I Am A Lousy Loser!

"Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:25-26).

Hey Gang: And now for the rest of the story!  As mentioned in the last morning message, when gleaning the  records, pertaining to Dennis's previous stays with us, I was both saddened and angered that this young lad knew there was a hole in his heart and he needed someone to come along side him and give him a 'shirt tail to hang onto’.  Not once, but every time he passed through the portals of the detention facility he cried for help; not once, but every time we failed to respond to his cries for help.

A battle ensued between the counties: who would be responsible for Dennis's future?  In all probability this would be a long tenure in a psychiatric-type facility, since Dennis had sadistically killed a friend who was probably closer to him than any other person.  His crime was committed in one county, but he lived in another, so the main issue that surfaced in the proceedings, which took several months, was ‘who is responsible’.  In other words, who would pay the bills?

In that two month period I experienced the total and complete destruction of this fifteen year old.  As the powers-that-be fought and argued, Dennis slipped away into oblivion.  On the final day of his trial when the Court of Appeals made a final decision, Dennis did not have a clue what they were saying. He really did not know who he was. 

I learned that day there was a vast difference between the Dennis's and Ted's.  As a lad Ted had a seed planted by his grandmother; a seed that lingered deep in his heart and one day would flower in the corner of a holding cell.  I could find no such seed that was ever planted into Dennis's life.  It infuriated me that the main issue in his trial was who will pay the bills.

I wish I could put a great hug on Dennis today and tell him his life did not end on that day when they locked him away in a mental hospital,  thousands and thousands of children can point to this lad and say, “I   found life because of a guy I never met; one who never really had a life."

But, there is a miracle part of this story.  You recall something happened to Ted one night in a holding cell in the Juvenile Hall, as he awaited transportation to a juvenile prison.  i love to share the story of Ted to the Gideon's, who give Bibles and New Testaments to ‘whosoever will’.  The State had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in an attempt to rehabilitate Ted and turn him into a useful citizen, but failed horribly; but a sixty-nine cent Gideon Bible changed this out-of-control lad into a missionary of God.

He had been sentenced to spend three to five years in prison, before even being considered for parole; God did a Peter-thing on him and opened the prison doors in nine months.  They could see no reason to keep him locked away from doing what he really wanted to do.  Upon release he went to a used clothing store, bought sandals and tie-died shirt, grew a beard and went into the area where the ‘flower children’ and druggies were located. 

Soooo, when I tell this story there are always those who hear it and say, “Wow, that's great! You salvaged fifty percent and, considering the kids you worked with, that is fabulous!  My response, “Hog wash”.  I am a terrible loser!  When I lose, I know a child has been thrown in the dumpster and chances of getting out are not very good.   And that is why, as I entered the juvenile hall each day, I prayed, "Lord, place a question in the mouth of one of the hurting kids that are within these walls.

It is the same prayer I have uttered many times each day since May 1969, when the first boys arrived at the newly developed ‘Dennis and Ted Refuge for Broken Kids’, better known- at that time as Eagle Boys Village.  I pray you will put it on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator and on the rear view mirror of your car, to pray for the thousands of kids that have found hope in Jesus as Ted did; and that God will give wisdom to the folks who give of their lives daily to "throw out that shirt tail to hand onto" to the new Dennis's and Ted's that have found their way to the refuge called Eagle Village.  

Blessings, 

Gramps