Tough Guys Discipling Tough Guys

I received this letter yesterday from a wonderful lady who is a world changer for Jesus. She is the founder and director of Siya Sebenza in Port Elizabeth, a job training and disciple making program. I have been coaching Ena in the 12 principles of obedience based discipleship that I like to call "discovery discipleship". Her letter below could be the beginning of something big!

Floyd,

I had a wonderful experience yesterday which had quite an impact on me. I have been teaching at a Christian Gap year school (a sort of adventure school) near Alicedale, a small town in the Karoo (South Africa).

They have about 70-90 students every year and for the past 4 years we have been running our WORK-4aLiving programme there. Every year some of the students can apply to be facilitators for the following year. I was pleased to see one young dynamic coloured guy this year, Jade, who had been in my classes last year and who had been VERY NAUGHTY. He was now a facilitator and had given his life to Christ in the meantime and was a changed man - harnessing all that potential now in the right direction!!!

We were chatting during the break. I was having a laugh because i saw him chew out a couple of guys in my class for misbehaving and i told him how funny it was considering that i had him sitting UNDER my nose last year!!

Then it happened. He was telling me how hectic some of the students were and how they misbehave. We started speaking about discipleship and i told him how i see the facilitators coralling the good ones in one corner and the bad ones into the other corner. Instead, i suggested, why doesnt he start identifying leaders (men of peace) amongst the 'bad' guys and start investing in them and discipling them instead of just 'guarding' them and just getting them thru the programme.

There are about half who are Christian but they are  NOT STRONG influencers. I told him that as a strong leader, he needed to find the STRONG man of peace amongst those guys, who are borderline but open - and they can change the whole group but that it will start by discipling these guys not rejecting or constantly punishing them with PT! He looked at me and went as red as a coloured guy can and he said, "But i've never done that!!! And neither have the other facilitators!! And that is right. It is what we are meant to do!!"  it was a lightbulb moment and it WAS SO AWESOME to see the lights go on...

Straight after my class there were about 10 guys who were called out to do hectic PT because of bad behaviour. There I saw Jade standing with his arms around them in a huddle praying or talking, not sure. Even the other facilitators were looking to see what was up!!  Normally PT would have started by now. This young man is VERY strong and it is exciting to see him hopefully take his place as a leader in the Kingdom.

Sorry so long and it may seem a bit insignificant but for me it highlighted the impact of having the right conversation, INTENTIONALLY at the right time, with the right person. I mean the impact of that place is great but it could be SO much greater if they get the tough guys discipled by tough guys themselves.