I’ve been putting this post off the entire week and weekend because I knew it could get really long if I let it. In fact, I’m going to skip the pictures for this one just so I can get this much posted.
I have yet to pick a word which can sum up the week. Most of the youth say “awesome” or “amazing” but I just can not use words like that. In all honesty, last week was HARD. The past two years we had our old youth pastor and his wife and I get along quite well. We were roomies for one year and for both years, hung out with one another quite a bit. This year, I was the only female chaperone. It made it lonely and stressful at times. Don’t get me wrong, we had awesome and amazing moments but as a whole, I’m not sure.
See, I don’t like confrontation. And when something arose this week, all signs pointed to me as the responsible adult. I had to listen to the complaint, decide how to handle it and then actually handle it. Yeah, I had to be an actual “youth leader” this week.
And it wasn’t easy.
There was the
“naked girls in the bathroom” complaint,
“your youth was throwing up in our bathroom and stole our trash can” complaint,
“your kids need to throw their cups and plates away” complaint,
“don’t push around the chairs because you might break the legs” complaint,
“that girl is mouthing things to our boys” complaint,
“her shorts are too short” complaint,
“they’re being too loud and i’m the bus driver and need my beauty sleep” complaint.
Plus add in acting as a alarm clock in the morning, the buzz-kill at lights-out time at night and the one and only female counselor for all 15 or so girls, well, I was a frazzled mess.
I think it was Monday night I just cried into my pillow wondering why in the world I had left my family and spent a ton of money to make up for my time off to come do this.
Of course it’s clear that God changed lives while we were there and there needed to be some female chaperone there. But I really think it wasn’t just the kids that grew. I learned how to accept complaints and deal with them, how to gently correct someone, how to get things done that needed done. I really think I grew a little more backbone this week.
So that’s all about me.
As for the week, it was normal camp stuff…breakfast, morning service, bible study, lunch, rec time, dinner and evening service. My favorite times were on Thursday afternoon. The first was during our water day. The kids basically rotated through 8 games that had to do with water. Everyone got soaked. They decided to steal my camera and dump two buckets of water on me. Then I was the target of water guns in the next game. I was dripping by the time we left but that was definitely the best time I’d had all week. Seems sort of backwards right? After that we all went and played a game of ultimate frisbee and that was so much fun! I’ve never played before and we were all in such a good mood and everyone was playing together and I really think it was a bonding moment for all of us.
Thursday evening Todd Agnew stayed up on stage singing so long Dave Edwards didn’t even get to speak. We all just worshiped God for like 2 hours. It was an amazing time.
We did have some drama though. We had one girl who was hyperventilating at service after crying so hard and had to be taken to the hospital. We also had four girls who ended up with the stomach virus. That was fun. I was woken up at 6:15 one morning and had to go down 3 flights of stairs just to listen to someone puke a few times all while trying to decide whether to call her mom or WHAT to do with her. I’m telling you, this adult thing SUCKS (sorry, Mom, it just does).
One funny thing though was our “STOP, DROP AND ROLL” moments. Somehow it got started at camp and a leader would call out really loudly stop, drop and roll and the ENTIRE youth group would drop to the ground and then roll over a time or two. It made for some HILARIOUS moments when there was a large crowd. I think other youth groups either that we were crazy or a little jealous we had something cool to do. A couple other kids in other groups started doing it with us. It was kind of funny. I think the majority just thought we were a tad immature and maybe we all are!
I’ll try to get some pictures up soon because the ones from water day are just great. Thankfully the girl who took my camera actually took some pictures.
In closing I can say I’m glad I went. The speaker and Todd Agnew were really good (although he did spend the entire time only singing like 3 songs). I saw people make decisions for Christ. I even saw a leader completely step up and come out of their shell through the week. I grew as a person and got to experience God move like I hadn’t in awhile. And to me, that’s worth it.
The whole “confrontation” thing makes me nervous. It does sound like it was all part of His plan though, especially if yoiu learned how to handle it all. Hope you can look back on it and say it was “awesome”!
Jen’s last blog post..Under Construction
You’re a better woman than me. I can’t handle doing the youth camp thing. I can’t handle all the drama and how obnoxious teenagers are. Surely we weren’t that obnoxious?
Anyway, sounds like God moved and kids’ lives were changed and maybe yours too.
Daphne’s last blog post..Day 14: Growing a little weary and really want a coffee with a side of steak
I’ve always kept in mind what our previous youth pastor said…he could handle youth acting “stupid” because they were teenagers but he could never handle it when adults acted that way..they knew better. So I guess I keep in mind that even though THEY think they’re all grown up, they’re still learning a lot about life and social skills and them acting that way is just expected. My job is to help them through each “drama” and show them the right path.
I felt like I was there with you….because I follow you on Twitter! You did such a good job of tweeting that week!!!!
happy pow!
McMommy’s last blog post..POW! Let’s get it on!