by Melissa Verdugo
As the bell rang, we noticed an increasing number of students outside of the school gates gathering in the kind of crowd you know means a fight. Before we knew it there were about 100 students crowded to watch the fight. We went to try to help break it up and to make sure that none of our Campus Life students were involved.
There was “Sara”* walking away, with students streaming after, calling her name, telling her insults that this girl they wanted her to fight had supposedly said, some even pushing her. “Sara” the girl who was always down for a fight. The one who the young people knew they could easily instigate into fighting. And here she was walking away; a trail of young people following, shouting, trying to provoke her. With a sheepish smile that betrayed her pride “Sara” said to me, “They wanted me to fight but I didn’t.”
You have to know “Sara” to know what a huge change this was to resist the temptation to fight, not only by a few students egging her on but about 100. I told her a few days ago, how I was proud of her I am for walking away. It has been nearly 9 months of discipling this tough shelled girl from a terrible home. She is notorious with the school administration. She has been the most challenging student to break through to for me here in the Seychelles.
“She has really changed a lot,” her friend agreed with me. About a month ago, we had talked about fighting and I had told her that she doesn’t have to fight just because the students want her to, she can just walk away. And she did. This is the power of Jesus in her, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
*name changed for privacy