| Dabbs inspires youth summit By Melissa Lauber UMConnection Staff Life is ugly. Life hurts. It spins people around and breaks their hearts. Life is also more beautiful than anyone can imagine. Life soars and people, even people in pain, can fly. Thats the message evangelist Reggie Dabbs brought to more than 300 youth at John Wesley UMC in Baltimore Dec. 12.  Dabbs, who was brought to this area by the Baltimore-Washington Conference to speak in several city schools, hosted the youth summit, inviting the Baltimore students and youth from several United Methodist churches on a spiritual journey. How do you like the trip so far? he asked. The youth cheered. Several of them, like Miranda Beans, from Asbury UMC in Annapolis, had heard Dabbs speak at a conference youth retreat in Ocean City, and wanted to experience that certain feeling again. Reggie is comical, emotional, angry. He tells it like it is, said Trisha Timmons of Glen Burnie UMC. He tells kids theyre not alone. Reggie takes issues like sex, drugs and things kids deal with every day and relates them to God, said Ashley French of Brooklyn UMC. Its real life. Its not sugar-coated. Using a series of skits performed by the Fort Myers Masters Commission, a group of approximately 20 young people from the First Assembly of God Church in Florida who travel with him, Dabbs illustrated incidents in which teens are abused, driven to drug use and taken to emotional states in which they wish theyd never been born. But Christ can turn your darkness into day. He can be your joy in a time of storm, Dabbs said. Its not the sun. Its the son, S-O-N. He can shine in you. To illustrate this point, Dabbs invited members of the Masters Commission to share their stories. One young man, who introduced himself as Derrick, shared his testimony with the youth. He grew up in Illinois, with an emotionally abusive father who was addicted to crack cocaine. There was a hole in my life, not having a father, not having the love of a father, he said. I let the junk that my father said about me sink into my heart, said Derrick, who went on to tell about how he planned to kill his father and took a knife to bed with him one night. I thought that would end my pain, he said. But his father didnt come home that night. God began to give me hope, Derrick continued. But it wasnt church or Bible study. It was relationship relationship with God that made the difference. I turned to God. It took time. God took away the pain and hatred. Derrick told the youth that they can have the love of God as their own. You dont have to live with the pain, he said. Dabbs invited the youth to come forward and give their darkness to God so that they might experience the life-changing light of Jesus. Thirty young people came forward to the altar rail where members of the Masters Commission prayed with them. Tom Price, conference director of youth ministries, was initially concerned about a scheduling conflict that forced Dabbs appearance to be moved at the last minute to an earlier night, making it impossible for many of those registered to attend. On Dec. 11, Dabbs also appeared at Oakdale-Emory UMC in Olney, at a fund-raiser for United for Children, a sponsorship program that assists poor children in Zimbabwe. The program is a conference Advance special ministry. In total, when all the money is collected, Dabbs appearance at Oakdale-Emory UMC will have raised $11,000 for United for Children, Price said. | 
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