I returned to Trinity UMC this month to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the inner city program I was blessedly hired to begin and work with until my retirement.  In looking through my notes so as to put together the message, I found the following:

Let me share with you about a television show that had a profound impact on me. The show featured elephants.  This documentary told of the terrorizing of tourist buses as well as the mauling of animals in one of the Safari sites in Africa.   When the park rangers began to investigate, they found that the perpetrators were elephants, teenage elephants.  They began to follow these elephants and found that there was a gang of them. The males were the ones actually performing the violent acts while the females gave ‘silent support’.  There was, of course, one leader who was a teenage male.  Journals were kept so as to follow the behavior of each of the elephants.   Human intervention was attempted but the violence simply escalated.  The officials finally (with obvious sadness) had to kill the leader because the violence had reached such a horrific level.  In the documentary, we see the teenage sister mourn her teenage brother, and we see the officials do the same.

Because the experience was so profound and because of the fear of further violence from the gang, it was imperative to find out the cause of this deadly behavior.  Investigation found that these elephants had been transported to this site at a very young age.

Most significant, however, is that for the sake of a better population balance their parents were left behind.  In other words, they had grown-up without any adult role models and they became juvenile delinquents. 
 Do you know what the park rangers did?  They imported adult male elephants into the site.  Within months the teens were better behaved; the violence diminished.

In other words, elephant mentors worked! 

 There you are. There is my elephant story.  Young elephants cannot grow into healthy teenage elephants without positive adult role models.

 Neither can young humans. 

   

 I was reminded of that when I returned to Trinity and heard the young person’s speak to how the mentoring they received helped them make it.  As one woman said, “Without Trinity, the streets would have had me.”

Growing up years ago in Chicago, the neighborhood folk watched over each other’s kids.  In Africa when we were there after the Rwandan War and children’s parents were killed, people took in these ‘unaccompanied children’ simply because….They. Were. CHILDREN!

It seems so much less likely for people to do that in our culture today. That makes me sad so...

...I do not know if or how this story will touch any of you.  If it just makes you think about the importance we adults have on the lives of children, that is good but it if moves you to actually connect with a young person, that is great (especially if you are someone who has been critical of today’s young people).  There IS a place you can go to connect….the Y, a church, a community center, your neighborhood, the school close to you, your family. 

 If you doubt that you can make a difference in a young person’s life, re read the words above of that young woman ….or think about who made a difference to you because we… All. Were. CHILDREN!

PS
I believe that health comes when we provide the balance that God and nature/nurture intended in the first place.  I believe that God intended for the adults to take care of the young.  I also believe that God most likely did not bank on the elephants doing a better job of it than the humans!