What Flava is Yo Kool-Aid?

Nearly forty adults and high school students from Abilene drove to St Louis, Missouri for a week of service projects in order to show compassion to the community in an inner-city neighborhood in northern St Louis. Among service projects like mowing, planting a garden, constructing and repairing several fences, and painting, the young people led a three day VBS for nearly fifty children from the Mark Twain neighborhood in St Louis. In the midst of the first day of a several station VBS, one of our students looked on as a twelve year old girl from St Louis wrote in the prayer journal she had just made. The young lady from Hillcrest drew closer to the girl writing in her journal and asked, “What are you writing in your prayer journal?” and the young lady responded, “You all up in my Kool-Aid, n you don’t even know the flava!” With much alarm the Abilene student quickly responded, “Girl, you all up in my grill and you don’t even know the tempracha!”

Cassie, our student in the aforementioned exchange

Upon hearing this humorous story, I was so proud of our students for entering a culture they don’t understand and working as hard as possible to bring a message of grace with relevance to their world. Throughout the three day VBS these two young ladies grew closer to one another as they worked through their cultural differences. Likewise, in Abilene, the adults involved in the youth ministry at Hillcrest encourage our students to engage with people of all shapes, sizes, cultures, and backgrounds with the intention of spreading the news of Christ in every life we touch.

I firmly believe that when we teach others about the gospel we are to meet them in their environment. In the Great Commission Jesus did not say, … And invite everyone in your neighborhood to go to church with you at your convenience. As we all know, he said, “Go and make disciples of every nation.” As you go through your life and I through mine, let us think to ourselves this silly question, “What flavor is their Kool-Aid?” Let us think of where people are coming from and bring the gospel to them, rather than waiting on them to ask us what flavor of Kool-Aid we live by.