May-June 1997

CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

Filling the Hungry Soul

Mary Taylor Previte is the great-granddaughter of missionary pioneer J. Hudson Taylor, and the seventh generation of Taylor missionaries.

Separated from her missionary parents while World War II raged in China, Mary spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp, not knowing if freedom would be hers again.

Through the trauma, she learned the power of discipline and developed a deep faith in the saving grace of God.

Now, Mary Taylor Previte is the director of a juvenile detention center in Camden, New Jersey. The center is full of child murderers, rapists, prostitutes and drug addicts. Her goal is to fill their empty souls.

Every day she faces the challenge of breathing a breath of hope into the hopeless.

Her success rate has been tremendous. Previte's very presence can stop a riot, and her classrooms would be the envy of any public school. What was once a building of filthy cells and abusive guards has become a haven of structure, security and peace.

How did she do this? By standing strong behind her belief that God's love can reach the heart of the unlovable.

Previte's book, Hungry Ghosts, is the story of her daily crusade to change lives and turn tragedy into triumph. I spoke with her about her life, her Youth Center and her steadfast faith.

Susan Stewart: You spent most of your early childhood in China, including three years in a Japanese concentration camp. How did you find so much good in such a horrible situation?

Mary Taylor Previte: The beautiful lesson from my life is that often what looks like a tragedy, when it first happens, turns into a wonderful blessing later on.

You would think in a concentration camp you would be thinking about negative things. You would be focusing on filthy latrines, guard dogs, uncomfortable living circumstances, lack of privacy. But we had teachers there who poured hope into our hearts. They looked at every single day as an opportunity for exercising faith and belief in God.

I consider those years in the concentration camp as one of the great blessings of my own life because I've learned in working with children in my own youth center that I can give them the same structure, the same sense of security, the same sense of hope that our teachers gave to us. What was a concentration camp in some people's eyes was a great learning model for me.

So, I guess when your kids say, "You just don't understand!" you have a great response!

Their eyes get big when I tell them the concentration camp story. But, let me give you another example. I lost my left hand in an accident when I was 14 years old. Let me tell you, a 14-year-old is just beginning to wonder, are boys going to notice me, will I have dates? The worst thing you can imagine is being different.

But now, having one hand is one of the extraordinary gifts of my life. When I talk with a youngster, I'll say, "Did I ever tell you about when I lost my hand?" There's an instant connection and a shock, and the relationship has changed forever.

The fact that I can be real has empowered me in a way with the children that I don't think could be true if I were an ordinary person with two hands.

Your family is a family of missionaries. Do you see what you do now as missionary work?

It is missionary work in a very real way. Hudson Taylor's great- grandfather made a vow on his wedding day in 1776. He said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." I have watched with interest how the family passed on that vow and that legacy from one generation to the next. It's a beautiful thing to see the vow of one person in 1776 rippling through generation after generation.

In our family, I've got one brother who's a missionary in Hong Kong. I've got a brother who's a surgeon who has done missionary volunteer work both in Africa and in China. And with me, who would say what the gift is that God put in my hand. I think it's the gift of loving children that not many people love. And I would say, yes, it is a kind of missionary work.

What are the children at your shelter like?

My center holds children who kill, children who sell their bodies, children who are accused of carjacking, children who are selling drugs on the corner. They are the people who are terrorizing the streets of America.

Police officers know these boys and girls from the street, and they come in shaking their heads, saying these classrooms would be the envy of any school in America.

Well, we make it that way. And the way we do that, the first message we give to children is: "We will keep you safe here. We'll not let anybody hurt you while you are here."

A child who does not feel safe is a "fists-up" kid. You can't expect a child to learn if his mind and body are geared for a fight for survival. Until children feel safe, they're not ready to put their brain to learning because their primary need is survival.

What shape was the center in when you first were appointed as director?

Well, the man who was the political leader in charge of it called it something out of Oliver Twist. It stunk of urine. The kids, when they couldn't get someone to let them out of their bedrooms to use the toilets, would sometimes just pee on the radiators in the bedrooms or locked cells upstairs, and the urine would trickle down the pipes into the classroom below.

I found a moldering, crumbling building that constantly had water flowing in its basement. The moisture would shatter plaster on the walls of bedrooms or offices. It was just a deplorable snakepit. There were newspaper headlines that called my appointment "The lady in the snakepit."

Were you not frightened about that?

No, because I've lived in China in a concentration camp. The building itself was not the biggest priority. It's lovely to be in a beautiful building--we now have a new building with bright children's colors, red and blue and yellow--but it isn't the building, it's the people and what they do with the youngsters that counts.

I began looking for people who care about children, people who weren't just working here for something to do, like driving a bread truck or being a janitor. I chose people who wanted to work with youngsters.

I started finding ways to create a normal feeling for the children. I began working with the people, the staff, because they were poorly paid; they were disrespected; they had been hurt in riots and were terribly demoralized.

I had to work for decent salaries, decent training, decent recruitment, because those were the people who were going to make my dreams happen.

It made a tremendous difference to give officers a view of what our children can become, the potential that is there. And I don't care whether it's in a church, a Sunday school, a family or a juvenile detention center like mine, the vision is where the changes start. The vision of what a child is and what he or she can become.

That was where it all started. Passing a vision on or planting a vision in the hearts of the people I work with.

Are many of your officers Christian?

Absolutely. I love it when people I'm hiring are God-fearing people. I have two ministers on my staff and many, many others who are God-fearing people. Some of them carry their Bibles to work, and when they're on break, the kids see them reading their Bibles.

I will say that the most dedicated volunteers who have stuck with our service longer than anybody else are the Christian volunteers.

They're the kind of people who snag a child's heart because they say, "I will not give up on you." And these children are used to having people give up on them.

Do you think you're able to have a Christian influence on the children? Have you seen lives changed?

Big John, one of my God-fearing Christians, every once in a while comes in my office and tells me how many children have given their hearts to the Lord during the Christian service.

Christian services are always optional in a publicly funded facility, but the children often opt to go to the religious services. And Big John is there when the Rev. Cooper and his wife provide the service. They give children the opportunity to make a decision for the Lord.

They make it very simple. They have the little prayer: "Lord, forgive me for my sins. Lord, forgive me for my sins. I believe Jesus died on the cross for me. Thank you, Lord, for saving me."

They say it the same way every week with the children. It's the steps of confession and acceptance.

Do I know how long the children are affected? No. We don't keep track of the children. They go on to other places from us. But I am saying that children who come to the religious services get the message. They are being fed the message.

The first story I read from your Youth Center newspaper was by Ted. He writes, "In my house I'm the man, I've got the job, and I cook and I clean." He's only 15.

And that doesn't tell the whole story. His mom is a drug addict. He didn't tell that part because kids find it very painful to admit to somebody that they have a mom who's got such bad troubles.

Usually kids are in charge in a family where a mother is a crack or heroin addict. So, you've got a 15-year-old who is the father of the house when he himself is just a child. That theme, "I am the man of the house," is common.

Almost every issue of the paper reads, "My best friend is dead," or "I went to my best friend's funeral," or "Who's going to be next, is it going to be me?"

That theme, without exception, shows up in every single newspaper I publish.

So the children are fearful for their own lives?

Some are fearful and some get almost high playing roulette with death.

There are some children who are terrified of being out on the streets, of going to school with gunfire, wondering what gang is going to get them on their way back from school. There are others who almost can't wait to see who's going to get killed. It's like playing with death. There are children who actually get high with that sense of danger.

You said that you believe God's love reaches the unlovable. How have you seen that happen there at the center?

I've seen that among the children at our center. Children who never felt that anyone loved them, never felt there was someone who believed in them, find people who love them, find people who model the love of God in front of them.

They may choose to go to the religious services to hear the message that Jesus loves them, which they would never hear on the streets.

Because of the model of the Rev. and Mrs. Cooper or the other Christian volunteers, they have a chance to see living Christian love.

What would be the one thing you would like to tell the parents of these children?

The parents need to hear the very same love the children do. The parents are like needy children. Many of them have never felt love, never felt worth, never felt hope. They need the same message of love, hope and value that the children do.

They need to hear it from God. They need to hear it from people around them. They have empty pitchers. They have nothing to give.

When I speak to youth workers, I'll say: "You need to be filling your own pitcher. What are you doing to give yourself a sense of love and joy and hope? Because if you are empty yourself, you have nothing to give."

When you are full of love, full of joy, full of a sense of closeness and tenderness to your family, your church or God, you have something to give. You need to be able to have that bubbling in your soul, your life that just spills out, pours out on the children.

You're a model in how you talk, how you live, how you set your priorities, all of that. Sometimes it isn't doing much talking, it's just how you live in front of them. q