Journal

Their Defender

Ashley Ramírez

ashley_blog-theirdefenderAs a church youth leader, I am constantly learning how to appropriately work with teenagers to lead them in lives pleasing to God while simultaneously making being an adult follower of Christ look super awesome. This gets complicated. Part of me wants to just be their cool big sister while the other part desperately wants to compassionately slap them and screech, “JUST TRUST ME! I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! I SURVIVED BEING 15!” It also gets complicated because I am blessed with being the charge of a handful of beautiful 9th grade girls who on most days act like they’re 25. But because they are actually 15, one minute I’m talking to a perfectly logical human being and the next I’m dealing with some emotional creature from beyond.

I. Can’t. Even.

I began working with Rock City Youth in September 2014. Admittedly, I was initially annoyed with the fact that I had been given reign over the 9th grade girls. I currently teach 9th graders, and the last people I wanted to be surrounded by on my time off were more 9th graders. I wanted the cool upperclassmen who understand sarcasm, can empathize with my road rage and are basically adults. But I trusted our youth Pastor Amanda and went with the flow. I dived right in.

In the short 8 months since then, my 9th grade girls have become my heartbeat. They are the reason I get up in the morning: So-and-So’s got a Spanish test today. Get up & pray! They keep me walking in step with Christ: How can I help her with her anxiety? What does the Bible say about it? And they’re the reason God invented the Do Not Disturb feature on my iPhone: What the freak?!? You girls JUST saw each other 10 MINUTES AGO at youth group!! What could you POSSIBLY have left to talk about at midnight on a Wednesday??

The complications worsen when I see heartbreak in the girls’ path or suffering at their doorstep. I want to do everything in my power to be their Mama Bear and protect them from anything painful. My own heart truly shatters when I think that someone will break her heart. My insides groan when I realize that eventually she will experience soul-shaking suffering.

But what can I do? The tragic truth is that I can’t protect them. I am not their parent. I am their Youth Leader. This title comes with a small, yet crucial set of responsibilities. I am not their protector. I am their model and guide. When heartbreak and pain collide into these girls’ lives, I will be the one (God willing, not the only one) nudging them and prodding them to their feet and encouraging them to walk with me, not ahead or behind me, but shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we navigate the sorrow together.

Thousands of years ago, Jesus assured us that “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”✝  Suffering is inevitable, and I may not be able to protect my girls, but with God as my strength and their defender, there is nothing in this world we cannot defeat.

✝ John 16:33

 

Breathe It In

Ashley Ramírez

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It’s springtime in Ohio, y’all. FINALLY. It has been a long, hard winter and we have EARNED this reprieve from wind chills below zero and snow piles tall enough to lose my house in.

I am a summer girl. I love dresses that twirl, painted toenails, walks in the park with my beloved Boston Terrier, sleeping with the windows open, the heat of the sun on my cheeks, naps on my patio….I could go on forever about the things I love about summer. Winter on the other hand… I am currently a high school English teacher, and in my opinion, the only good thing about winter is that sometimes we’re lucky enough as educators to have temperatures drop below “I can’t feel my face!” and snow accumulate to more than “I’ve lost my dog. Where is Dewey?! He’s been swallowed by the snow!” Needless to say, I loathe winter. I’ll even take warm weather and rain puddles over frigid cold and snow slush.

When Columbus’ first day of digits above 50 registered on my weather app, I was once again affirmed that there is a God and he wants us to be tan.

fireside

magnolias

obstacle course

sunset

I Want to Help

Ashley Ramírez

ashley_blog-iwouldliketohelp10 months ago, I reluctantly walked into a Salvadorian high school, unsure of what to expect from Central American teenagers and convinced that whatever happened that day, my presence there was meaningless.

It was the fourth day of Rock City Church’s June mission trip to San Salvador, El Salvador. I had signed up and gone on the trip because I felt God pulling at my heart and urging me to go. I wasn’t sure why God wanted me there – I don’t speak Spanish, little kids usually annoy me (the whole point of this trip was to serve the Children’s Development Center which our church helped fundraise and build), and it was the beginning of my favorite season back home. Even so, I trusted God’s tugging and ended up in San Salvador with about 15 other missionaries.

Up to that point on the trip, I had felt pretty useless. I wasn’t needed on the construction project at the Children’s Center. Every other missionary on the trip wanted to work with the little kids, so even if I did suck it up and offer to hang out with the tiny humans, there was no need for me. And the small kitchen didn’t have space for one more clueless-in-the-kitchen “gringa.”

When the offer came to go to a local, private high school, Colegio Ceren, I refused to volunteer. I teach high school Language Arts 9 months out of the year, so being the first week of June, the last thing I wanted to do was surround myself with teenagers. But everyone else on the team already had their job and there was a desperate need for missionaries in the high school, so I agreed to go.

Our overall goal for the day at Colegio Ceren was to reach out to the students, share our stories with them and share the love of God with them through building relationships and telling them about God’s Word for us in the Bible. My job was to warm the students up to us through a hilarious game of “Conejo Gordo” (chubby bunny). The game requires participants to shove as many giant marshmallows as possible in their mouth and say the words “Conejo gordo” comprehensibility, without spitting out or swallowing the marshmallows.

I had no idea that this small activity would ignite a burst of flames in my heart for the youth of San Salvador. After a few hours with the teenagers, they had collectively stolen my heart. Even though I spoke very little Spanish and they spoke very little English, we were able to communicate and begin to connect (thank God for our amazing translators!!). I rode back to the hotel in our van with my mind swirling with visions of what my future would look like, because after that short day, I knew why God had taken me to San Salvador.

——

When I returned home to Ohio, I began reading news articles about all the teenagers who had left their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and San Salvador in hopes of a better life in the US. Most of these kids were fleeing an assured future of drug use, gang violence and poverty. But upon reaching US soil (if they were lucky enough to survive the trek), they were told they had to go back because 1) They were there illegally, 2) They were minors, and 3) They were without parents.

When I read these articles, my mind was immediately transposed back to San Salvador. I had met teenagers fighting against all odds to not become another statistic for their hopeless and purposeless generation. My heart cried out to them, needing to do more. Sure, every dollar sent there from my paycheck helps and going on mission trips gets my hands dirty and impacts lives. But I knew I needed to do MORE. I needed to be there, in the thick of it, building relationships, sharing God’s love and impacting lives.

—–

Now, 10 months later, my heart is still yearning for San Salvador. I have gone on a total of 2 mission trips with Rock City Church and spent another 11 days in San Salvador getting a taste of what daily life is like when I’m not on a mission trip with all of my needs taken care of.

My goal is to move to San Salvador around this time next year. Ideally, I will work with the youth group of Rock City Church’s partner church, Iglesia Gran Comision San Salvador. Too many Salvadorian teenagers give in to their culture’s low expectations of them. But they are a talented, able and resourced generation capable of changing those views and impacting the world around them.

And I want to help.

This is Living Now

Ashley Ramírez

ashley_blog-thisisliving

This time a year ago I was training for my second half marathon, beginning to think about what to pack for my San Salvador mission trip in June and redecorating my home. Life wasn’t necessarily exciting, but it was good and I was happy.

Fast-forward 12 months. I never ran that second half-marathon because of an injury, one mission trip to San Salvador led to another which led to a Salvadorian Christmas vacation and my home redecoration turned into a home simplification as I prepare to sell all my things and move down south. Way south.

Today, my days are spent texting my 9th grade Rock City Church Youth Girls, working with Pastor Amanda planning high school mission trips and practicing Spanish with my Salvadorian friends. My life is directed by my relationship with God to foster the love He has for His teenage children (believe me. There are some days when only God can love a teenager! amiright??).

But I also loved my life a year ago. A year ago, my days were spent texting my closest girlfriends, planning vacations to Vegas and California, and practicing walking the runway for Columbus’ Alternative Fashion Week. My life then was directed by relationships with my friends to foster those to become life-long bonds.

Giving up my past life has been easy, but it has not come without heartache. When I returned stateside after my first tryst with San Salvador, my heart had been changed. I no longer wanted to spend my weekends out at bars until all hours of the night. The meaningless, although fun, dating relationships I was nurturing were no longer a priority. Instead, I wanted to spend those weekend hours building friendships with people who shared my love for Christ and my burden for Youth all over the world. But doing that meant that I had to leave treasured friends behind. I’m sure that more than a few feelings were hurt and heads were shaken in confusion when I chose Youth Night over Vegas and high-schoolers over adults. In fact, I know they were.

I often feel the sting of regret when I consider how my life used to be. But that is to be expected. Whether you’re toning your body or toning your spirit, if your workout doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right. I maintain that changing my “workout” has been an easy switch, but the growing still hurts. A few of my greatest pains have been learning to be patient in God’s timing, really, truly and fully giving God control of my life (Jesus Take the Wheel isn’t just a catchy song sung by an adorable blonde. It’s a way of life, my friends) and most recently, questioning if the voice I’m following is my own or if it’s God’s. Folks, these are NOT easy lessons. Anyone who has dealt with patience, control or hearing God’s voice knows we will never overcome them. We might be able to do a couple reps, but come back tomorrow, and we are right back where we started from a week ago. It takes perseverance to even begin to master these beasts and needless to say, my perseverance muscle is RIPPED.

Giving up a habit or lifestyle for God is not always easy. What I remind myself is that it’s worth it. It is worth giving up texting my friends in exchange for texting 15-year-old homegirl to arrange a homework help session. It is worth giving up vacations to Vegas and California in exchange for organizing a mission trip to New York City to educate our Youth about loving ALL of God’s children (Yup. Even that one.). It is worth giving up the glamour and excitement of fashion runways in exchange for the risk and adventure of airplane runways in San Salvador.

The meaning of my life a year ago was fun and surviving a strenuous workout and my latest heartbreak. The meaning of my life today is still fun, but I’m no longer surviving. I’m living now.