We're seeing a number of teenagers in our public meal program.

They dress like your typical MTV rapper street thug, all baggy pants and oversized hoodies and b-ball jerseys that are three sizes too large. They girls look exactly like the women in those same videos, only more so, because they're real and not on television, and you can't believe how young they are.

To a one, however, they have been absolutely wonderful to have in the dining room. They are polite and respectful, well-spoken and positively docile in their behaviour. They will banter and joke with me, and never hint at crossing any sort of line with their humour. I have had absolutely no trouble with them whatsoever. When two young men parked their bicycles in the hall I asked them to move them and they replied, "Oh, yes sir - we'll do that," and they jumped up from their table and headed out the door.

I was mentioning this to someone the other day, and he suggested that they needed our meals program, and they appreciated it. I've also been told that the Mission has taken some phone calls from a nearby high-school, as teachers were asking if they could send some of their kids there - the ones they knew were going hungry. A light went off in my mind, and all my stereotypes about teenagers dissolved.

God works on so many levels at once, in so many dimensions, in so many strands of a great and interconnected web that is the reach of his infinite love.