Author: Gina Moore

Emily Dickinson calls hope “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” but I wonder if Emily Dickinson ever spent time inside a juvenile correctional facility. I wonder if she ever looked into a 16-year-old’s empty eyes and tried to convince her to keep hoping things would change. I wonder if she ever knew a teen who gave up hoping and decided to exit the world the only way they knew how. I wonder how many kids she talked to who self-medicated with the popular street drug of the day in order to cope with the inevitable pain of hope disappointed.

For many of the kids we see both in the facility work and the REACH 180 programs, hope may indeed be a “thing with feathers,” but it took flight long ago and left their souls empty.

A photo backdrop from our REACH 180 spring showcase, 2019.  Every day throughout the semester, students would color feathers and put images or words on them to depict what kept them hopeful.  At the end of the year we gathered all the feathers from each campus and put them together as wings for students and families to take pictures at showcase—a fitting reminder to keep hope alive!

Jesus met many people just like these kids: a woman at the well who had lost hope in relationships and in herself. A man in a cemetery who dared not hope to regain his sanity. Two sisters whose hope had died along with their brother. These were real people who were filled with new hope after just one encounter with Jesus. Today Crosswalk Ministries USA is tasked with sharing that same new hope with kids whose hearts need healing: Mitchell whose parents have called him “worthless” so many times that he believes it. José who has told us more than once that there are times he just wants to “go cold-hearted” because there’s no hope for change. Ali who always wears long sleeves to cover up the scars on her arms that scream, “Hopeless!”

A student tries the wings on for size for us before we move them to the showcase venue.

One encounter with Jesus still changes lives and gives new hope. Our part in that process is clear in Paul’s letter to the Romans. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Trust in Him and overflow with hope! Peter echoes that idea in I Peter 3:15: “Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you.” (Are you catching on to the theme here?) People need hope to survive. Not the hope of the world that crosses its fingers and wishes for the best, but the hope of Jesus Christ that lifts us up to walk on stormy seas with Him in peace toward eternity.

Gina and ARTreach 180 graduate Ruben Rojas

Crosswalk volunteers who work in the trenches with these kids are given opportunities to share a reason for our hope and spill that hope all over them. What a joy to watch as they encounter the love of Jesus and allow themselves to believe in hope once again! WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS to join us in this mission. Want to share the hope that is in you? Sign up to volunteer or make a donation so this mission can continue and reach more kids.

They need you; we need you! Thank you for partnering with us to restore this “thing with feathers” to its rightful place on the perch of these troubled souls.