A punch in the face.

Last week Monday was our first night back at IMPACT.  Jack and I were nervous to return, as our club's community service-learning project was approaching its expected deadline, and we hadn't heard much from our junior leaders about what they'd been able to get done over the holidays.  But we were excited, too -- excited to get back to these kids who have wiggled a way into our hearts.  

 But it didn't get off to a great start.

 As we were walking there, we saw two of the kids -- Bumb and one of the girls. Simona -- take off running down the street in hot pursuit of each other, sprinting headlong into traffic.  There wasn't much we could do about it, and the meeting wasn't scheduled to start for 25 minutes, so we just kept walking towards the building, wondering what was going on.  We soon found out, when Bumb came back and said nonchalantly that he had punched Simona, and she came back crying with her hand over her now-puffy cheek.

Darn.

We took Bumb downstairs for some questioning while Simona's girlfriends comforted her in the bathroom.  Apparently, what had started as an innocent snowball fight turned into anger when a snowball hit her face and another hit her smartphone, and in the chase-down she kicked him, he punched her... things quickly escalated.  Jack and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and then proceeded to ask Bumb where he thought he made a mistake.  "I probably shouldn't throw snowballs at her," he admitted, abashed.  "Right," we agreed.  "And the second mistake?"  He was stumped.  Which led to a discussion of how punching people -- especially girls -- is not ever, ever acceptable.  He seemed to get it, eventually.

 But then this relatively uninspiring You're In Trouble Discussion turned into something more beautiful, when we went and got Simona.  She was hesitant, and Bumb's first apology didn't really stick, since he wasn't looking her in the eye -- but as he got more and more embarrassed, he started to really mean it.  And her first response, the common "nu e nimic" (it's nothing) of Romanian, turned into a real "I forgive you," after she saw that he was really sorry.  As Bumb and Jack went off for some more conversation, I stayed and talked to Simona about Bumb.  Why does she think he acts the way he does?  What makes her so mad about him?  Slowly, slowly, she let down her angry guard and admitted that the mean things he had said about her parents were probably out of jealousy for her own happy family.  Even more slowly, she admitted that she could consider possibly praying for him next week in church.  "Not for his sake, though," she said.  "Only for yours.  You guys are so nice to him and to me that I will try it if you want to."  Jack smiled and told her that she might not notice any change in Bumb, but that he was pretty sure praying for him would change her.  Simona looked incredulous, but nodded.  Okay.

 Then we offered her the chance to send Bumb home for the night, and she did.  But twenty minutes later, as we sat with the rest of the club at the meeting, we could hear Bumb outside the building, humming to himself, occasionally pounding on the door, sad to be left out.  And when we looked at Simona, she sighed.  "Let him back in," she said.  "He needs IMPACT."

And he does. She does, too. The rest of the night, they worked together and behaved, planning a project against violence in their school.  (Ironic, we know.)  But there were these precious, teachable moments in the first 20 minutes before the meeting started, in which we talked about forgiveness, and violence, and self-control, and anger, and what it means to pray for our enemies and to still be a family, or at least a club, even with people who sometimes hurt us.  And it was really beautiful.

Even if it took a punch in the face to get there.