Difficult Days at Family of God

For over a year, we have been redirecting effort towards intervening into the lives of the youth who come to Family of God. We speak of going over to the offensive instead of the endless defensive efforts that have described our ministry. That means, in practice, getting to the young girl before she enters the normal pattern of 14 and pregnant or young boy before he becomes enmeshed in drugs and the drug culture. We knew from the outset that this would come at a price. The enemy would react powerfully.

David (pictured in the "Spartan Hockey" t-shirt) was the oldest of 4 children and carried himself with the image of ‘I’m a tough guy’. When he let his guard down however, we saw quite a different boy. Unfortunately at age 15, he was already on the knife’s edge, the neighborhood ready to swallow him up. It did. On June 20st, David, was gunned down in the neighborhood and shot dead. Another boy was shot in the incident and is in the hospital. That boy’s father is in custody as the shooter. The details are very confused, and it is unclear who did what to whom. Initial reports said it was a failed attempt to steal a video game, followed by a fight. Two guns were recovered. Little else is clear. Whatever the cause, it was in keeping with the violence of this subculture. This happened in broad daylight on a neighborhood street with many witnesses sitting out on their porch. The result, another young life snuffed out.

Last summer David was with us for two of our three summer field trips

Greenfield village and a Detroit Tigers Game. Seven months ago, he was at Camp Arcadia for Confirmation Retreat. We know he heard the Gospel many times and especially during the Camp Arcadia Retreat. We trust the Holy Spirit accomplished His work and David is in the arms of Jesus.

This incident sent shock waves through our youth and I pray that will enable us to get them to understand that the only way is Christ. This incident also confirms that redirecting effort towards our youth is the right direction for us to be headed. The road ahead will be hard but in Christ, we are already victorious.