It’s been a very difficult week for the youth ministry that I work for. Earlier this week, one of our founders–a priest–was arrested for accusations of misdemeanors for sexual offenses. Almost a year ago, a guy accused him of witnessing his sexual abuse twenty years ago. When I heard the news then, I was devastated. The accused person is a friend of mine, a remarkable man who has done great things.

Even though he is my friend, I know that it was dangerous to assume that he is innocent or believe he is guilty. The truth is, I don’t know what did or did not happen twenty years ago. Either way, there are a lot of people in pain right now. If the accusations are true, then what happened is truly horrible and not of God. If the accusations are false, what is happening now is truly horrible and not of God. Only time will tell.

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There is just so much going on with my career right now. It’s not a “career” in by the conventional definition, because it’s about serving God. It’s not about climbing a corporate ladder or increasing my salary. It’s about helping teenagers. I’ve given my whole life to this mission over the past four or five years. Now I’m left wondering what’s next.

Up until now, I’ve given ALL my creativity to Life Teen. Instead of starting my own Catholic website, I design one for the organization. Most of the ideas on lifeteen.com were originally intended for supafly.com, but I figured it was best to give to something bigger than my personal website. So for the past four years, I’ve been a one-man web division, a self-contained creative branch of the ministry. Everything you see on lifeteen.com has come out of my head. Every pixel, every section, every T-shirt in the store. What’s happening now is that I have this huge, beautiful website: lifeteen.com. But I have NO STAFF to update it. I am infinately frustrated because we have so much potential, but it’s not coming to life. I mean, I’ve done nothing but exceptional work for the four years that I have worked for Life Teen, and what help do I get? A single intern. One person! How is the website supposed to flourish with a staff of two people? I mean seriosly, what’s wrong here?My frustration has caused me to doubt the leaders of our organization, the board of directors, and even our ministry as a whole. Then I wonder if maybe I’m expecting too much, and that I need to be more patient. At this rate, it’ll be ten years before I can have a staff of just four people. I’ll be 37 years old. I think it is foolish for me to wait for ten years to get what we need right now. All of this turmoil comes from the fact that one of our founders in trapped in a legal battle. People don’t want to donate money because are afraid of the outcome–and rightfully so. While their donation dollars stay in their pockets, our healthy, talented, and well-balanced staffed is forced to make up the difference by working twice as hard with less money. We are stretched thin. How long will this last?Maybe my expectations were too high. I believed that if I designed a terrific website, the people in charge of funding our ministry would find a way to fund this new, terrific part of our minstry. My job was to create, their job was to fund. I would like to say that the money people have succeeded in doing the bare minimum of keeping our website online, but that isn’t entirely true. Yes, the website is online. But we are terribly understaffed. Three-quarters of the website have not been updated since we launched the site earlier this year. I just can’t believe that I am supposed to design the site, edit all the content, post everything, and on top of that, go out and raise money to keep it online. I can’t do all of that!;We are in a vicious cycle. Our online store is not bringing in enough money to pay for a new staff person. The reason our store is not bringing in enough money is that our “shipping department” is a part-time intern. We can’t hire someone else because we don’t have the money; we can’t get the money unless we hire another person.

Where is God in all of this? I ask myself this because I do not know.;

One thing I never want to be is a victim. The last person I ever want to be is a victim–someone who feels damned by the world, helpless and hopeless. Yes, people can screw you over. Bad things happen, but nothing is worse than just giving up and bitching about how everyone else did this to you.I will not be a victim. So what do I need to do? I need to look to solve all of my problems myself. I cannot expect anyone to provide more employees for the website. I need to set up a dynamic, exciting internship program for the studio. This will give me more bright minds to run such a big website. Not only will I have to set up the internship program, I will also have to find a way to fund it as well. This might mean I have to create posters to sell on the website. Whenever anyone buys a poster, all the money goes right back into the website.A year ago, when I first heard the news that one of our founders was charged with sexual abuse, I knew that I would have to be an unmovable source of strength within our organization. I would not let a very good organization collapse because of accusations that we don’t even know are true. But here I am, frustrated beyond belief, wondering if it’s worth seeing this organization through. What will happen if we make it through? Will I still have no staff?