You might not have had some kind of lasting “impact” in the way you wanted to. But I’m sure at least some of those boys are grateful. One of my former YFs is now in military college. That has nothing to do with my influence, it’s his own path. Yet he still sends me messages saying “thanks for letting me hang out at your house all the time, it was fun and really important to me.” I don’t even really know why it was that important to him. He didn’t come from a troubled family or anything. But I provided him a space where he could just be himself, without the pressure of family, I guess. |