As Callie came up out of the water, baptized in Christ, I couldn’t help the tears flowing down my cheeks. I had prayed for this moment for over eight years. Eight years of on and off contact, not knowing where she and her sister were living. Hoping they were okay. Not sure what God’s plan was in all of this. Her sister had been my student in second grade, but they had been whisked away to another town, their mother hoping to evade the law. Eventually they were removed from parental custody and placed with various relatives over the years, and I saw them occasionally around the county. But in 2021, Callie’s sister reached out to me on my school email looking for a tutor in eighth grade algebra. It had been a long time since I had studied that, but I was trusting that this was the opening for which I had been praying. I began to meet with them regularly, and was able to invite them to things outside of tutoring. Eventually my job changed from teacher to Executive Director of Youth for Christ Highlands County. I invited them to one of our clubs and to our YFC summer camps, and it was there I 2023 that each girl received Jesus as their Savior. That fall, Callie asked to be baptized. Now in tenth grade, she is a part of our church’s Student Leadership Cohort and tags along with me to YFC events.
Relational ministry is a long game. There is no timeline, no guaranteed outcome. As the Executive Director of a Youth for Christ chapter, our team sets goals and prays to see more teenagers know Christ. But the darkness our teens are facing is thick. Students we’ve served have watched their friends die in the street due to gun violence. They are adrift, with no safety and security. Some just want someone to listen to them, to care about them, to love them. You never know how that conversation or car ride or dinner invitation will turn out. You never know what the Lord will use to draw someone to Himself.
It sometimes seems intimidating. The media tells us that kids these days don’t want relationships with us. But I have found that to be categorically untrue. The things students have told me by me just focusing my complete attention on them and asking questions is astonishing. Most of my students jump at the chance to grab a coffee, get a ride to church, just hang out at my house doing nothing seemingly important. In those moments, seeds are planted.
A girl in our youth group texted me recently asking if she could be picked up for youth that night. When Audrey got in my car, I asked her if she wanted to get some Chick-fil-A with me first, knowing that she might not have had dinner since she was often alone at her house. As we waited in the drive-thru, I asked about her thoughts of the youth group. “I like that the students are nice. They don’t judge me for dressing differently like my old church.” I looked at her Slipknot t-shirt under her usual black jacket. I next asked her about what it meant to follow Jesus with her life. “It means to not choose a temptation, but to choose what Jesus would do.” This question was a good segue to ask her the question I’d been waiting awhile to ask her. “Have you ever made the decision to follow Jesus?” I grabbed the food from the window and handed it to her. “I don’t think I’m ready yet,” she replied. “That’s okay,” I said. “It’s an incredibly big decision, so you need to make sure before you do it.”
When I was the same age as Callie and Audrey, I was privileged to have caring adults invest in my life. One of those adults, Megan Johnson, recently reminded me how we need to focus on our call and let the Holy Spirit do His job. She sent me “A Liturgy Before Serving Others” by Douglas McKelvey. The last portion really stood out to me.
“I cannot know the end of another person’s story. Our lives so often only briefly intersect. So let me be content to minister regardless of visible outcomes, trusting that the small mercies I extend will be woven in to the larger theme of redemption at work in the lives of others as you woo them to yourself, drawing their hearts by graces offered, and shaping my own heart too in this process of learning to serve well, and by learning to serve well, learning to love well.”
I’m not sure how Audrey’s story will end or what my part will be in it. But I do know that I am being faithful to what God is calling me to do in her life. And that is all I can do. The rest is up to God.
Written by Meredith Russell for the Year in Review 2024–2025. Meredith Russell is the Executive Director of Youth for Christ Highlands County, the wife of Pastor Ben Russell, and mom to two boys. She graduated from Valley Forge Christian College with a degree in Early Childhood Education. For almost nine years she was a teacher in Highlands County, Florida, before accepting her current role. She and her family are part of Neighborhood Church in Sebring, Florida, where she volunteers with the youth group. Meredith enjoys hanging out with her friends and youth students, playing board games, reading, and gardening.