1992 Wanda Amos

I doubt if there are many people left at Northwest who remember the Amoses.  I really think in the long term that Charles and I could have built quite a friendship.  He was a really hard working, blue collar kind of guy.  He was down to earth and easy to talk to.  Even I don't remember what Wanda did, if anything, outside the home.  When I first met them was during my review teaching at Northwest.  The Church in those few weeks was kind of "test driving" me to see if I would mesh with the 3 kids that were in their youth group.  The group had a potential of maybe 10 but really it was 3 or 4 kids who had been given leader after leader with no constancy.

The Amos kid, and the rest, liked me and I was in for a six month probationary period (these people had really been burned).  Everyone was excited to have a new youth guy and life was "rocking".  I cruised below the radar for the first weeks, getting my feet wet and trying to figure out what we were going to do.  I invited anyone who wanted to be involved in Youth Ministry to our little house on Allyn Drive.  13 adults showed up and among them was Wanda.

I expected her to be there.  She needed to be there and deserved a bit of honor.  Wanda had consistently hung in there through leader after leader and in the last void she had fundamentally lead the charge of parents as the "unofficial" interim leader.  The 12 were excited and Wanda was visibly hesitant.  As I led group dynamics ice breakers and began a dream of what it could be session, Wanda went from hesitant to hot.  She could see the momentum, the excitement and the movement but she could not get on board.  She countered every idea and when I asked for volunteers to plan food for summer camp she exclaimed, "That has always been my job.  If I don't do it, then I have nothing left.  You have taken everything that I do away!"  The tears began to flow.  I felt for her, as did the group, "Wanda if you really want to do the food then you can do it but I need you to do it within the budget.  Wanda there may come a time when you let others do some things if we want the ministry to grow."  She silently took the task of food.

The ministry took off and the group doubled, tripled and quadrupled to a hole 12 regulars.  As it continued to grow, we continued to have meetings, dream dreams and assign leadership responsibilities to the team.  As we trained and championed ministry, Wanda made a critical decision.  Instead of embracing the new help in the "effort to reach the youth in our community" and making new friends within the team, she isolated herself and compared everything to "what she dreamed it could be."  It does not take a genuis to write the end of this story, only a realist.  It is very difficult for someone who makes such a choice to come back to the group.  Life moves quickly and people who are doing something productive have little respect or time to pamper and try to win someone who calls herself a leader but acts like a self-centered, pouty loner. 

The team was together for years and won hundreds to Christ.  Wanda left the church with her husband Charles who I never got to know.  The team grew in phenomenol ways.  Wanda left the church angry after many failed coups.  The team found the value of the Body and found something they could do with God.  Wanda found loneliness.

I really have no idea whatever happened to the Amoses.  We just had to finally move on after trying to work it out and reach out many times over.  I am glad we moved on because kids got saved.  I am sad that Wanda did not move on.  She had such a passion, such a drive and such a want to really help kids.  It just got all mixed up in "who would lead the charge" and in the end she lost it.  She was a really neat lady that got spoiled by jealousy and anger at a team that really tried to embrace and honor her.  I have always hoped she worked through it and became an incredible servant in whatever new ministry.  I hope she led hundreds or thousands of her own.

I learned much from Wanda.