"These are good tears."

Mikel slipped me a note.

The previous week, I had told him some good news.

A lot of people had read the newsletter about Mikel. The newsletter that ended with us asking for donations to help us through the “slow months” of the giving season.

Many of you answered the call. In fact, one of you donated $5,000. I told Mikel that the words he shared helped inspire and guide our newsletter. I told him that his words had helped us receive a gift of $5,000.

I told him that those $5,000 would be used to help other people like him – allowing us to introduce new programs, expand our existing programs, and provide food, clothing, books, and more to those in need.

He touched his hand to his heart and cried. Another student, James, walked up to him and hugged him, whispering, “It’s okay.” Through his sobs, Mikel responded, “No, no, these are good tears.”

Later that week I opened the note. In green colored pencil, it read in his unmistakable handwriting:

“Call on the name of the Lord. I will take the cup of salvation. Precious is the sight of the Lord. I am thy servant. Thou hast loosed my bonds.”

Here’s what I’ve been learning about Mikel and the other kids we work with at Burruss Correctional Training Center. As they complete more and more assignments, I’m noticing a pattern. They come from foster families or group homes. They don’t reveal this information outright; they reveal it inadvertently. For example, for one assignment, each student had to interview an entrepreneur to learn about their business. One student interviewed his foster dad. He’d never once mentioned to me that he had come from the foster system.

In The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry writes, “Too much that we do is done at the expense of something else, or somebody else. There is some intransigent destructiveness in us. My days, though I think I know better, are filled with a thousand irritations, worries, regrets for what has happened and fears for what may, trivial duties, meaningless torments – as destructive of my life as if I wanted to be dead. Take today for what it is, I counsel myself. Let it be enough… We are in the habit of contention – against the world, against each other, against ourselves. It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.”

Teaching Mikel and the other kids like him isn’t easy. They are so behind academically. Their self-confidence is shot. They’re heavily medicated and prone to childish humor. They come from broken homes and broken systems. They’re taught that society hates them and despises the mistakes they’ve made so much that they must be locked away.

To learn to be better than we are, we have to turn to God. We have to decide to no longer be against the world, no longer against each other. We have to learn from one another, from boys like Mikel. We have to turn to Jesus to loosen our bonds.

Mikel’s note ended with a “Prayer of Salvation.” I’ve left the spelling and grammar unedited this time.

Dear heavenly father. I confess I'm a sinner and I believe with my heart that GOD has raised Jesus from the dead and he live in us and on the 3 day Jesus raised and we call is ester Sunday because Jesus came back from the dead. Not just for me to be save but for us to be save. Jesus loves you and so do I. In Jesus Name, amen.

Jesus loves you, and so does Mikel.

Have a blessed week.