The good, the bad, and the muddy

Well, I survived. All in all I'd say it was a really great weekend. There's so much that I've learned and grown from this weekend that I'm not really sure where to begin. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't what I was used to. I come from a camping/retreat background that's very laid-back, chill out with the kids, and have fun, but Laurelville was a very high energy, going all the time, have fun with the kids experience. As soon as we pulled up, the program staff bombarded our van in costumes and started getting the kids pumped up and passed out candy. Thankfully the entire weekend wasn't steeped with that kind of energy because I'm not so sure I would've made it.

We dropped off the girls and then the guys headed out to find our rooms. It turned out that we had two rooms for 7 kids and two adults. Mike and I both staked out our rooms and let the kids come to us. At first I was really nervous/disappointed because the kids that I actually knew well and talked to all bee-lined straight for Mike's room. It's not that I was jealous, but it just made me nervous because it meant I would have to spend the weekend getting to know new kids. I guess I wanted to be pushed, right? Added on top of this was the fact that the rooms ended up being pretty racially segregated and I ended up with three black kids. Again, noticing this is not coming from a racist standpoint, but from a fact-of-life standpoint. Sure, that's going to make me nervous because I'm not sure how well I am going to be able to relate to these kids.

It turns out, though, that my fears were pretty unfounded. I actually have come to realize that Mike and I really balance each other out. He is the kind of person who is all about getting down and wrestling with the kids and getting them pumped about everything. I am the kind of person who tries to get to know the kids by talking to them and just hanging out. The guys in my room were pretty skeptical of the guys in the other room constantly jumping all over the place and wrestling and throwing the football around. At one point I tried to get my guys to go over and hang out with the other guys because it seemed like they were having all the fun, and they said to me "We're more mature than they are." So, my room was the chill room while Mike had the rough-play room. But then again I'm writing this and thinking that maybe I should have done more to make sure my guys had a good time. Maybe deep down they would have rather been more like the other room and they were really just being a reflection of me and my personality. It goes back to the principle of whether you are going to let yourself be a thermometer or a thermostat. Am I going to set the mood of the room, or just react to it. In the end, I think that like I said we had a good balance. If my guys wanted to go and wrestle around with the other guys they did, and at one point some of Mike's guys came and talked to me about some more serious stuff. And I did get to help Mike take on all 7 guys which was pretty sweet. But then again what happens at Laurelville stays at Laurelville.

The next day was the mud and the football. I tried to tell Mike and the guys that I had absolutely no football skills, but they didn't realize that I was being serious until I tried to catch a pass and it just hit me in the chest and bounced away. But, I played anyway. The counselors had a devotion one morning about trying to make sure the kids have an adventure rather than just a trip. Having an adventure at Laurelville meant getting muddy and playing football, and I was totally prepared to step out of my comfort zone to make sure that happened. When they did finally realize how bad I was, they gave me a quick tutorial on tackling and told me I was restricted to defense. I made one pretty good tackle (always fun to take down middle school kids into the mud) and we ended up winning the championship. I'm pretty excited that I will have a piece of that youth group history for forever.

I think I realized a lot about myself this past weekend even though I was there for the kids. Through coming to understand the balance that Mike and I had throughout the "adventure" my eyes were opened to the fact that I simply can't do it all by myself. I think that sometimes I try to use my introverted-ness as an excuse to shut other people out. But I need other people, even if they bug me sometimes. Even when they leave their dirty dishes in the sink, play music until late at night and early in the morning, leave their dirty clothes around the room, make snide comments, constantly ask me for things, or just are always there. I need these people because they have something that I don't. They have gifts that I will never have. But at the same time, I think I realize that other people need me. I have gifts that no one else has.

Another thing I realizes this past weekend was just that I need to be more willing to ask the hard questions of people. After each time the speaker spoke we would go back to the room and have cabin time to talk about what he said. Mike led most of the discussion and I was just simply amazed at his ability to ask these kids the tough questions. I think so often our culture shys away from these taboo questions because they're not polite. The kids didn't seem affronted, though. They were actually really into trying to answer them and learning more about what Mike had to offer as answers. It was truly amazing to watch. I also realized that there are kids out there who just don't know the stories. It was great to hear how they responded to hearing the speaker tell the Bible stories that I am so familiar with and they are hearing for the first time. That just reinforces something that I had been trying to wrestle with earlier. I am in charge of next month's youth group devotional time and I really felt it on my heart just to tell the old familiar Bible stories in a new light. I was skeptical of how it would be received or what the kids might think, but now I feel like this is the direction I need to take. What that exactly will look like I'm not sure yet, but I am sure that God will continue to guide me if I allow Him to.

The best moment of this weekend, though, was when one of the kids was walking beside me after the twenty minutes of prayer time that the program offered as a sort of "altar call" time and he looked up at me and said "I think tonight was the first time I'm actually a Christian." What a beautiful moment. We talked a little about what this meant, but we were cut short. I want to make sure I catch up with him this week sometime and continue to answer any questions or talk about any fears he might have. What a beautiful moment. What an amazing God we have.