Tag: Missions

Posted on

Backup. [Jan ’15 Support Update]

I’ve sat down six times in the last two weeks to write what I knew needed to be written– this. My semi-annual support update. And yet each time I’ve deleted my words and walked away from my computer feeling defeated.

This update has been tougher to write than most.

By this time in the school year, I wanted to be able to write beautiful stories about all of the great things God is doing in the school right now. I wanted to write you and say that students are coming to know the Lord in droves, that they are making wise choices, and that they’re all working furiously to finish their high school educations… but unfortunately that’s not where we are right now.

The state of the school is difficult to put into words. In fact, the only metaphor that I can use to explain what’s happening within these walls is to say that we are walking onto a battle field every morning… No. Actually we’re in the middle of a full scale war.

Last semester was heart breaking. I watched as students walked away from God, throwing classroom doors through walls on their way out.

I listened as my co-workers sat across from me, crying out to God, begging Him to please give us a bit of relief from the onslaught of spiritual and emotional attacks we were experiencing.

I cleaned up shards of glass and furniture that was broken and wiped a student’s blood off of a concrete wall.

I stood frozen in time at a student’s candle light vigil and watched as bandanas were pulled over faces and war cries were made to avenge Johnny’s death.

These images and sensations washed over me every time I pulled out my laptop and tried to explain what I am doing in these walls everyday.

But to be entirely honest, on most days I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

I feel unqualified. Confused. Weak. Ineffective. Exhausted.

I feel like we’re losing battle after battle and somedays, when my faith falters, I can’t help but wonder if we’re going to lose the war too…

But yesterday God reminded me that it’s not what I’m doing within these walls that matters– It’s what He’s doing. And even though I may not always see it in the midst of the fight, He is doing great things.

Yesterday when I walked into our Thursday afternoon staff meeting, one of my students was sitting in my usual spot. No one else in the room seemed phased by the fact that Raul* was joining us, so I pulled out a chair and took a seat.

“Now that you’re all here, I want to tell you something.” He proceeded as soon as I sat down. Thinking he was joking around, the majority of our staff let out a little giggle. “God’s been talking to me.” He said, unphased by the laughter.

Confused, I glanced over at my principal whose eyes were fixed on the small 18 year old boy next to me.

“He’s been saying things… Telling me that I need to talk to the kids in this school and show them that they can stop doing what they’re doing.

I get it; I used to be just like them. They don’t care if they do their homework. They don’t care if they hurt people. They don’t have anything to lose. But God has been telling me that I need to tell them my story. The story of how He saved me from myself. “

As the words came out of his mouth, I sat there stunned, mentally cataloging the change I’ve seen in him over the last two and half years– specifically since he gave his life to Christ the summer before last.

Raul.

This is the kid who threw his binder at my head his first year and came to cooking class kicking and screaming. (Literally.) The kid who tried to throw a computer at me when he got frustrated by his writing project. Wait, wait, wait… The same kid who literally had to be carried out of my classroom IN HIS CHAIR because he refused to leave the room when I tried to send him to the principal for threatening another student. The kid who has probably made me lock myself in my classroom and cry more than anyone else in my teaching career.

Yes, this was the kid sitting next to me, telling my peers and I that God had changed him and that he wanted others to experience that kind of change.

I could hardly believe it.

Yet there he sat, requesting a day in chapel to speak to his peers.

“I know you guys have had it hard lately.” He continued. “I don’t say much and neither do you, but I can see it in your eyes. You’re tired and hurt and need backup. And God has called me to back you guys up– to shine light into this school through the trials and tribulations He’s brought me through. So if you need me to set someone straight, let me know. God’s given me a pretty good story and I’ve got your backs.”

As he slumped back in his chair and carefully folded his hands on the table in front of him, he started to get blurry.

Per usual, tears were welling up in my eyes– but for the first time in a long time they were tears of joy and relief, not of sadness or fear.

I could tell you a million different stories about Raul’s time at DSS, but the thing that struck me the hardest (other than the obvious calling that God has put on his life) was the fluidity with which he spoke.

Three years ago, Raul came to us as a 15 year old with a second grade reading level. He struggled to communicate basic ideas, and yet there he was next to me using the word “tribulation”… in the right context… in a complete thought… that actually made sense…

That, in itself is a miracle.

Not only is God working in my kids’ lives spiritually by drawing them to Himself, but He is working miracles through the rigorous, individualized academics provided within our walls. And that is why I continue to walk onto the battle field everyday.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support my students and I as we engage in this crazy fight. Sometimes it’s dark and difficult, but the fruit is always beautiful.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can get involved at the Street School through prayer or volunteer work, feel free to shoot me an email at KacyLouLeyba@gmail.com and I will gladly get you in the loop.

Or if you feel called to partner with me financially as I continue to walk in faith and raise a chunk of my own salary, you can do so by clicking here and simply writing Leyba Support in the comment section.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for making life change possible.

awards2012

*Students name has been changed to protect their identity.

Posted on

Oh Lord, when I wander…

Bindmywanderingheart

The trouble with being a wanderer is that you weren’t created to sit still. You were created for climbing mountains, trying new foods, and hurtling through meadows on horseback.

When you’re a wanderer, you always know somewhere in the back of your mind that every moment of happiness where you are, with the ones you love, is fleeting because you were created to GO.

In one regard, this knowledge makes each of these moments more precious; in another, each of these moments becomes a heartbreak. A heartbreak that this–whatever “this” is– is but a mere season of life.

For the last year and a half as I prepared for my now non-move to Texas, I was reminded of this– the specialness of every Friday night campfire with friends, every roommate breakfast on the porch, and every family dinner.

Somehow these special moments are easier to recognize and appreciate when you are the one leading the change of seasons and going to the “New”.

But what about when you are the one sending the people you love into the New while you stay in the old?

How do you deal with the goodbyes and final in-person chats when you so desperately want to Go too, yet know in the pit of your stomach that now is a season of staying and sending…not a season of new cultures, new foods, or new mountains? How do you send your fellow wanderers well?

~

I’m an emotional human being; always have been, probably always will be.

I cry out of joy when I’m happy. I cry out of frustration when I’m stressed. I cry out of panic when I’m overwhelmed. I cry out of sorrow when I’m sad. (Being such a sap isn’t exactly my favorite quality of myself, but it’s how God designed me and I’m learning to embrace it as I age.)

Monday was one of those crying days. I fell asleep crying Sunday night and woke up crying again Monday morning.

Monday was the day that Amy– my roommate and fellow wanderer, one of my best friends, my sister-in-Christ who has become like a real sister to me over the last two years– moved away in preparation for her journey to live life overseas.

This is the woman who God originally used to dupe me into somehow leaving my heart in countries that I have never visited; the one who I so lovingly say “ruined my life” by dragging me to Perspectives where God broke my heart for the Nations.

And now, after what seems like a long wait (but what has really only been about a year) God is moving her overseas to do His work for the next eight months.

I’m overjoyed for her, really I am. Yet I am so incredibly heartbroken for myself and my community as we essentially mourn the temporary loss of a sister, a roommate, a gospel community leader, and a dear friend.

I admit, the wanderer in me is jealous. Jealous of her leaving. Jealous that she is the one moving into the New. Jealous that this season of her life is becoming what the two of us have prayed about for so long.

I am overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by our empty white bedroom. Overwhelmed by the barrage of emotions that we so intentionally put off until the moment it was time for her to pack her truck and move away. (Literally, the last moment. We suck at goodbyes.) I am overwhelmed by my selfishness in that I want to keep her forever and not share her with the Nations, even though I say that “I would give up everything” if they only could come to know Christ. Hmmph.

I am sad. Sad that I don’t have my sister-girl to giggle with at night before we go to sleep. Sad that I perfectly quoted a line from Bad NFL lip reading last night and no one seemed to get the hilarity of the situation. I am simply sad that this season of life is over.

As we laid in bed Sunday night before she left, I jokingly told her that when she woke up in the morning, that I would be the one who would be gone, and that she would have to deal with me leaving her. It was my faint wanderer attempt at being the one in control here. The one leaving and going into the New, not the one being left here in the old.

I long for the New. And just like my desire to control this silly situation by being the one to leave, I know that this longing and the way I continuously idolize Going and place it over God is the sickening, sinful junk in my heart coming out yet again.

I long to long for God, and God alone. But oh man, is it hard when I am one who is prone to wander, both physically and within my own heart.

So while the Yarrow Homestead and our group of friends learns how mourn and adjust to this new season of life, while I redecorate our my room, while I find other people to quote stupid Youtube videos back and forth with, I am left with these questions:

Do I trust that God has given me this urge to Go for a reason?

Do I trust God with the life of my wonderful sister-girl, even when we can’t talk about the highlights and struggles of our days each evening?

Do I trust that there is purpose in this season of staying? In the weird conflicted pain of sending my loved ones away when all I want to do is Go myself?

Do I believe that God is Good, even when I don’t get what I want, when I want it?

~

“Jesus, sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

Ode to grace, how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
And let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above”

(Come Thou Fount)

Posted on

This is a crossroad

Two Fridays ago I left work, my heart brimming with emotion.

Our first week back to school was an amazing success. On the first day of classes, I was bum-rushed by a stampede of teenagers excitedly giving me hugs and gushing about their summers– the good, the bad, and well… the mundane, as most kids’ summers usually feel.

Returning students chatted with each other and welcomed new students with open arms, showing them the “ropes” and explaining that we are a family first and a school second. Walls were broken down, new relationships were started, and progress was made, academically as well as personally.

I say it a lot, but I will say it again: I am stunned that I get to work in this school that so clearly has God’s finger prints all over it.

I am honored to work with such uplifting coworkers who are such wonderful depictions of Christ’s love to our students and each other.

I am humbled that students trust me enough as their teacher and “big sister” to talk to me about their deepest, darkest fears and secrets.

I simply don’t understand how on earth I have the privilege of working with these kids whom I love so much. And yet the longer I work here, the more I realize that my love is so finite in comparison to how much God loves them, whether they are currently following Him or not…

Any who, after work on Friday, as a tiny act of celebration, I went to Chubby’s (Yes, the original Chubby’s on the northside for all of my students reading this…) and took some incredibly unhealthy Mexican food to go.

I drove around in circles for a while until finally deciding to park my car on top of a hill in Sunnyside and eat there, looking out at the city.

As I sat and munched on my dinner, staring at the Colorado sunset bouncing off the buildings of downtown Denver, the stories of my students, new and old, ran through my head.

Stories of drug abuse and alcoholism. Generations of gang warfare, death, and retaliation. Domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse. Stories of students who have been institutionalized for health reasons, as well as legal reasons. Stories of self harm and harm to the people around them. Stories like the ones we read about everyday in the newspaper, accompanied by statistics and photos.

Before long, I found myself broken, pathetically weeping over my green chili cheese fries, praying that my students wouldn’t become just another statistic or story in the Denver Post.

So many of the kids I love so much are desperately in need of the Gospel.

Some of my students have heard the Gospel since coming to DSS and have been swept off their feet by God. Others continue to run away from Him and back into the destructive patterns and habits that are so familiar to them… only to be run over by life time and time again.

It is a heartbreaking and vicious cycle to watch, but I know that even in the midst of the consequences of their own actions and the actions of those around them, that God is there, working for His Good as well as theirs.

After all, these students are still with us and seem to always make their way back to the Street School when they leave.

These students– the broken and hurting ones, as well as the mending and joyful ones– are all at a crossroad within the walls of our school everyday. Every decision– to go to biology or to cut class, to have self control or to flip out on their peers– is a crossroad for them.

And as I sobbed over my dinner and thought about this, I looked up and saw the most fitting sight I’ve seen in a while.

crossroads

To the side of the telephone pole I had parked by, there were two directional signs pointing either way. For roughly the first fifteen minutes that I stared at this scene from my car, I failed to notice them. But once I saw them, a bigger picture began to emerge.

The sign pointing to the left immediately drew my eye to the graffiti covered building across the street from me. With its windows smashed out and covered in plywood, it seemed to represent where my students come from. The desolation, the pain and brokenness. Not only do my students come from neighborhoods that physically look like this building, but this building also mirrors the relationships in their lives and often, their perceptions of themselves.

The directional arrow on the right points into what seems to be the unknown– mostly because my little iPhone camera couldn’t capture the entire view. (Yes, I know about panoramic photos. No, I wasn’t thinking about such things while I was emotionally eating chili cheese fries and praying; Silly me.)

However, had I been able to capture the view to my right, you would’ve seen the stunning pinks, blues, and purples in the sky over the mountains and the magnified beauty of the same scene reflecting off the buildings of Denver– a sunset that could literally take your breath away.

For me, this is so much more than just a photo on my phone; it’s representative of how my students view life.

They can’t see the beauty that lies ahead– the beauty that comes from being swept off their feet by the love of God. Often, they can’t see their bright futures or the color that they are capable of painting into the world with their personalities and gifts.

All they can see is their past and the crossroad directly in front of them.

Please pray for my coworkers and I as we stand in the gap with them– as we try to show them the love of Christ and give them tiny glimpses of what their lives could be like with Him.

Pray that we would have wisdom to be able to speak color and life into them, even when we are exhausted and would rather just take the easy way out.

Pray that my students would be receptive to the Light and begin making positive choices and right turns when they come to the hundreds of crossroads they face each day.

Pray that we all would be able to see the breath-taking sunsets and skylines our own lives– that we wouldn’t lose sight of the goodness of God while we walk into the darkness everyday.

“This is what the Lord says, ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

(Jeremiah 6:16)

Posted on

Un-Stuffing My Identity

packed car

“It’s just stuff, Kacy. Calm down.”

Sunday was the day; the day that I had too much coffee around noon, got over ambitious, & began packing away my life, box by box, and donation bag by donation bag.

I’ve known that the day was coming… That dreaded day when I would eventually have to sort out my necessities (which will be moving with me this summer), my clutter (which has been bagged for Goodwill), and well, the rest of my life (which is being boxed & thrown into storage until my move to Texas, eight-ish months from now).

All of this separating, boxing, and bagging has made me realize something about myself:

I’m an incredibly sentimental person.

The moments that I cherish the most are those that I spend with the people I love, and I love having things around me to remind me of those moments or the times when God has shown up in my life.

My apartment is full of such items: the mural I painted on my wall, the photos of family and friends that hang in my kitchen, my grandfather’s typewriter, my great-grandmother’s Bible, my favorite books, and my journals full of stories…my stories…

I cherish all of these things, not even because of their earthly value, but because of the ties that they have to my little sentimental heart.

And as I boxed them up and stared at the empty space on my shelves and walls last weekend, a part of me began to panic.

This is seriously happening. I am giving up everything that makes me comfortable and walking into the unknown.

My heart jumped into my throat and I wanted to rip the packing tape off of my boxes and replace everything back into its proper home.

I realized that I have grown attached to my stuff and not just in a cute, sentimental way, but in a way that has led me cherish my stuff and my memories over my King.

In my apartment, surrounded by my properly placed stuff, I know who I am.

Actually, no, that’s not true either. In my apartment surrounded by my properly placed stuff, I am comfortable with who I have become. And because of this I am not actively trying to be the woman who God has created or called me to be.

In my stuff-y comfort zone, I am not being courageous for the Kingdom, I am not being a steward of what He has given me for His glory, and I most certainly am not declaring, “I am a daughter of the King and I long to know nothing except Christ crucified”.

No. Instead, I have been sitting here in my comfort zone being a wimp  a wimpy hoarder of blessings   a wimpy hoarder of blessings who would rather set her identity in the earthly junk around her instead of within her Heavenly Father and His call upon her life.

Do I really want my identity to come from the world?

No.

Do I want to be reminded of my identity by all of the stuff in my life?

Yes… I mean no.

Do I love my stuff more than God?

No… Yes…. I mean, no. Definitely not.

This whole experience of giving up the cute life I have worked so hard to build for myself and follow God into the unknown simply reconfirms everything that I already knew about myself; I’m a mess.

A stuff-y mess.

But gosh darn it, by the end of this month I will be a less stuff-y mess. In fact, I will be a less stuff-y, homeless, nomadic mess…

Eeesh, things I can’t think about right now. One step at a time…

For now, I am simply working on not panicking every time I seal a box or take a load of my stuff to storage.

What is God calling you to leave behind today?

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

(Matthew 16:26)

 

Posted on

A Safe Haven

I haven’t written about work or my students in a while, and to be honest, it’s because I’m a bit crispy around the edges. By no means am I “burnt out”, but teaching “at-risk youth” day-in and day-out without seeing much change or success is exhausting to say the least.

In the last month alone, I have had students confide in me that they are suicidal, re-addicted to drugs and alcohol, being abused at home, homeless, self-harming… You name it, I’ve probably had a conversation about it with a student lately. Every time I sit and look into the teary eyes of one of my students during one of those talks, my heart splits in two.

I just want to go all “momma-bird” and swoop them up, let them live in my house, so that they can be removed from their circumstances, and love on them… but given the fact that I live in a glorified shoebox, I can’t. And thus, my heart breaks even more.

I know in my heart that God is the only one that can truly rescue my kiddos and deliver them from their circumstances, but sometimes not being able to provide a safe haven for them makes me feel like a failure as a teacher and advocate.

But today I was reminded that I am a part of a safe haven– a place that God led my boss to found and build 29 years ago– The Denver Street School.

This afternoon, my phone buzzed with a Facebook notification from the lovely and talented Kathryn Bronn. Kathryn is an art student who has partnered with the Street School for the last two years. She has provided free senior pictures to our students, free staff portraits for the teachers and faculty, and she has even poured countless hours into the making of a documentary for the school and two music videos. The notification I received today was telling me that this year’s music video had just been finished.

I clicked the link and as soon as I hit play, my eyes started tearing up and I swear I felt like I had butterflies in my heart.

The teenagers in the video below aren’t just my students– they are my kids… and they’re “playing” because they know that they’re at home.

There are felons, drug addicts, and current and former gang members singing in this video. There are kids that have been thrown out of their homes and have lived on the streets dancing. There are girls who have traded their bodies for love and acceptance, only to be crushed, giggling, and boys who have suffered unspeakable abuse smiling.

This video was a perfectly timed reminder that God is doing something in each and every one of their lives… Even when I don’t see the daily changes, I can rest in confidence knowing that He brought them into the DSS family for a reason and that He loves them more than I ever will.

Thank you Kathryn, you are a beautiful soul and I am beyond thankful for the work that you have done for our school!

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”

(Psalm 30:11-12)