More Opportunities
Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2018 by
by Romel Gibson
Caleb never missed our weekly Campus Life club meeting. He was one of the first students to turn in his parent-signed permission slip so that he could attend “Middle School Mashup,” our annual all-middle school combined club meeting. It’s evident that Caleb is a Campus Life kid. Yet truthfully, brief conversations before and after club and a few minutes at lunch once a week are not enough to really get to know someone. I remember thinking, “I wish I had the opportunity to get some extended time with him.” Not long after thinking that, it seemed as if the school’s administration read my mind.
We were granted the opportunity to spend as much time with students as our schedules would permit. Many days, we would be present during P.E. One of our leaders began helping out with the baseball team. Because I’m a degreed musician, the band director asked me to regularly come to some of his classes and watch his students’ progress. I was even asked to periodically teach some of the percussionists. One of our most exciting opportunities came when our Campus Life team was asked to begin “two-a-days.” What that meant was that we’d be adding an extra time in our day to run another Campus Life club meeting. At 7:15 every Thursday morning, our leaders were at the school preparing for our morning meeting with students. We started returning to the school on Thursday afternoons from 4:15-5:30 to be the extra-curricular activity for the school’s afterschool learning academy. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to meet students who never came to our morning meetings as well as deepen the relationships with those students we already knew.
Caleb found out that we would be at his school every Thursday evening. Guess what? He was an afterschool regular too. That extra hour and fifteen minutes per week have worked wonders for our relationship. We learned so much more about Caleb. He has an eclectic taste in music. We even got to sit with him after club and talk about everything from sports (he loves basketball) to faith to food (he loves hot wings) to family. I’m very much a question asker. He not only answered the questions I would ask him, but he had several questions of his own too.
Just when I thought we exhausted all of the possible opportunities to spend time with students, we were asked to run Campus Life clubs during the school’s summer enrichment program. I’m super excited, I can’t wait to tell Caleb.