10 months,
although
scentences of over a
year are possible.
Most of the youth
who come in are
there for property
offences (theft,
possession, Break &
Enter, etc.) related
to drug and alcohol
addictions. I now
volunteer there as
the chaplain.
“Who are those old guys, anyway?”
As you may have noticed by now, I (Spurgeon) have a lot of unusual experiences
due to the unique place that God has put us to minister. Many of these experiences stem
from meetings with people who have little to no experience with the church or have only
stereotypical views of Christianity. Neither Healing Hearts nor I can be accurately
discribed as stereotypical. Sometimes, though, people with little experience or
knowledge of Christianity come up with interesting and fresh insights about our faith and
the life of Christ. This happened recently in the House of Concord, the youth custody
facility I minister in.
We had been watching the movie “Matthew” (the 4 video set in which Bruce
Marciano plays Jesus) and using this as an
introduction to the life of Jesus. Most of
the guys that I work with in this context
have little to no knowledge of Jesus, and
the things they do “know” are quite
frequently a strange mix. Most of them are
rather suprised the first time I tell them
Jesus wasn’t a white guy.
Watching this movie usually
involves frequent stops to provide
background context and info. There are
also numerous questions to answer, “Who
were the Romans? What were they doing
Healing Hearts Youth Group
in Israel? Who’s that guy? Why is she dressed
December 2003
like that? When are they going to kill him? Who
are those old guys (closely followed by) What’s a Pharisee?” Perhaps my favorite
question is “Why does Jesus keep hugging and kissing everyone?” I explain that Jesus
lived in a different time and a different culture where that was probably more acceptable,
therefore the film maker is trying to portray that. I also tell them that the Bible doesn’t
tell us how often Jesus hugged or kissed people. With a shrug and an “Oh” the video
goes back on.
One day as we were watching and I had just finished explaining who the
Pharisees were we had this conversation;
“Hey there’s those old guys again!”
“Yes, the Pharisees.”
“Those were those guys who were stalking Jesus right?”
“Umm... yeah. Those were the guys.”
I had never thought of the Pharisees as stalkers, but the more I thought about it,
the more I agreed with this young man’s assesment. To him it was completely obvious
what was going on, but having grown up in church all my life and gone to Bible College
where I learned all the proper theological terminology, I had never thought to put things
into such blunt and clear language. I’m sure that the other guys watching the film had a
much better idea of what the Pharisees were doing because of the stalking comment than
my own more “correct” explanation!
Our personal address
Spurgeon , Gina Marie,
Tirzah, & Keziah Root
1372 Montague St.
Regina, SK S4T 3H9
Canada
[email protected]
Prayer Requests and Praises
Please pray for . . .
A young man from House of Concord who has dedicated his life to God. Pray
for strength for him and wisdom for me.
Health for our family. We seem to just recover from one thing and get nailed
with another. Also pray for Tirzah who often wakes up in the middle of the night
upset. Pray for God’s protection over us.
Beatrice, a single mother of four, going to school full-time, who just became a
Christian this fall. Our youth group has adopted her and is doing whatever we
can to help out.
Spurgeon is travelling to Calgary to take two more
classes towards his Master’s degree. He will be gone for 11
days in February and Gina Marie and the girls will be
staying in Regina.
Larissa, Stephanie, Yvonne & Krista
at the Healing Hearts Christmas Supper
Praise God for . . .
The spiritual interest of the young men at the House of
Concord and their openess to discussion.
Our ministry address
Healing Hearts
Ministries
Box 12
Regina, SK S4P 2Z5
Canada
If you would like to help
support Healing Hearts
Ministries financially,
please make checks
payable to Healing
Hearts with Project 200
as the memo line.
We were given a 1993 Aerostar to replace the 1978 station wagon we travelled in
this fall!
Unity among Healing Hearts staff.
Unexpected extra financial blessings over the holiday season!
Toddler Talk
“I’m a big kid now!” Mommy got me a little toilet that’s all mine
and I like learning how to use it and singing the Pull-ups song!
When I’m not watching T.V. (which I would do all the time if
Mommy & Daddy would let me) I like to carry on long
conversations with the characters from my favorite videos, especially
Blue from Blues Clues. My baby sister is lots of fun to play with. I
like to give her toys to play with, although sometimes Mommy takes them away
because she says Kezzi’s not big like me and can’t play with everything that I do. At
bedtime when we pray before I go to sleep I like to tell Mommy or Daddy who we
should pray for and then say “Uh-huh” while they’re praying just like my good friend
Baby Babble
Walter does.
I’m getting big too! I can sit up and I just got my first two teeth!
Big sister Tirzah better watch out because I’m going to figure this
crawling thing out any day now. I like to play with Tirzah
especially when she makes funny faces and dances with me. We also play Peek-a-boo
and Ring-around-the-rosies together when I’m sitting in my exersaucer. I also like to