Alicia walked quickly to the principal’s office and found a number of her co-workers there. The woman closest to her took her hand. “Two of our students . . . they’re gone, Alicia.”
The story spilled out in sad, desperate bits. Two of Jackson’s most popular student athletes—a couple recently nominated for homecoming king and queen—had come to school last night, sat in the bleachers and taken a handful of synthetic pills. Something called Pinky.
Whatever was in the potent drug, it was deadly poisonous.
One of the football coaches had found their bodies this morning. Lying on the bleachers in the same spot where they’d taken the drug. Their bodies had only been removed from campus minutes earlier.
In that moment Alicia knew what she had to do. She was finished with fear. Now there was only one way for the staff at Jackson High to get through this awful situation.
She looked around the principal’s office at the circle of teachers and she felt her heart beat fast against her chest. I am with you always . . . I am with you . . . Alicia cleared her throat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to pray.”
And like that Alicia took a step into her future. A future of dependence on God and reliance on His strength. A belief that with Him she really could do anything. She kept that mind-set all day as she prayed with grieving teachers and crying students. And even as the parents of the two students came to the school and broke down in her arms.
God was with her everywhere she was needed, every hour of the day.
By the time she climbed into her car that evening she knew two things. First, she had never really lived until today. And second, if two were better than one, then there was someone she needed to see. Not just in her dreams. But in front of her, for the first time in a year.
Wendell Quinn.
7
The Raise the Bar program met Tuesday and Thursday that week, and even still Wendell couldn’t believe how the group had grown. After that first meeting, Wendell had moved the meeting to the band room. Two weeks after that they had so many students, they had to come together in the auditorium.
At the six-week mark nearly one hundred students showed up to hear about Jesus and His teachings, His promises, His gift of eternal life. Every week Wendell expected the phone call. Police were on their way to the school to arrest him. He would be fired for saying unthinkable things.
But the call never came.
Even his staff stayed quiet. The early handful of protests from his teachers gave way to busy schedules and classroom demands. Or maybe apathy. Perhaps they didn’t have the energy to put up a fight. Or maybe they saw the good the club was doing. Whatever it was, no one had formally complained.
And every week kids continued to show up. Wendell couldn’t explain the growth. Yes, he had believed the program would work, and yes, he felt called by God to step out in faith and lead it.
But almost a hundred kids?
The list of miraculous moments from the past year was too long to remember.
The young people in the club prayed for each other. They looked out for each other. One girl asked God that her dog would be found and by the time she got home from school, the pup was waiting for her. Another prayed for his mother’s cancer diagnosis. That it would be gone at her next appointment. At her next meeting with her doctor, the woman was given a clean bill of health. No more cancer.
Now it was the second week in October, and already new students were joining. Wendell walked into his office and found the report on his desk. The one he believed he would need one day. Yes, in the past year he could see the changes. They were obvious. There had been only one incident of gang violence. Arrests were down and so were teen pregnancies. Test scores were improving.
But Wendell couldn’t be completely sure that the Raise the Bar club was actually the reason for the changes.
So he had contacted a researcher from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indiana University East. The school put him in touch with a master’s student who needed a significant social project in order to complete her degree. AnnaMae Williams was a brilliant girl with a bright future.
She was also an agnostic.
Wendell didn’t care. As soon as he explained the project, he saw the girl’s interest ignite. She was to take every statistic that made up Hamilton High and compare it, one year to the next. AnnaMae didn’t know about the Raise the Bar program. As far as Wendell was concerned, the girl didn’t need to know. At least not yet.
What she did need to know, she would learn through researching teachers’ grade books and police records. She could talk to the teen pregnancy center on campus and interview the nurse in the mental health office.
AnnaMae had been given the assignment the first week of school. And now, nearly two months later, she had finished the report and left it on Wendell’s desk. Wendell had been looking forward to this moment since the beginning of the semester.
He approached his desk and sat down. A yellow sticky note on the top in AnnaMae’s handwriting read: The results are amazing. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up! Way to go, Principal Quinn!
Wendell’s heart thudded against his chest. The report was titled “Hamilton High—A Comparison of Years.” Wendell stared at the words. A comparison, indeed. Lord, show me the difference You’ve made. Not just in lives, but in numbers.
In case anyone ever wanted to know.
He opened the front cover and pored over the table of contents. AnnaMae had done a thorough job. Her categories went beyond what Wendell had requested. She covered criminal activity, and broke the statistics into felonies and misdemeanors.
Next was the mental health part of the report. She researched everything from suicides to suicide attempts, drug abuse, reports of depression and even student absences. From there she included student scores on standardized tests and assignments, as well as papers, and tests in each subject.
The report couldn’t have been more thorough.
Wendell could barely breathe as he made his way from one page to the next. Arrests for violent crimes were down by seventy-five percent and misdemeanors were cut in half. Wendell let his eyes settle on the numbers. Tears gathered. God, You are so faithful. This is beyond what I had hoped.
And suddenly a slight gust of wind came through the open window behind him. My son, I am able to do more than you can ask or imagine. Trust Me.
The words blew across the surface of his soul, and Wendell held his breath. He was on holy ground here. But of course, God could do more than they could ever ask or imagine. His word promised that in Ephesians 3:20. And the report was absolute proof.
Wendell turned the page. Category after category, the results were beyond dramatic. Not a single suicide. Attendance was up and reports of depression were down.
Looking at the results, it was clear only God could have done this for Hamilton High School. And to think the Raise the Bar program had been kept a secret from the media all this time.
“All You, Lord. . . . Only You.” He whispered the words, his eyes still on the report.
But while things had turned around at Hamilton High, Wendell’s personal life was still only about his children. Some days he missed Alicia with every heartbeat.
The two of them had liked having dinner at quiet cafés and catching a movie every now and then. He missed the happy, lighthearted approach she had with his boys, and the kind way she related to his girls. Times when anxiety seemed the furthest thing from her. No question, Wendell’s heart was still hooked.
But there was no point thinking about her. Alicia had moved on. He hadn’t heard from her since last fall. Whatever her life these days, she clearly wasn’t looking back.
And she apparently had no idea of how her absence had hurt him. How it had left a gaping hole in his life.