Happy Retro Day! This is for anyone who has moved away from friends or watched their friends leave them behind. (I’ve been there, too.) I hope you find this helpful and encouraging. Enjoy! ~Halee

by RTF Staff Writer Catey Yuen

I’m a social person. I’ve always had a lot of friends since I was really young. But when I moved from California to Colorado two summers ago, all of that changed.

When you’ve lived in the same state your whole life, it’s easy to stay in contact with people. After all, most of the people you know, you’ve known for a while. Almost all of my friends came from the church I’d been going to for years. It required very little for me to meet new people and still hang out with the old ones.

Then we moved and it all changed. (more…)

Hey everybody!

Over the past couple of years we’ve gotten a lot of questions from you guys. Questions about relationships, self-injury, sex, suicide — you name it. Each time we hear from you, we remember why this site is here — because of awesome people like you.

So we just want to remind you that if you have a question, we’d love to hear from you. No topic is off-limits. We would also love to share your question on the site, but you can tell us if you’d rather that we didn’t (we will never share your real name).

So go ahead and unload your problems in the contact box or email us at realteenfaith at gmail.com. Just put “advice” in the subject line.

Drop by every Friday to check out this new feature! Until then, we’re looking forward to your questions!

Halee, BJ, and E.

PS – We’re especially looking for your relationship questions for February!

Last spring I became very good friends with this girl.  We found out that we had the same taste in movies – dorky superhero movies all the way!  Superhero cartoons were also pretty great.  We would hang out and watch a movie, then talk.  Slowly we started doing other stuff together, like meeting to go on walks and just talk.  It was a really nice, really close friendship.  Of course, there are these things called “feelings” that tend to creep in and make a mess out of things.  Through all of our time together I began to have these feelings.  She, on the other hand, did not.

Relationships between guys and girls can be very frustrating at time.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about relationships it’s that guys have this habit (in general) of falling for our good female friends.  If we spend a lot of time with you girls, hang out with you a lot, there is this good chance that feelings are going to blossom in our hearts.

This girl and I had a lot of talks about where we stood, and what was going on between us.  As we got to talking we learned that there was a lot of miscommunication going on between the two of us.  When we had started hanging out we had a brief convo where we said it was just as friends, and that’s how it had truly started.  That’s not where it had stayed for me, though.  For her, thinking it was only as friends we began to act almost as if we were dating.  After the fact we even both admitted that it felt like we had been dating for a couple weeks.

There’s one thing that we discussed, and would have helped us a lot if we had implemented it earlier.  It’s something I really want to encourage opposite gender friends to do: Limit one on one alone time with friends of the opposite gender!  Girls: spending alone time with guys tends to send them this signal that you’re interested in them, whether intentional or not.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t hang out with them alone on occasion, but I would stress that you’re never alone alone.  If you have a great friend of the opposite gender catch up with them over coffee or something.  Sitting alone in the dark basement with the fireplace burning and talking is not the best idea – it can easily lead to miscommunication – trust me on this one!

I really want to stress that communication is key to any relationship, friendship or otherwise.  Talking about where you stand with someone of the other gender might seem a little awkward at times, but if you don’t feel comfortable sharing your feelings with the person you want to date then perhaps they’re not the person that you should be dating.

by Judi Weiss, RTF Staff Writer

Are we “friends”?

Friend is a tricky word. I learned long ago, you can’t just rely on people. More so than often, they can be “friends” not friends. (more…)

Take it all

For Mr. Tracy, by Judi Weiss, RTF Staff Writer

Trust in the Lord. It sounds easy enough. Especially when everything is going good. The road is even. But what about when a crisis comes your way?

My youth minister, Mr. Tracy, was diagnosed with Hodgkinʼs Lymphoma, known as Hodgkinʼs Disease, in June of 2007. Hodgkinʼs Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system. A type of cell called the Reed-Sternberg cell is what marks it.

He began seven months of Chemotherapy then a month of radiation. After the treatment, he received what heʼd been waiting for, the clean bill of health.

This past September, the small family was hit with another crisis. The cancer had returned. With his wife Robin behind him, Mr. Tracy began his one month of radiation for the second time. (more…)

My Friend, Sarah

by B. J. Hamrick, RTF Staff Writer

When I think of the word bold, I think of Sarah’s red, flaming hair. But beneath her red, flaming hair was a person – someone just like you and me – someone who struggled to be bold in other ways.

“I want to stand up for Jesus at school,” she told us one night during camp devotions. “I want to make a difference.”

She talked about Columbine that night. She talked about the kids who stood up for Jesus when two killers asked the question, “Do you believe in God?” Those kids answered, “Yes”.

Sarah said she wanted to answer yes too. She wanted to see God change lives.

But seeing God change lives wasn’t new to Sarah. Everyone who knew her realized that she loved kids and spent every summer in the projects with them – playing games, telling Bible stories, and simply caring about their lives.

The summer of 2000 was no different. Sarah spent nearly every day teaching kids about God. In between teaching, she gave away extra lunches she packed for the homeless. (more…)

The Power of Friendship

By Jamin Goecker, RTF Staff Writer

Do you have a powerful friendship? Can you rate it by how many texts you get ending with LOL? What can be expected from a strong friendship anyway?

Writers Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were friends throughout their lives. They critiqued each other’s works which later became known as The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

William Wilberforce and William Pitt helped end the slave trade in the British Empire. (more…)

Keeping Her Word

B.J. Hamrick, RTF Staff Writer

I’ve always told my sister, Molly, that I would write about her. She’s always told me that if I do, I’ll be the one who ends up being written about – on the obituary page of the local newspaper. At least the police will know who to look for when my bloated, lifeless body floats to the top of the local river tomorrow.

It will. Because Molly always keeps her word. (more…)