He Led Me To Life

Chapter 16:

      I lost track of Peter when another small group of people joined the one already in the middle of the room. The size of the crowd almost doubled, and I decided I would start to get to know people. If I was going to start coming every week, it would be nice to have a few friends to talk to. I slipped into the crowd, searching for a person that wasn't already engaged in a conversation. I didn't want to be rude and interrupt someone just because I wanted to meet them. I might get off on the wrong foot with them if I did.

"Hi, I haven't seen you around." The voice made her jump slightly, and she turned to find who had spoken. It was a man, older than most of the other kids there by the looks of things. He had hair that reminded me of this one chestnut desk at school that no one really wanted to use because they were afraid they would ruin it and get yelled at. His eyes were the color of pine trees.

"No, this is my first time. I'm Sadie." I introduced myself quickly, trying to hide the fact that I'd been frightened.

"Nice to meet you, Sadie." He smiled warmly. "I'm Michael, the youth pastor." He held out a hand.

No wonder he'd looked older to me. Now it made sense that he was the pastor.

"Nice to meet you, too." I shook his hand, then he disappeared into the crowd, which seemed to have grown once again. There now had to be at least thirty people in the room. I suspected Michael had gone to greet new people that had never been there before, just like he had done with me.

I looked around for someone else to talk to, and after a while, I finally spotted someone that didn't look busy, so I wove around people to get to her.

"Hi, I'm Sadie," I said when I finally reached her.

"I'm Melody." She had such a soft voice, that I almost didn't pick up what she said. Her deep brown eyes sparkled warmly, and her perfect, pearly white smiled was a pleasant contrast to her dark skin.

"That's such a pretty name!" I smiled at her.

"Thanks." She smiled again, reaching a hand up to tuck a stray strand of curly, black hair behind her hear.

"Have you been here before? I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing." I confessed, glancing around again to see if anything was happening.

"Oh, yeah. I've been coming here pretty much since it started." her soft voice, almost like birdsong, barely carried through the hum of conversation and music going on in the room. "We can just chat and hang out for a bit longer, then we'll get food and settle down for a game."

"That sounds like fun, I'm glad I decided to come." At the mention of food, I realized for the first time that I didn't eat any dinner, and the last thing I'd eaten was lunch at school. I was starving.

"Yeah, it's great. After games we worship, have a short teaching; and then we'll end in prayer. Some of us usually hang out afterwards for a while before going home." She was watching the crowd.

I nodded. I wasn't sure about the worship part, but I was pretty sure that I got the praying down.

A sudden thought occurred to me. Maybe Melody would know something about what happened to Samuel? I decided almost right away to ask her.

"Hey, Melody?" I ask, frowning slightly. Hopefully, she would know something. Not knowing why he'd disappeared is killing me.

"Yeah?" her gaze moved from a chatting group of girls, back to me.

"Do you know Samuel? He said he comes here." I try to keep the worry from my voice, in case she didn't know. I don't want her worrying over Samuel as well.

"Sure, he comes almost every week. He's pretty nice." She nodded. "How do you know him? I've never seen you at church before."

"We go to the same high school," I explained for her. "Do you know of any reason he might have skipped school today?"

"No." she shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know much about what goes on, but you might be able to ask Michael or Mrs. Moore, I'm sure they would know."

"Who's Mrs. Moore?" I'd already met Michael, but this new name was unfamiliar. Was she Michael's wife?

"The Pastor's wife. She's right over there." She pointed, and I followed her finger to see a woman, probably a few years older than Michael, talking to a group of teens. She had dark brown hair which I couldn't tell the length of because it was up in a bun, and eyes of a similar shade.

"Okay, do you mind if I go ask her now? I'll come back after if you want." I asked, wanting to ease my worry about Samuel as soon as possible. I didn't want to have to go through the whole night wondering.

"That's fine, you go ahead." she nodded.

"Okay, thanks." I smile at her, before heading over to where Mrs. Moore was just finishing her discussion.

She spotted me just when I was getting near enough to call out. "Hi, there." She smiled. "I'm assuming you have something to ask me?" she asked with the faintest hint of a laugh in her voice.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you knew if there was a reason that Samuel would have missed school today." I mentally prepared myself for the worst.

She frowned. "Oh, yes. Claire—you know Samuel's mom?" she asked, hardly waiting for a reply before she went on. "Well, she got into an accident late last night, and she's been in the ICU for a while now. We've all been praying for her." she sounded less-than-hopeful.

"That's horrible." I can only imagine how Samuel must feel. It would be especially terrible for him to lose his mom.

"Yeah, but we just have to have faith. Even if God doesn't heal her, she'll still be safe with Him." she smiled at this, but it wasn't quite a happy smile. "I just hope poor Samuel doesn't have to lose his mother so soon."

"Yeah, that would be awful." I agreed, and then Mrs. Moore had to leave to take care of something. From what I heard, some girl named Alicia was sick and needed attention, but by that time, they were too far away for me to hear any more.

A few minutes after they left, Michael called everyone together to give us instructions on how to get food. It was the usual, obvious stuff. Only take one of each thing until everyone got some, and then you could come back for more, don't double-dip, make a neat line. It was pretty much the same rules as the lunches at school.

I got in line behind a tall, lanky redheaded kid, my stomach growling in anticipation when I spotted the food. It wasn't a full course meal or anything, but it was better than nothing. I grabbed a few extra carrots because it was clear that everyone else didn't really want them, but by the time I got down to the bags of chips near the end of the table, they were all almost completely empty—a sure sign that the people there were definitely teens.

Most people were just eating standing up, and continuing their conversations from before, so that's what I decided to do. I looked around for Melody. She was standing in a large group with quite a few different people. I walked over to her, squeezing in next to her.

"Hey, Sadie." She smiled.

"Hey." I smiled in return. We both ate in silence as we gazed around the room.

After a few minutes of snacking had passed and everyone had their fill, Michael called everyone to get in a big circle. We played an enjoyable game where we wrote our names on pieces of paper and passed them around writing encouraging words and compliments on them for each person. It was hard for me, being new there but I still had fun.

I felt sorry that Samuel couldn't come for such an awful reason, but so far, the youth group was pretty great. I didn't  feel like anyone here was judging me or anything. I didn't feel as alone as I do when I'm with my family, or at school.

Once again I'm hit with the realization that this feels more like home than my actual home. This feels like my real family.