Religion has always been part of my life. I grew up going to a Pentecostal church. My parents taught me how to pray and sing hymns, and told me Bible stories.

But religion didn’t became really important to me until my parents filed for divorce last year. Being at church kept me from focusing on my parents’ divorce and made me focus on God instead.

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Church felt kind of like school, but without the annoying teachers and students acting crazy. I got to learn one subject—God—which was easier and more exciting than trying to learn all six subjects in a day. I was in religious plays, and I often had to present our children’s Sunday school discussions to the adult Sunday service.

I wanted to make friends through church who shared my beliefs, but there weren’t many teenagers there. Instead, I found a group of friends at school that I had fun with. I liked the feeling of belonging I got from them, but they got me into trouble, like cutting school. One of them even got arrested while we were cutting one day. At that point, I realized this group was likely to destroy my future if I kept hanging out with them. Leaving the wolf pack was hard at first because I’d gotten used to being part of a big group, but I did it.

What I really wanted were friends who liked most of the stuff I liked, and who would have my back. I was still searching for friends who had the same values as me when it came to right and wrong, and belief in God.

A Chance for Fellowship

This past winter, my brother asked me to go with him on a youth unity retreat. These retreats are for people who belong to seeker groups, which are clubs for people who want to explore Christianity. The retreat was going to be upstate, and it was a chance to worship God and have fellowship with other Christian teens. I said yes, I would like to go. I hoped this would be a chance to make new friends.

The bus picked us up at noon, and I went to the back and got quiet. Most of the other kids on the bus were Asian, and I am African-American and Cuban. They acted like they’d all known each other for a long time. I was too nervous to talk to anybody at first because I was afraid of being rejected for being different.

Meeting new people can be very uncomfortable for me. At my school, kids will judge you at first sight and reject you before you’ve even had a chance to try to talk to them. So I felt on guard, waiting for someone on the bus to say something rude like, “I don’t know you, you need to step back,” if I tried to talk to them.

When we got to our destination, we first went to a presentation by a representative from Nyack College (a Christian college) telling us that Nyack is a good school and how it helped him. I noticed that this group of kids listened respectfully and seriously to the speaker, unlike my old friends who would’ve been acting like they were 10 years old. I was impressed that they were so mature.

After that, we got into small groups. It was strange at first because no one knew each other. Then Kyle, an Asian kid, started the conversation, asking everyone simple questions like their name, where they’re from, and their favorite hobbies. The way he spoke let me know he was truly interested in getting to know us. There was no judgment in his voice; instead, he seemed friendly and welcoming. And when I took a good look at everyone, I realized that we all had something in common: We were born with a job to do for God.

I found out we had this in common when Kyle asked a girl named Yudy how she’d become a Christian. Yudy told us how she grew up in Colombia as a little girl, then immigrated to America. Then her aunt started taking her to church, and Yudy started learning the word of God.

There was a respectful silence for a few seconds, and then everybody went around and explained that they were born into Christian families. What was so special was that we felt we were all born to spread God’s love, so that more people can be born again in Christ. We also saw that God could put you through one heck of a journey to accomplish this task.

Afterward, we wrote words of encouragement on a piece of paper stuck to each person’s back. At dinner, my group sat together and talked over plates of pasta with meatballs. I began to realize that, though we are different by race, we all face challenges in our lives.

Later that night, we went back to the main building for night worship. Even though I’d had good conversations with the other kids earlier, I suddenly felt insecure again and began to doubt whether we would be friends, and if they really cared about me. Maybe, I thought, they were just talking to me to make their group seem better. However, I reassured myself that everything would be OK and that I would end up with good friends in the end.

image by YC-Art Dept

The Courage to Speak Up

During night worship, the guest speaker was a pale Colombian pastor with glasses who delivered a Bible lesson. Just as I thought it was going to be boring, she hit us very hard with a lot of information. She told us the world was going to end and that we had to get ourselves ready because Jesus will only save those who worship him and follow His rules.

It was like we were in a movie that had a twist at the middle that blew everyone’s minds. Some people’s eyes were wide open. Some looked like they were guilty of something and didn’t know whether they should ask for forgiveness. A few people even cried.

After service was over, we broke into small groups again. This time, we were talking about how deep the lesson was. It got us thinking together about how we must behave and glorify God’s name. Later, I began to get a little more comfortable speaking up. I told myself, “If you can talk to people at school who are ghetto and reckless and have nothing to do with God, you can talk to people who are worshipping God.” I decided to speak up in support of what the pastor had been saying.

“The lesson is deep because basically, it was about how we must get our acts together, so we can get our first class ticket to heaven.”

The responses I heard were, “That was deep,” and, “Yeah, there was sooo much information,” and, “I heard someone crying while we were praying.” After that, I felt more confident talking to my group members. I felt like I’d done a good job speaking up.

After a giant breakfast the next day, we played volleyball. It was fun; everyone really got into it. We played for three hours straight until afternoon service. People were laughing and having a good time. They even named a move I invented, where I’d hit the ball really hard over the net, “The Malik Creation.” I was a little embarrassed, but it felt good getting positive attention.

Spreading Love

That night we had midnight worship. It started out with a short period of prayer. I began praying so much that my prayer went from minutes to an entire hour. That was followed by the symbolic spreading of Christ’s love. The pastor lit his large candle, which represented Jesus, and then he touched the small-group leaders’ candles, which represented the 12 disciples being trained by Jesus to follow him and spread his love. After that, the small-group leaders went to their group members to touch their candles, which showed the love of Jesus spreading throughout the world.

The image was so perfect that I wished I had my camera on me. Then everyone in the group prayed for each other. The midnight worship went on until 1:30 a.m.

The next day on the bus home, I kept thinking about starting a seeker club in my school. I told my father about my idea when I got home. He told me that I needed to prepare well in order to make sure that the club would survive and thrive. He told me to get to know people in my school who might be interested in helping me start the club.

I started to get the club organized by talking to people online and in school. I created a Facebook page and asked people to like my page, as a way to show the principal how many people want to attend this club. I decided that in the club meetings, we would place people in randomly selected small groups, so that people who don’t know each other can become friends, just like during the retreat.

Attending the unity retreat helped me find my mission, which is to gather together people who are interested in knowing more about God.

I also stay in touch with the kids from the camp through Facebook. Some of them know that I’m starting my own club soon, and their support feels good.

Going on the retreat also helped me speak more to people at school, but I still don’t choose for everyone to be my friend. The retreat showed me that when you choose the right friends, you’ll feel accepted and you won’t get into trouble. Now I make an effort to talk to people who won’t try to burn my future down, but who instead value me and make me feel good about myself.