Long Creek Youth Corrections is a detention / rehab. facility in South Portland, Maine, for youth offenders. I have been doing shows a year there since 1987, and I look forward to it every time. I always come home inspired and blessed from the experience. Yesterday's show there was no different.
If there is one negative about performing there, it is that I have to be ready to start at 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning. That means leaving home by 6:45, so it's always an early start. On the upside, though, it is a nice, quiet time to prepare my heart for the chapel service. This time, I drove in still trying to discern what God would have me say and do in the show. By the time I arrived, the ideas were so out of the ordinary, I knew they had to be God inspires.
The chaplain counted 31 kids present - out of a population of 80. That's 38%, which is way higher than the number of people in my home town of Bridgton go out to church on Sunday mornings: the town's clergy association estimate our numbers run around 20%. The kids were a diverse group ethnically, age-wise and about a 50/50 split of male and female, and they were excited. The chaplain told me prior to the service that the kids were asking when I'd return, so they were pumped up and ready to go.
When I juggled three apples and ate them as I juggled (the Adam and Eve story, of course) a girl in the third row - seeing the juice drip from my mouth and onto my shirt yelled out, "Now look what-chu done!" They pleaded for me to bring the rabbit around during the show; something I normally do at the end. They laughed and applauded a lot. But they also listened.
Toward the end of the service, I prayed with five or six kids to accept Jesus into their lives. They were really sincere, and the chaplain sent me this e-mail the same day:
"Great chapel with you today. One of our boys that had received Jesus in his life at 9 and again as a teen spoke to me after chapel. I met with him today and he wants to be mentored by myself. I never have that asked of me here. His pastor in Warren had met with him years ago. I believe this is a God thing."
It doesn't get any better than that.