One teen’s “impossible” transformation

His family was homeless, the beer bottle in his lap was empty, and the marijuana cigarette now nearly gone. Sixteen-year-old Damon would have repeated the same despair the next morning, had not someone welcomed him into Tacoma Youth for Christ, where Doug Jonson serves as Sozo Coordinator.

Each week, Damon and 60 other teens from troubled situations in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood gather at Sozo to play, sing and hear true stories of how God changes lives. He never dreamed it would happen to him. Impossible. Like a lot of troubled youth, Damon’s world is one of chaos and gang violence and screaming parents and peers trying to pull him into every imaginable temptation. They need to get out of their environment and find hope, find Christ. But how?

Doug Jonson had an idea. As a former staff at Warm Beach Camp in Stanwood, he called the camp and dared to ask, “What if, you could bring teens like Damon to camp for a week, out of the city and into wide-open nature?” Warm Beach made it possible for families of limited means, for 53 teens in all from Tacoma Youth for Christ, to come to Warm Beach for summer camp.

Remarkably, once at Warm Beach, Damon, a member of the Crips gang, actually invited members of the rival Bloods to share the same cabin. A few feet away from him sat a fellow teen who, a year earlier, had been laying in his own blood, a shooting victim ready to die. The two groups waged peace and understanding and friendship reigned throughout the week.

“Without Jesus, this kind of gathering would be impossible,” recalls Doug.
It was only the beginning.

“Once at camp, Damon and the other urban teens were out of their normal environment. They didn’t have to act tough. They were uncomfortable, and they were vulnerable. For the first time, they could be real. At camp, where there was no yelling and fighting, they could start to ask themselves, ‘Who am I?’ And our job, as followers of Jesus was to tell them who they are in Christ.”

And so in the daily rhythm of camp, over meals and through play and hearing about forgiveness, unconditional love and total acceptance—realities they found in Doug and other leaders—something remarkable happened.

“At camp, Damon had a radical encounter with Christ,” says Doug. “The Holy Spirit captured him and for the first time in his life, he saw his need for Jesus and wanted to leave his life of sin. On the last night, he broke out into a freestyle rap sharing about how great God is. He declared he was trading his gang flag bandana for his Bible. That week, he said he found out that his Christian peers—many of whom had also come to know Jesus for the first time—were his true brothers.”

When Damon returned to Tacoma, things changed again.

“He fell back into old patterns for a few months,” recalls Doug, “but Damon rejoined us at our YFC fellowship called Sozo, and today he is following the Lord. He hasn’t been drunk for three months and it’s been six months since he last smoked marijuana. He’s stopped getting in fights and stopped carrying guns. He even switched schools to completely get away from his former gang influences.

“I can’t tell you how many time he’s told me that his week at Warm Beach camp was the life-changing, most impactful time of his life.”

So much so that Damon plans on coming back to camp this summer with another group from Hilltop. Today, Damon speaks one word of Greek, “Sozo,” the name of the YFC fellowship he attends. “Sozo means “to save.” The deeper meaning is to deliver, restore and heal. Considering his homeless roots, waking up to no home, little food and daily uncertainty, Damon’s transformation seemed utterly impossible. Humanly speaking it was, because the love that has changed Damon and others at camp, has been His doing.