Cleland was enjoying the freedom that only a bicycle can bring when you are little, and your world is still small. It only lasted a few minutes before a gunshot rang out. Cleland had never heard the sound before, but he knew it meant danger. He dropped his bicycle and hightailed it the block or two to his home.
“My feet never moved faster in my life,” Cleland, now 19, said.
The incident was a rarity for Cleland, whose mom kept him close to home. Growing up, he lived in an island-like setting, a quiet street of mostly senior citizens and a few young families. The blocks around him, though, were not so calm, as gangs, protecting their turf, created chaos.
Home wasn’t his only neighborhood refuge. Several blocks away from his house was the Agape Center, the Chicago headquarters for the Inner City Ministry of Cru®. The center operated S.A.Y. Yes!®, an after-school program offering mentoring, tutoring, Bible instruction, life skills development, plus games, crafts, sports and snacks.
Cleland’s initial contact with the center came while attending its annual summer day camp as a first-grader. The atmosphere, he said, was vastly different from the Mildred I. Lavizzo Elementary School he attended down the street from his home.
“Lavizzo wasn’t the safest, but the Agape Center, it felt really safe,” Cleland said. “I was really nervous as a kid, but the environment was so welcoming, and everybody was just so kind. I just got attached really quickly.”
‘… the Agape Center, it felt really safe,’ Cleland said. ‘I was really nervous as a kid, but the environment was so welcoming, and everybody was just so kind.’
The youngster quickly connected with Wade Norman, who became his mentor and discipler.
“In my head, I was his kid before he had kids,” he said. “We used to always hang out and things like that. I used to always help with Bible lessons he was planning. We went out to get food. He used to teach me things. He made me grow as a person.”
Over time, Cleland was ready to teach Mr. Wade a few things, too. During their study of Philippians, Cleland became so engrossed that he decided to turn the tables on his mentor.
“I took notes, read ahead and taught you,” the then-preteen Cleland told Wade during a conversation at Chicago’s 2018 Vision Dinner.
“It was the sweetest thing,” Wade said. “He like pulls out his binder. He has all these observational notes. I’m like, ‘Whoa, what in the world?’ He kept telling me the whole day, ‘Mr. Wade, I read ahead, I read ahead, I read ahead. You better be ready, you better be ready.’”
The lessons Cleland learned at the Agape Center served him well, especially after his family moved out of the neighborhood the year he entered high school. That meant he no longer had a way to get to the center, which offered Bible studies for high schoolers.
“I was always planning on coming back, to help out and stuff like that,” he said. “But it just didn’t go that way, and so my whole high school life, I wasn’t in contact with them or anything like that, which was really sad. I thought about them so much.”
Last year, after graduating from high school, Cleland got a car and began attending summer Bible studies back at the Agape Center until he headed off to college at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study either computer engineering or business.
“I’ve been in contact ever since,” he said.
This summer, the Agape Center hired Cleland to work with its teen employment program. It was an opportunity to bond with students just like the Agape staff had done with him. He also served alongside Wade as they each mentored a teen.
“This just feels like a big circle, like the cycle continues,” he said with a smile as big as his heart. “I know Mr. Wade was (enrolled) at the Agape Center, and they molded him, and now it feels like he’s doing the same thing for me. I never really had a passion before for anything, but after working this summer at the Agape Center, I found out that I love working with kids. I always wanted to work there. I got to work my dream job when I was there. I’ve always wanted to work at the Agape Center, and I finally had the chance.”
‘I know Mr. Wade was (enrolled) at the Agape Center, and they molded him, and now it feels like he’s doing the same thing for me.’
When Cleland returned to UIUC for his sophomore year a few weeks ago, he switched his major to Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he plans to pursue a degree in sociology. He is also considering a possible career in teaching. Cleland also heads back after marking another major spiritual milestone when several members of the Chicago team took him to a waterfall where he was baptized for the first time, an experience he described as a “cleansing moment.”
“My whole life, I’ve been going off — I’ve been running off — lessons that they taught me. Mr. Wade had a big impact on my life.”
‘My whole life, I’ve been going off — I’ve been running off — lessons that they taught me. Mr. Wade had a big impact on my life.’
The same can be said for the impact he’s had on the Normans.
“It has been an incredible gift to serve alongside Cleland and watch him develop the next generation of young men,” said Bethany Norman, Wade’s wife also serving on the Cru team. “He has always been level-headed and servant-hearted, but the consistency in which he desires to invest in youth and the thirst he has for continuing to grow in Christ is truly invigorating!”
