When Cole Meyers accepted the offer for an ESL position at Harding Middle School, he was planning on staying short-term. “I went into this position thinking to myself, ‘I can do this for a year,’” Cole said. “Number one, I didn’t want to teach middle school. Number two, I didn’t want to teach in an urban setting.”
Six years later, Cole is still there, exactly where he didn’t want to be. “Looking back when I first got that job at Harding, you can start to see how God was putting everything together for where we are now,” he said.
Making Plays
At the end of Cole’s first school year, Jason and Kristi Wicks approached him and his wife Dayna with an idea: starting a Windsor Heights Community Group with a focus on reaching Central City Soccer youth.
At the time, Dayna was teaching at Brody Middle School. Separately, Dayna and Cole were both loving kids at their jobs. As Dayna joined the Wicks on staff with Youth for Christ and Cole kept teaching, the couple was able to pursue the same kids together.
The new Central City Community Group started playing soccer on Friday nights at Evelyn Davis Park. Kids came and played game after game. “People started developing a heart for these kids. They wanted to see them come to know the Lord and see their lives become unbroken,” Cole said.
New to the Central City group, Randi Lines’ heart broke for these kids. Then God provided a job at Harding teaching special education science.
“A student asked me why I teach where I do, and I told him, ‘If I see one student come to know the Lord teaching in public schools, it is worth it,’” said Randi, who has since seen some of her toughest students give their lives to Jesus.
Celebrating Each Life
For Cole and Randi, the Harding hallways have become a place to communicate with kids—asking if they need a ride to soccer, reminding them about small group, sharing bits of truth. “Cole and I being at Harding is one of the biggest blessings for this ministry,” Randi said.
God is talked about in their classrooms. Their students know they are Christians, and they have questions.
“If you can’t talk about God in school, why go to school? Those are the biggest questions kids have,” Cole said. “I cannot discourage them from asking, especially when teachers are the people they look up to most for answers in life.”
“You Matter” hangs on the wall in Cole’s classroom, a truth he wants each of his students to believe. This is why every student’s birthday is celebrated.
“Just the fact that they’re here and alive and breathing means that they’re not a mistake. To reiterate they were created with a purpose, with infinite dignity, value, and worth,” Cole said.
“Just the fact that they’re here and alive and breathing means that they’re not a mistake. To reiterate they were created with a purpose, with infinite dignity, value, and worth.”
Changing Neighborhood
Dayna says on a large scale they have seen students’ hearts change over the last five years even if they have not accepted Jesus yet.
“In the first year that we knew them, it was very hard. They wouldn’t acknowledge you when you said hi to them, [they] would be coming around but were very hard to have a relationship with,” Dayna said.
Now, students want to serve each other and are inviting other middle schoolers to places where they know Jesus will be talked about. “What’s sweet about these kids is that they know their lives will have to radically change. They’ve not only professed with their mouth, but their lives have changed,” Randi said.
In addition to Friday soccer, Dayna and many other volunteers run City Life, a community based ministry of Youth for Christ. Their City Life neighborhood focus overlaps with the Harding school district lines.
Many Harding students play in the Central City Soccer summer league, a weekly chance for Cole and Randi to talk to them about truth. Through consistent relationships, students have grown to trust their group.
“Their hearts have been softened. They smile at you, hold conversations, show up at church,” Dayna said. “Without our faithful volunteers, we couldn’t be encouraged that this is something worth continuing.”
Whether in the classroom, on the soccer field, or around a table eating pancakes, God is working on the hearts of students, one at a time.
“I’m thankful for the laborers that He’s provided, faithful people to do life with. Yes I am a teacher, and yes I am a part of it, but I’m just a part,” Cole said.