Waiting for Steve, I was more nervous than I ever. I could hear juveniles banging on the doors of their solitary confinement cells. I knew that when he got to the room he would be cuffed, shackled, and in a jumpsuit instead of his state-issued khakis and collared shirt. We weren’t in the usual volunteer center. I came to visit him in lock-up, and lock-up felt like prison. Steve looked like a prisoner.

Last week I was informed he had been nominated for two awards for good behavior. There is a banquet Thursday night that we are both invited to attend. He had just made the basketball team, and his social worker was beginning to ask him questions about where he will go when he is released. However, now I was sitting in the solitary confinement dorm, all because of a crease in his pants that was against the dress code.

As he walked in, he knew exactly what I was going to ask:

Steve: Dey wouldn’t let me come to mentor.

Me: I know. They said you wouldn’t follow the dress code and that you were mouthing off all day.

Steve then explained to me his side of the situation that occurred the last time I came to see him. Apparently the officers wouldn’t let him come because of a crease in his pants. He asked for an iron, and they wouldn’t give it to him. He asked to see their supervisor, the “white shirt”, and they refused again.

Steve: So I knew how to get the white shirt. I flipped the couch over!

Me: (At this point my mouth dropped open). And you thought that would be effective?!

Steve: Yeah. It happened before. Boys flip the couches; the white shirt come; dey get they way. Instead they brought me here but dey supposed to drop the charges.

Throughout our conversation, I learned about offense codes and crazy things the boys do in the dorm. I also began to notice how tall Steve was becoming, which was only accentuated by the jumpsuit that was too short but still too big for the rest of his skinny body. I realized how much deeper his voice was, and how mature his face was beginning to look. Over the past year together, Steve had started to become a man. He is learning to make the right decisions and take responsibility for his mistakes.

We talked about how much he loved his mama, and how she was the only person he wanted to take care of him. His father had been absent for most of Steve’s childhood, and he didn’t want much to do with him. On the way home I began to think about how fast Steve was growing up. Soon he will be seventeen, and he doesn’t have a father to walk him through the process of growing up. In a few months, Steve will be outside the fence, ready to take charge of his life and make the right decisions.  And there is no man on the other side to help him.

Leaving juvie yesterday, I felt completely inadequate. I have absolutely no clue what it means to become a man. I didn’t have any brothers to watch go through the process and I have yet to have a family of my own. I began to pray for Steve and his future. I pray for a man to guide Steve through this process and that he knows his Heavenly Father is proud of him. Jesus wants Steve to become an honorable man and one day lead a family of his own. Jesus wants the cycle of fatherlessness broken. Once Steve is outside the fence, this will be all I can do. As for now, I will listen and gently guide Steve to make good decisions. I will tell him when he is acting stupid and I will laugh with him while he tells me stories. And when I leave with a broken heart I will cry for him. I will cry the tears that he is to proud to shed. There is so much more for Steve than he could even imagine and I know one day he will understand that. He will break the cycle his family has suffered from for so long.

**Names are changed for the protection of the individual**