The Future is Bright!

Sunday afternoon over 100 youth from the Central KY area, representing more than 10 churches, gathered at Transylvania University to engage in an exercise designed to teach lessons about discrimination in all its forms. The curriculum was originally titled, “Archie Bunker’s Neighborhood,” but most kids have no clue who Archie Bunker was, so we just called it the ‘Game of Life”. To win at the game of life each youth needed to get a job, transportation, a place to live and get married. At each juncture there were obstacles based on nametag symbols, which represented varying minority groups. If your nametag had a symbol for someone who was disabled, then you could not go anywhere there were stairs, unless someone helped you, for example.

I have good news and bad news….a lot of dynamics played out in the game that strongly resembled the issues of our lives. Most of the kids handled these issues well, and others, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing they still have time before they enter into the adult world.

 

The Bad News:

• One of our ‘police officers’ went corrupt and was accepting bribes to look the other way while laws were broken.
• This police officer was laundering money through one of our churches.
• Some kids resorted to stealing ‘money’ to get through the game.
• One kid required help from the church to acquire a place to live…but it was because he used his money to buy a Porsche.
• Some youth were counterfeiting money.
• The jail remained a pretty active place.

The Good News:

• Youth who were part of the majority group and had no difficulties navigating the “Game of Life” finished early and most of them used their money to bail kids out of jail and helped them get through all the obstacles so they could complete the game.
• Youth who were fortunate enough to get their degrees and became lawyers, represented minority groups in discrimination cases, seeking to build some justice into the system.
• Other youth, ones who completed the game, used their time to start a petition to end the corruption in the police force and have the corrupt officer removed from the job and put in jail. They collected over 100 names…so all the kids were in agreement about ending the corruption.
• One young lady gave up and decided she was just going to be homeless because she couldn’t get through the obstacles, so another young girl (they did not previously know one another) offered to buy her a place to live because she had plenty of money.
• A group of enterprising young women decided to pool their resources and live as a group so none of them would be homeless or in inadequate housing.

Ultimately, our future is in good hands with these young people. I am so happy to be able to serve the church and watch them grow into tomorrow’s leaders because they are leaders today!

 

Blessings,
Tracy