By Kurt Rietema
You can’t imagine a couple of kids who could have been more checked out. It was Day 3 of our ImagineX program at Hilltop Juvenile Detention Center. With enough injections of snacks and games to break up the monotony of a summer locked up, Willie and I had won over the majority of skeptics who wondered what these guys from Youthfront and their youth social entrepreneurship program really were after. But *Cole and *Wyatt–hoodies up, heads down, eyes closed, drool on the table–made their dissent loud and clear. We don’t care who you are or what ‘good’ you think you’re bringing to us, we’re not having it. It wasn’t our first rodeo. Focus on the motivated and engaged. Build on their energy and hope the holdouts follow. (*all youth’s names changed for anonymity)
The next day, we transitioned from fun and games to the questions at the core of the program–where is the world around you groaning for liberation, and how might God be calling you to set it free? (Romans 8:19-21; Luke 4:18-19) I took a seat at Cole and Wyatt’s table. Wyatt sluggishly raised his head, running his hands over his face with a long, indifferent slide from his forehead to his chin. I asked about his neighborhood, what it’s like growing up there. A groaning world, it turns out, Wyatt was an expert in.
Wyatt, like most of the kids in this facility, grew up in rough eastside neighborhoods of Kansas City, Missouri, plagued by poverty, violence, and systemic exclusion. He told me he was a good basketball player. Got recruited to some of the best AAU teams in the suburbs. Had college coaches taking looks. Home was rough. Mom did her best, worked multiple jobs, but stress hung like a thick fog in their apartment. That’s why he mostly tried to stay out of the way, play ball, chill with friends, repeat.
But the streets come with their own challenges. One of his friends was shot in gun violence. Wyatt didn’t elaborate, but the rage and powerlessness he felt—so exposed and vulnerable with no guarantee that justice would prevail—led him to take matters into his own hands. We never ask what kids are in for. The rest of the system and society already define them by the worst decisions of their lives. Wyatt let on enough to suggest that aggravated assault and possession of a firearm led him here.
Listening to Wyatt and so many of these kids, you get a sense that though they aren’t even 18, they believe their card is punched. Life can never be anything other than being broke, barely getting by, running from violence, losing friends, spending time behind bars. Those childhood dreams of playing in the NBA are long gone. In their minds, the matter is settled. There will be no ‘happily ever after,’ no college degree, no first house, nothing better waiting for them over the rainbow. When you feel that powerless, when your voice is never taken into account, when your life feels disposable, when home is never fixed, always provisional, and your interests are constantly trampled underfoot, the temptation to violence is grave. Guns give you immediate power to finally be taken seriously. Suddenly people pay attention. Suddenly, they aren’t so quick to push you around.
Life in first-century Palestine was kind of like living in Wyatt’s neighborhood. The vast majority were subsistence farmers and fishermen who wanted to tend their own land and nets and live a simple life following Yahweh. But for generations, foreign interests and occupying armies made life insufferable. Herod took up to half their harvest as tribute—a way of saying thanks for “protecting” them. The people could do nothing without being taxed: they couldn’t fish, process, transport, or sell their catch without paying a toll. Herod kept building palaces, the elite amassed more land (Luke 12:13-21) as others lost theirs in foreclosure (Luke 12:58-59). How long, O Lord, would evil triumph? (Hab.1). Why do the righteous get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked get what the righteous deserve? (Eccl. 8:4).
Rage against the political and religious machine boiled. Armed rebellion was so frequent that Gamaliel names a few of the recent insurrections to the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:34-39). So fed up with the extractive economy, Judas decided to betray Jesus when he realized Jesus wasn’t committed to violent overthrow like he was (Matt. 26:6-16). Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” When all civil attempts to be heard fail, what do desperate people have left? When Jesus came riding on a donkey with palm branches spread before him, Jerusalem was a tinderbox, the people primed to riot—looking, longing, crying out ‘Hosanna,’ praying that this time God had heard the unheard.
Jesus didn’t give the crowds the armed rebellion they hoped for. Instead, he gave the unheard something better—a listening ear. A place at his table. A healing touch. He gave nobodies a chance to be somebody. To not merely fish, but to be fishers of men—a way to not just hold down a job that sucks the life out of you, but to have a calling that breathes life into the world. And as someone who’s never gone without, I’m always startled by this: when food and shelter are scarce, it’s often respect and dignity that people hunger for most.
By the end of two weeks at the detention center, we still hadn’t convinced Wyatt to join the kids’ unfolding venture. But we had convinced some of them. They called their venture Show Me KC, where basketball camps in urban neighborhoods become a catalyst for belonging and rewriting futures. The success of their pitch would hinge on a spoken-word piece to open their presentation. Though reluctant at first, everyone voted for Andre—the shyest, quietest kid—to lead them off.
We’d practiced his lines over and over, and try as he might, Andre always struggled to make them pop. But by pitch day, there was no one else. Just before the honored guests arrived, everyone pumped him up with encouraging words. They believed in him when Andre didn’t believe in himself.
After a few staccatoed first lines, Andre found his rhythm. He found his voice. And because he found his voice, so did the others. The pitch was a smashing success—with guests from Freedom Hoops, an urban ministry that needed the networks the Show Me KC kids had, and with a rep from the Kansas City Chiefs, happy to put their weight behind the kids’ dreams.
Afterwards, I caught up with Andre walking to lunch. “That was amazing! You set the tone for everyone! How did that feel?” He paused. “I don’t know. It felt pretty good. It made me think that maybe my life could be different.”
Andre was simply saying what every kid wants—to be heard. To be told their voice matters. To be voted on by their peers. To play ball without fear. To go home to parents who can breathe.
And for a moment, he felt that life could be different. Holding that mic did for him what holding a gun once promised in a counterfeit way—to be taken seriously, to have his interests heard, to be somebody. But this power didn’t come from fear; it came from grace—from the presence of Jesus, still coming alongside the unheard, helping them find a voice that can heal what violence breaks.
About Kurt Rietema: Kurt is the Senior Director of Youthfront Neighborhood. He holds a Master’s in Global Development and Social Justice from St. John’s University. Kurt is also an adjunct at MidAmerica Nazarene University and at William Jewell College. Kurt and his wife Emily live with their sons, Luke, Perkins and Leo in an under-resourced neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas called Argentine.
