They jumped off the small bus. I watched as this little group of 8-11 year olds shuffled over to the overhang of the arena.
“Hi, friends,” I said.
I had been thinking about this special group a lot. A local elementary school has been utilizing the new HB1137 law to bring students off school campus for religious instruction. We hadn’t heard of this rule until this year, and we are thankful for these young students.
“What is HB1137?
Governor Holcomb signed the law
HB1137 on March 13 this year. It
“requires a principal to allow a
student to attend religious
instruction conducted by certain
entities following the principal’s
receipt of written notice from the
student’s parent.”
If your child or another one in
your school system could benefit
from coming to the ranch, please
let your principal know about us!”
We don’t know their back stories. We only know that they are having trouble regulating their behavior at school and that they all have experienced trauma of some sort. Those are the kinds of kids we are always waiting for. The ones who struggle. The ones who fall outside the margins. The ones who have been through hard things. The ones so full of potential but that they themselves are blind too.
I’ve been waiting for you.
Last week, this is the class that named the hard things in life that they have experienced. Most were so personal they chose not to name their hard things out loud - and that was okay. God knew, and they knew. So they chose a code word to represent their hard things.
After we named hard things, we did an equine assisted learning challenge that involved practicing getting through those hard things. The hard things were written on a card and attached to objects in the arena - some small objects and some large, awkward ones. All the objects/hard things needed to be moved to the other end of the arena while students stayed connected. They eventually got those hard things moved to the side of the arena that was labeled “Getting Through”.
The students realized what all students must come to understand to complete the challenge. They needed to work together to accomplish the goal. They needed each other. They needed encouragement. They had to be able to say what they needed and listen to each other.
And, they did that so well in that lesson!
This week I was struggling with what to do with this sweet class. As I prayed about it, I felt God whisper,
Let Jesus carry them through their hard times.
So this week as I watched them pile off their little bus, I took a deep breath and invited them as always up to the classroom for prayer. These kids are always eager to make their prayer requests known. We wrote them on paper and put them into the prayer box where the little slips of paper are collected weekly and prayed over by our NGHR prayer team.
In my heart, I slipped my own prayer request to the Lord again about this class. Oh Lord, please show them that Jesus can carry their burdens. Please show them that Jesus loves them.