Leap Of Faith

Gallery
Rough Terrain
Can eight days in the wilderness change anything for a group of troubled teens from a decaying D.C. detention center?

"That's a good workout," Jerry says.

Isaac nods.

"But never again," Jerry says. "Never [expletive] again."

AFTER TWO NIGHTS OF CAMPING AT THE GRAND CANYON, the group caravans into the southeast corner of Utah to launch a four-day rafting trip along the San Juan River. It's an experiment in absolute self-sufficiency: The group must carry its own food and water supply and make do without showers, mirrors, clocks, television and, perhaps most significantly, toilets.

Every night, when landing at a given campsite, John carries a poop bucket from the raft. He reminds everyone that they must use it to avoid leaving a waste footprint in such a pristine place. One morning, while conducting a campsite cleanup, John heads to the communal toilet -- implanted in a thicket for privacy -- and dumps ashes atop the community's, uh, productivity. "This is a job I just don't feel comfortable assigning to anybody else," he says, with a burdened sigh.

Then, walking back to the others, John spots a sign of disobedience. A blackened stool on a rock. He groans and laughs, then inverts a plastic bag, as one might do when walking a Great Dane, and transfers the waste to the bucket. He sanitizes his hands. Then he walks back, hops on one of Oak Hill's five rafts and organizes a fire line, so all supplies return to the rafts, ready for the next campsite. Even with more than 20 people around, few volunteer assistance. Jerome, crouched 10 yards away on the beach, watches and twists his hair, unmotivated. A few staff members hand John plastic coolers of food and water.

"Guys, do me a favor," he says to anybody willing to listen, in this case only a handful of adults. "See those straps over on that paddle? Want to take them off and pass them over here?"

John is used to packing up and moving on. His father, David, worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which meant that John spent part of his childhood in the Philippines, Brazil and Panama. The more places he lived, the less he noticed people's differences. Eventually, John says, he couldn't find a place, or group of people, that felt foreign to him.

At North Carolina State University, where he majored in natural resources and forestry, John lived on a dorm floor with international students. So, he traded in his pickup truck for a used airport shuttle van and organized trips for the foreign students to shop and see U.S. landmarks. He headed out most weekends with 16 strangers in the back seats and a coin jar up front for gas money donations.

He found religion a month into his freshman year at N.C. State. Walking from the dining hall to his dorm on a Sunday morning, he heard music -- a church's gospel choir -- wafting from a nearby building. On impulse, he returned to his room, put on a suit and crept through the church doors. Inside, the church hummed with movement and rhythm. He was the only white person, but everyone welcomed him. "That was the day I realized that I felt God's presence in a group of people," he says.

After that, John worked with on-campus ministry groups, finding a circle of friends through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical organization. Midway through college, he began volunteering at Calvary Baptist Church, on Eighth Street in Northwest Washington, leading underprivileged kids on spring break trips to Florida. He moved to Washington and became the church's full-time youth director after his graduation in 2002. Three years later, he was ordained a minister.

The way some athletes crave adrenaline, John craves the chance to see "grace" -- moments when those who most need help soften enough to receive it. When he watched television coverage of Hurricane Katrina, he jumped up from his couch in Washington, threw a raft into the back of his truck and drove with a friend 20 hours to Louisiana. For two days, he and his friend worked with volunteer firefighters, dragging dozens of stranded victims from New Orleans's flooded zones and transporting them to interstates or bridges, where they could be picked up by the National Guard.

People are inherently good, he believes, but just need a push to overcome the world's mess. Last year, John, already friends with several D.C. police officers, decided to become one himself. He wasn't naive about it. He knew officers were regarded as the enemy by the kids on Washington's street corners. But John wanted to overcome that mistrust. He wanted to reach kids who'd never step into a church. It wasn't until he was on patrol that he second-guessed himself and left the department for the job at Oak Hill.

When he won approval for the summer wilderness trips, John flew to Arizona to scout the area. First thing, he wanted a guidebook for the San Juan River, complete with notations about its rapids and camping areas. In Flagstaff that night, at 6:01, he knocked on the door of a wilderness outfitters store. The place had closed one minute earlier, but John pressed his face against the door and persuaded the young woman working to let him in.

John told the store's employee, Kelly Melsted, what he wanted. Kelly, 24, with wavy blond hair and piercing intensity, knew the San Juan well, she explained. She routinely led youth groups and tourists on trips along the river. The two talked for 20 minutes, and both felt immediate chemistry. Kelly volunteered to come with John on all of his summer trips -- yes, she could handle the inner-city kids, and, yes, she could meet him and his first group of rafters one month later at a gas station in Steamboat Canyon, Ariz. No, she wasn't crazy.

She had John convinced. When he left the store that night, he thought, "I just met my future wife."

A month later, they were on the river together, shepherding the first group of Oak Hill teens through the wilderness. One night, gusts of wind howled through camp. John tried to sleep, but the kids were making noise. He got out of his sleeping bag, slipped into some Carhartt work pants, strapped on a headlamp and told them to quiet down. An instant later, John spotted a wall of water rushing from higher elevation toward the campground; a flash flood had a dozen teens in its crosshairs.

He screamed to the group, "Up! Up! Up!" -- signaling them to higher ground. The rush of water hurled supplies from the campsite. John noticed one tent tumbling toward the river with such force that he feared somebody might be stuck inside. Kelly, on an opposite side of the campground, saw the same thing. While everyone else fled for cover, John and Kelly chased the tent, meeting at the water's edge.

John grabbed the tent and cut it open. It was empty. Water levels rose. John and Kelly crouched in the back of a raft, their only refuge from the wind and the water. Neither had a life jacket. "Please be with us," John prayed.

The bowline snapped, and their boat surged into the current. For 15 minutes, they barreled downstream, trying in vain to push the raft ashore. When they crashed into land, they sprinted for 15 minutes back to camp, thrashing through trees and brush so thick it left both bloodied. When the fear subsided and John tried to figure how it had all happened, he determined something critical about himself, and Kelly, and the nature of these summer trips. When they'd most needed it, they'd found grace.

Now, he's priming his current group for another day on the same river -- at this point a tame, low-level current that twists and dips but never threatens. Kelly stands next to him, having again joined the traveling party when it reached the San Juan. They plot the day's six miles of rapids. John wears board shorts and a lightweight, skintight Patagonia shirt printed with a modernist surf-wave design that runs across the chest. His feet, after a summer of marriage to flip-flops, show the crisscrossed tan lines of a Norwegian flag. All the camp food has left him gaunt, "like one of them overseas kids," Jerome observes. "Seventy-five cents feeds you for a year."

John has reveled in the weeks of back-country deprivation. And he's certain that, whether the kids know it or not, the trips are making a difference for them. He saw evidence of that during an earlier trip, when he'd sat along the bank of the San Juan with a boy he'd been longing to talk to for months. The kid was still mourning his older brother, who'd been shot in the head on the streets of D.C. It was the same homicide that had prompted John to give up police work. But, until they reached the wilderness, John and the victim's younger brother had never discussed the trauma they shared. At Oak Hill, the right opportunity had not presented itself. "Five minutes we talked, that's it," John says. "But that was all it took to deflate the pressure that had been building inside this kid. I don't know if he'd have opened up anywhere else."

Now John asks this last group of teenagers if anybody needs the communal toilet before he packs it back on the raft.

Nobody speaks up.

"If anybody else has to pop a squat, now is the time," John says. "Anybody have to drop the kids off at the pond? Take the family to the Super Bowl?

"Okay. Going once, going twice, sold till this afternoon."

ANOTHER MORNING, ANOTHER DAY ON THE RIVER. Jerome and the others head to their rafts in a dark mood. The night before, after most of the campers had gone to bed, John discovered several teens -- he won't say which ones -- smoking what looked like marijuana. John separated the kids involved, spoke to each and confiscated the stash. Those involved fear what they'll face: drug testing back at Oak Hill, and possible time added to their sentences. (It will turn out that the teens actually purchased oregano, a dubious sign for their street smarts but an encouraging sign for clean blood samples.)

Oak Hill travels in five rafts. Two, handled by John and Kelly, are loaded with supplies, and the remaining three ferry the volunteers and teens. Jerome's raft has been dubbed the Black Pearl by its captain, Barry Holman, a researcher with the city's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services who volunteered to be a chaperon. The raft makes its way downriver, thanks more to the current than any paddling by its crew of five. They embrace every opportunity to cause chaos. On previous days, the teens spread mud across their faces like war paint and engaged in water fights. Sometimes, they remained in their boats and splashed enemies with their paddles. Or they slipped from their boats, Navy SEAL-style, creeping through the water to attempt sneak-attack dunking missions. In all these contests, the Black Pearl had developed a formidable reputation for aggression.

But today, the Pearl -- crewed by Jerome, Jerry, Ricardo Minger, 14, and Kenny Garner, 16 -- falls so far behind the other rafts that it slips from sight. Its rafters turn into angry mutineers. When one stops paddling, others follow. "Just sort of went around and around, serially," Capt. Barry recalls later. "You know: 'I hate you.' 'You're not doing it.' 'Why aren't you paddling?' Insert the appropriate cuss words."

At one point, Kenny abandons ship and stands on a patch of rocks. Jerome, complaining about the "dirty water," ditches the boat, walks through the shallow water to a jutting shoreline and announces, arms crossed, "I ain't going."

Eventually, the Pearl becomes a ghost boat. Its teens have banded on the riverbank, preferring to walk rather than paddle. So, Holman paddles forward on his own.

The teens, wearing water shoes, walk over sharp rocks for a quarter-mile. Downriver, John, operating one of the supply boats, waits for them. By now, Holman is long gone. John gathers the discontented deserters and, for five minutes, doesn't move, giving the teens time to regain their composure. Even the walk had stoked their tempers. John doesn't say much. He reviews with them some basic paddle strokes and coaxes them to help paddle to the next campsite. It's that, or walk some more.

John wants Jerome and the others to learn about the natural consequences of the choices they make. Back at Oak Hill, Jerome's caseworker, too, often tells the teen that he needs to improve his decision-making. "What are the consequences when I do A-B-C?" Marcial Candido says he asks, paraphrasing his message.

In Jerome's case, his behavior has landed him at Oak Hill more than once. He insists this stint will be his last, that after his release from Oak Hill in December, he'll never get arrested again. Candido thinks he can do it, based in part on encouraging reports from Oak Hill teachers. Together, they're charting a path that could lead Jerome to community college.

Holman, too, is a believer in Jerome's potential. They've spent a great deal of time together during the trip, and Holman is impressed with the way Jerome expresses himself. He has the quick-witted patter of a radio deejay, says Holman, who thinks Jerome should pursue a communications major.

But Jerome's mother doubts whether he's capable of change. "He doesn't have a good side," she says.

When Jerome leaves Oak Hill, he'll likely move in with his father in Southeast Washington or his aunt, who lives in Adelphi. His caseworker hopes a new neighborhood can provide a fresh start.

Jerome already has a new faith. He arrived at Oak Hill as a Christian, but inside the detention center, he met a Muslim in his unit, somebody calmer than the other residents. He thought back to another Muslim he knew from his neighborhood, remembering his disciplined fasts. "I thought that was cool," Jerome says. "I guess I always took heed to Muslims." Curious to learn, he read the Koran. Soon, he joined a Muslim fraternity that comprises a quarter of Oak Hill's population. During the trip, Jerome sets aside time every day (though not always the requisite five times daily) to perform the ritual prayers. It gives him strength, he says.

Jerome and the other Black Pearl crew members are still at odds with one another when they return to the river the following day. Trouble surfaces again before they even get in the raft. Jerry won't buckle his life vest. Then he hesitates to board. Then he lays down his paddle. With the Pearl on the brink of another full-scale revolt, Holman offers up the captaincy -- the position at the boat's rear, responsible for steering and (when necessary) motivating the crew.

This time, Jerome jumps at the chance to lead. He shifts to the back of the raft, and, somehow, the Pearl finds karma. With his voice in a nonstop singsong, Jerome begins a series of paddling chants: "Two to the left! Two to the right! Left side forward! Right side forward!" His peers listen, and paddle.

This time, nobody abandons the Black Pearl.

THE GROUP CELEBRATES ITS FINAL NIGHT ON THE RIVER WITH A FEAST. Three or four adults, Kelly included, cook salmon fillets, hot dogs, chicken strips and skewers of shrimp over an open flame. Without being asked, Jerome joins them, taking responsibility for preparing the shrimp and pronouncing this "the best [expletive] cookout ever."

The smoke flies from the grill, turning faint curlicues in the air. Behind the makeshift kitchen, the teens assemble their tents -- they no longer need instruction -- scattering them along the soft tiers of sand that rest like a welcome mat in front of the jutting canyon cliffsides.

John prefers this spot on the San Juan to any other. Today, his campers saw blue herons and wild horses. Wearing life vests, they swam to a nook of pixelated rock opposite the campsite and jumped from a 10-foot cliff. Tomorrow will be Friday, the day the group returns to Oak Hill.

As dinner is nearing completion, John pulls Kelly from the kitchen crew. "Grab a hot dog," he tells her. "We're going for a hike."

They leave the campground and embark on a short swim across the river. Kelly, a little puzzled, follows John's lead. The pair climb the prettiest section of the red San Juan cliffside: first on a lazy incline along a narrow walkway some 30 feet above the river, and then on a sharp, upward turn, where they rise . . . rise . . . until they've hiked hundreds of feet up the mountain. Every few steps, John lights a miniature candle and places it on the ground, in a paper bag. When the pair turn around and gaze across the river, down to the campsite where they started, nine teens from Oak Hill appear no larger than flagsticks.

Standing on the beach campground, residents munch their dinners on reusable plastic plates. Several ask, "Yo, where did John and Kelly go?" Only the 24 candles, positioned in an upward arc along the mountain, betray their path. Jerome yells up at John, but draws no response. Raymond says, simply, "John crazy."

After some 30 minutes, John and Kelly descend. They're both wearing headlamps. Again, they dip into the river. Through the darkness, they dog-paddle back to the campsite and walk onto the beach. A curious crowd, all teens included, rushes them.

"Two things, guys, listen up," John tells everybody.

"First, if you're on dinner duty, finish up with the cleaning.

"Second, Kelly and I have decided to hang out for the rest of our lives with each other."

The engagement announcement hangs for a half-moment, and then the kids realize what it means. Ohhh, one teen says to Kelly. That's why you didn't want to be my boo!

"John!" says Maverick, a self-styled Casanova. "You proposed to my wife!"

Everybody laughs. The group, in a semicircle facing the couple, toasts with sparkling cider. And, for the next 10 minutes, a beachfront becomes a dance floor. The teens take turns showcasing dance moves.

Robert Sutton, an Oak Hill employee, leads the crowd through a medley of soul music. Kelly and John hold hands. Both have unbreakable grins. John starts sentences and can't finish them. Kelly tells the story, in gasps, of how it all happened: how John stopped close to the top of the cliff, where he'd hidden a bottle of wine earlier; how he said, in opening, "I figured out a way Friday doesn't have to happen;" how she, even at that moment, hadn't grasped his intentions. When he finally proposed, she tells the group, she turned breathless. She greeted the question with silence, must have felt like five minutes. She asked, Did you ask my dad?

John had tried, but couldn't get a cell signal.

Then she said "Yes." And then she started crying.

The next day, Kelly and John hop into a pickup truck and lead the pair of Oak Hill vans back to civilization, blazing through Navajo country toward the Phoenix airport. They've been engaged for 14 hours, and nobody knows this except nine teenagers and the volunteers with them. Most of John's friends aren't aware that Kelly exists. The couple have never enjoyed a dinner date. They don't know each other's musical tastes. Neither has met the opposite set of parents. Neither cares. The future is so untapped, so unformed, and they are heading straight into it, this uncharted territory where everything will feel like nothing they knew before.

"This is crazy," Kelly shrieks. "I can't believe I'm moving to D.C."

Maybe she'll start her own outdoors business, she doesn't know. Maybe they'll get married in the spring. Maybe she ought to fly out the following week, have dinner with John and his parents. That's when they can tell the folks their news.

"I just feel like screaming," Kelly says.

"Do you want to?" John says. "Should we?"

He rolls down the windows. The wind rips at the truck's thick contours. Two voices rise out of the truck and into the desert.

TWENTY MINUTES, AND THE TEENS WILL BE BACK AT OAK HILL. The white bus waits outside the BWI terminal. Isaac sits on the edge of the baggage claim carousel and bows his head. An adult hurries the kids onto the bus, and they board in a sullen, quiet line, heading straight to the back. Jerome feels tired. He shuts his eyes but can't sleep.

Raymond has already exploded with anger during a layover in St. Louis. As the group was waiting for its connecting flight to Baltimore, one of the chaperons approached a Southwest Airlines employee to request priority seating. Oak Hill's teens, she explained, needed the last few rows of the airplane. When the employee initially balked at the request, Raymond began cursing at the man and took an aggressive step toward him. He was nearly banned from boarding.

On the plane, the kids cursed some more. Two, in a final attempt to find female companionship, sat on opposite sides of a woman in Seat 9B before retreating, with groans, to join everybody else. "Can't you control them?" a flight attendant asked one staff member.

Several of the trip's chaperons could see the kids shutting down. Yvonne Doerre, who works for the D.C. Department of Mental Health, recognized, for the first time in eight days, the same stunted mumbles that typify her meetings with kids inside Oak Hill. "The trip, to me, was sort of like taking the kids to Mars," Doerre says later. "And I'm not sure how we bridge Mars to Oak Hill."

When the white bus finally rattles into the detention center, it's already 11 p.m. Endless coils of barbed wire gleam in the harsh fluorescent lighting. The whole place stinks of tar from nearby construction. "Man, [expletive] Oak Hill," Raymond says.

The other teens are silent. They don't get much of a chance to say goodbye to the adults who have been with them for the trip. Instead, they are hurried through the gates and into their units, where they will be locked in their rooms for the night. All their luggage has to be searched for contraband.

John doesn't witness the dispirited return to Oak Hill. He's driving across the country in a rented U-Haul, rafting gear in tow. Several days from now, he'll meet with the teens individually and chat with them about the trip. What did they most enjoy? What would they have done differently? What did they learn? He hopes this trip planted seeds for change; he'll tell the kids it did. But, for now, the teens are left with their own thoughts.

Jerome would have stayed out in the wilderness forever if he'd had the option, he says later. He loved "getting up at 5 in the morning, hearing coyotes." The trip felt real, he thinks. It provided risks and challenges, nothing fake. He had fun, too. He survived things he'd never done before: flying, hiking for hours in the heat, paddling through rapids. "I'm from the streets," he says, "and I ain't used to being in no woods, no boat."

Coming back messed him up, though, he says. Life inside Oak Hill is easier if you don't think much about what you're missing. When he's asked if the experience changed him, he looks straight ahead and answers immediately. No way, he says. Because he's back at Oak Hill. And what's the point of eight days of freedom if you end up exactly where you started?

Chico Harlan is a staff writer for the Daily Telegraph in Sydney. He can be reached at chicoharlan@gmail.com. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 10 a.m.