He’d spent all of his growing-up years in that environment. The grueling poverty. The constant struggles. The pressure to look cool while deep inside he felt helpless and desperate to escape. He’d worked long and hard to get out. He’d humbled himself and swallowed his pride and done everything his boss at the time had asked, even though his friends had looked down on him and called him weak and a pushover, and had ridiculed him. At that time all he had was his personal honor, and he believed God was on his side. He put in some very long hours and worked hard and did his best to please his employers—doing all the dirty work no one else would do, and taking his business courses at night school. When it came time to select the one person who could move out of the factory and into a supervisory position, Russ got the job, and the raise that went with it, and later, a good reference for a better job out of that neighborhood. At that point, he finally had a future, even with all his debts. It had taken until he was twenty-five, but he’d moved on and was out of the slums, never to sink to that level again.
Except that Grant had just told him to go back.
Russ could feel the pangs of his ulcer acting up, but he told himself that helping Marielle was a way to earn brownie points toward the promotion he so desperately wanted.
“Okay. I’ll do it. Let’s go.”
He got into his car and followed Marielle to the back of an old church building in a less-than-upscale area of the city.
As soon as Marielle got out of her car, four teenage boys wearing leather jackets and ripped jeans joined her. She pointed to the computer in the back seat. “Look what we’ve got!” she said as she unlocked the door.
The boys expressed their pleasure in current jargon that Russ made no attempt to follow, and carried everything into the building.
Russ trailed behind them through a large doorway, down a flight of stairs and into a large well-lit room with a dull tile floor. A few tables lined the far wall, and in each corner was a shelf in need of repair. An old wooden desk, piled with papers and books sat to the side of the door.
Russ turned to Marielle. “Is there always someone here waiting for you?”
She nodded. “I’m usually here a little sooner than this. I time it so I can arrive not long after they get off school. Many of them need a place that’s not an empty house. They’re all old enough to be left home alone, but that doesn’t mean it’s best.”
Russ stared at her. At that age, every day he’d gone home to an empty apartment and often he’d ended up doing things he shouldn’t have been doing. He’d almost started on a downward spiral like all his friends, but at the last minute had realized that he had to do something right that second if he wanted to escape the trap and make something out of his life.
By the time he realized what would happen if he didn’t get his act together, it had still been too late to do what he really wanted, which was get a scholarship for university. He’d already messed up his grades too much by focusing on his immediate needs: his minimum-wage job and trying to fit in with those he thought were his friends, instead of studying. Also, by then he had a reputation to live up to—or to live down to.
Still, he’d done more than most of his friends. He was the first to have a job and stick with it. He made up his mind to do what it took to pass, and actually graduated from high school, got a student loan and went on to business college.
Marielle smiled at him, breaking him out of his memories.
“Everyone else will be here soon. We’d better get started.”
Marielle stood back to watch the flurry. Russ had picked a table in the corner of the room and was setting up the computer. As she’d expected, the boys gathered around him, asking a million questions while the girls stayed with Marielle watching from across the room.
“I’ll bet he’ll be a real hottie when he gets that thing off his face,” a female voice whispered behind Marielle, then broke into giggles. “And if he has a bump on his nose from it being broken, that’s so sexy.”
Marielle turned around to see Brittany. Today, Brittany was wearing her trendy clothes way too tight, and again in Marielle’s opinion, she was wearing too much makeup for a sixteen-year-old girl.
“Forget it, Brittany. I’m not interested.”
Brittany giggled again. “Why not? He’s so handsome, and he seems smart, too.”
“Being smart isn’t everything,” Marielle replied. And she’d certainly had it with handsome.
She’d seen enough of Russ to know what he was really about, and she knew the type well. She’d seen the same traits in Michael. At first, she’d admired him, and before long, she’d fallen in love. He was dedicated, and seemed to have admirable goals. He had promised to work hard at his career to provide a good future for both of them. He had had big plans and he aimed high. At first she’d helped—even supported him while he worked part time and went to college part time, all in order to achieve those goals that were supposed to benefit them as a couple. She’d almost driven herself to exhaustion to do it, because she loved him.
But still, nothing was good enough. When she said she needed some downtime to see her friends and church family, whom she’d been ignoring for Michael, he told her it wasn’t the right time. Even though he worked long hours, Michael wasn’t content with what they had, and he always had to work harder to get more. No matter how much money he made, nothing would satisfy him, he always wanted bigger and better and more expensive. First, he wanted a bigger house and a better new car—for both of them, he claimed. But because they weren’t married, he was the one living in the house, and he was the one driving the expensive new car. Soon he began to forsake everything but activities that could earn him more money to get an even bigger house and an even better car.
And then, three days before what was supposed to be their wedding day, Michael called it off, leaving her to phone everyone and cancel. Within a few hours of announcing this, he ran off with a woman he worked with—a woman who also wanted the biggest and best, and the latest and the greatest out of life, a woman who had the very college education that Marielle had given up to work two jobs so that Michael could go to college instead. Elaine was exactly like Michael, in feminine form.
Marielle vowed she would never go through that again. Maybe one day she might be able to take a chance and open her heart, but when she did, it wouldn’t be to a man who was driven to work until he nearly dropped, but to someone who could be content with what God had given him.
As she watched Russ boot up the computer after he had everything connected, she noted that especially included a man so obsessed with work that he was back on the job without taking sufficient time to recuperate after a three-story fall.
But for now, Russ was an answer to one particular prayer. The center needed more computers. She’d had such success with her outreach ministry in the community that she had doubled the anticipated number of regular attendees in her ragtag group. God had provided for her needs, so she would do whatever was necessary to help the teens who needed it.
One of the boys smacked Russ on the back as the prompt showing that the first program had been successfully installed flashed on the screen. The pain of the impact showed clearly on Russ’s face.
Marielle cringed on his behalf. Instead of working, Russ should have been in bed. Resting. Healing.
His priorities were all wrong. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he wasn’t here because of a burning need to help the underprivileged teens. He was only here because his boss had told him to come, and as a step toward getting a new computer for himself faster.
She wasn’t impressed.
A male voice broke into her thoughts. “Have you seen all these programs?”
She spun around to see Jason, her most promising member, sitting on the floor picking through the boxes.
Jason held up one of the