It's been several weeks since I have written here, and to be honest, I'm not really sure where to start. I've only been home for about maybe a 1/3 of the time since I last blogged, and a LOT has happened in both being home and being away. I guess I'll start from the most recent and work my way backwards.
The usual summer happenings include the Midnight Driveway Trap (or approximately 10:30 or 11 o'clock trap) and discovering things about myself. The latest discovery was that I'm a ninja nerd. And no, this does not mean that I am a nerd about ninjas, or that I am a ninja who just happens to be a nerd. It actually means that my nerdiness is subtle and comes when you least expect it. My nerdiness is a ninja. It's not really that valuable to know, I suppose. But it fascinated me a little bit. The way that I am a nerd is never really outwardly apparent, even to me. Yet I do know for a fact that I am a nerd. [like when I find my old box of Pokemon, Digimon, and Yu-Gi-Oh cards in my closet and am SUPER excited about them..] It's quite stellar.
On other notes, the summer also has included Hogsmeade, sidewalkchalking peoples' driveways about mavericks or young giraffes, and then naturally, grad parties. I've developed a system for grad parties. You show up, you say hello to whoever's party it is, depending on how many people they have to mingle with, you may stand and visit with them for a little bit. Let them offer you food, and say you'll take a look in a bit. After they go off to mingle with others, you venture and find their shrines of themselves. You peer at the shrines for awhile, looking through all of the pictures, and you choose your "favorite (insert name of whoever's party it is)" picture. after you carefully observe and pick, you are probably done observing the shrine, and can venture to food. when you go to food, you survey ALL of the food before taking any, and only take whatever is your FAVORITE of the food, there. Unless of course, they have cheesy potatoes, in which case you must take some. after getting food, you find the people you know at the party, sit and mingle with them for x amount of time, and then you find the person, say your goodbyes and venture onward to the next party or homeward. That is my general layout for grad parties. Speaking of, my party is this Saturday. I wish I could be excited, but I still have to make MY shrine, and clean. Such excessive amounts of cleaning.
But alas, so that's right now, but the past two..or..no, three weeks have been astoundingly all over the place. Last week, I was in Hawthorne, New Jersey for Mission Trip with SHINE catholic work camp. I'm not really entirely sure where to start with that one. I had been to a SHINE work camp the summer before and it kind of changed my perspective. I had painted inside of a house the previous year, and I met girls from Wisconsin that stayed my best friends as long as our distance allowed us to. But as time went on, I realized that probably never being able to see each other again puts a big damper on a friendship. And it slowly fades out. Unfortunately, I find this damper to be similar to how my experience AT shine this year was. It's not that I didn't have a good time, because I did. But it was more of a challenge to enjoy, and if I had not been in such a good place before the week started, it would have had great potential to be a truly terrible week. We left the church at 3 in the morning on Monday, and we drove. I COULD NOT SLEEP ON THE BUS on the way there. So, needless to say, I started off the week quite grumpers.
So, my work group and first impressions. I try not to base relationships with people on my first impressions of them. The one kid in my group, I figured him to be rather cynical but I can work with that due to the fact my sarcasm is excessive and abundant. The one girl in my group, she was sketchy. A little too flirtatious, and a little too full of herself and her existence. And the other boy, he seemed a little too interested in things I couldn't relate to. But these were all just first impressions. And to be honest, I'm really not sure where my impressions of them went after that. The kids from Jersey..well. They took their first impressions and ran with them. They asked me all sorts of questions about things I had never had anything to do with and really don't want to have anything to do with. No, I don't care if you can buy weed legally. No, I don't know any party games because I don't party or drink. No, I don't hook-up with people and YES I am waiting until I'm married. It's really not that uncommon. And yes, sorry, I do like being religious. No, not all youth groups go out and party on the weekends. Like, really? I mean, these kids were nice kids. They really were. And by the end of the week, I really liked them quite a bit. But, the fact that their society makes it so that they find all those things NORMAL and I'M the weird one because I don't participate in those things..like is society really that corrupt? It absolutely boggled my mind. I mean, I know some people live like that, but the fact that it's the NORM there..kind of slayed me. But all in all, I guess I was glad I got to work with those two. They helped me realize how happy I am with what I believe and who I am, and how I'm not afraid to tell people. It's what I believe in..I'm not going to stand back and just lie or not answer peoples' questions just because I'm afraid of what they'll think. If they're judging what I do or who I am, then they're probably not worth my time.
Then the kid from Wisconsin. Yes, in fact, he was quite cynical. But I'm not really sure. He kind of had a major influence on my week. Not just because we worked together, but because his opinions were so hardcore. He DID NOT want to be there for the week. Everything about the week was compared to this other mission trip that he usually went on and wanted to be on this summer, but did not get to because his youth minister assigned him to THIS trip instead. But, honestly, I kind of feel like I made a difference to him and he didn't go away from the week completely hating it. At the beginning of the week, he could not like a single thing. He hated everything about what occurred during program at nights, and everything about the house we were painting, and about the staff for the camp and everything. But then, by the end of the week, rather than saying all the things he hated, he was talking about the few things he LIKED. While it was still very few things, it made all the difference. Transferring from listing all things hated, to listing few things liked is a big step. And we joked, and we talked, and I realized you don't have to be exactly like someone to get along with them. You can be totally different and impact each others' lives in a weird way that maybe neither of you are really aware of unless you look for it. [Which obviously I do, because I'm so passionate about people.] But, all in all, yes, my first impression on him was very accurate. He was cynical, but I could work with it. And we did.
But, the week overall. The work we were doing was a bit frustrating because a) we used ladders and always had to have a spotter so I was basically just ladder spotting all week. and b) because a lot of the time, I didn't feel needed. the family had a pool and the one woman and her son were out swimming in their pool watching us paint all week. not to mention, everytime they went to the side of the pool, they got on their blackberry phones. but, it was a lesson to learn I guess. Deacon Ron was talking to us about how sometimes we might not feel needed, but one of the hardest things about being a Christian is accepting a gift. We were doing this for this family, and they had to accept it..so that had to be somewhat challenging in a different way for them. Just because you can swim in your pool doesn't mean you can get on tall ladders and paint your house. So, it was kind of important. The work was frustrating but it tested my patience and taught me a lesson. Just because you don't always FEEL needed, doesn't mean that you are not. I think that's a good general lesson in life. Need is..complicated. Like, feeling needed isn't really about the other person at all. It's very much inside yourself. But actually need is two-sided. The side of the person who needs you, and the side where you just stand there and receive that need. If you try to compensate and put feeling into your side, it throws off the need scale and it has to reset it, and someone must zero the scale once again. So, being needed is a weird concept, and when it comes to service it is even harder to grasp. But, sorry if what I just ranted about need made no sense to you.
Then there was the program part of the week. All-in-all, I was a little disappointed. The theme was "olympics" and they had skits and stuff, but it was significantly more unorganized than it had been the previous year, and there was no gym space to play large group games so a lot was lost in translation. At least, for me. It was hard to not compare it to itself from the previous year. But a program can only be as much as you get out of it, so I spent the week trying to glean as much as I could from the week. And, this week actually did teach me a lot. Firstly, I realized that this week wasn't necessarily about me. It was about being there and witnessing to other people the person that I am and the life that I lead. Like, maybe the people in my work group needed to hear that not everyone does the things they do. But more importantly for the week, I realized that I'm graduated, and leaving Lifeteen. Like, Lifeteen has been my youth group, and I've been "that youth group girl" for the past 4 whole years. But there are people coming up from middle school, or just staring to get involved, and maybe it was important that I be there to show that you never really outgrow it. You can be in a totally different place or not enjoying things but it's important to keep a positive attitude and keep your personality throughout these things. It was important that I was there for the younger girls from our church, and to be encouraging and let them do crazy things like shove me onstage to sing I Gotta Feeling or dumb things like that that just really honestly do make a difference. Just by being there, I probably made a difference to people. Even if not to any of the kids, I know the adults appreciated me being there and being a leader and it was really awesome to be able to do that for them, and for my church. Realizing all of this helped me to grow in my faith even more.
Not to mention, how much I get from other people during experiences like this. Weeks like last week, or weeks like LEAD (God Camp #1) remind me why I want to go into youth ministry so badly. I got to be there and witness what God was doing in the lives of all of those other people, and I got to pray for them and it was amazing. Frankly, I didn't really get to feel God all that much working in my life last week. But I knew that I already had Him in a way many many people cannot know or comprehend yet, and I got to see Him moving or beginning to move in the hearts of a lot of the people there. I got to see their faces as their lives changed slowly in front of them, and I got to know God through each of them, even if just by watching them. And yes, maybe I sound like a creeper, but it's true. Being there around these people opening their hearts, and maybe playing even the tiniest smallest part in it by being there and living my faith..was totally awesome and made all the bad things about the week go away. It was absolutely amazing and made me so excited for becoming a youth minister because THAT'S WHAT YOUTH MINISTERS GET TO DO ALL THE TIME. Maybe not that simply, or glorified at all, but I know that there is a lot in store for me in the life I have laid out ahead of me. And I don't have to know about all of it. Having it be uncharted is TOTALLY AWESOME and excites me a lot. Getting to trust the future is one of the most terrifying and most rewarding things I could possibly do.
But that was just last week. God Camp #1..is..something totally and completely different. LEAD (or Leadership, Evangelization, And Discipleship) was a totally breathtaking and awesome week. People always go to things like Younglife camp (no disses on young life..promise), or their retreats for a weekend and come back saying OH MY GOSH, HOW THAT CHANGED MY LIFE. Well, I'm not saying that their lives didn't change, but more often than not..they had a good experience. Their faith showed them a part of themselves they had never seen before, and suddenly, they felt different. But seeing how different you can be and actually BEING different are totally different things. And, your life changing, that's rare. Usually, the only thing that might change is YOU..and you are the only one with the choice of changing your life. So, you can say all you want that a week changed your life. But the only thing changing is you.
Point of that rant is, that LEAD changed me. And no, I'm not like a totally radically different person now or anything. I'm pretty much still the same. However, I can say, at least from the perspective of my own head, that I am arguably different. As any of you that read this know, or any of you that I talked to before leaving for LEAD, I was kind of super nervous. And looking back on it, I feel kind of dumb for having been nervous. I mean, logically it was the proper emotion to have, but..the way that the week went down leads me to believe that if I had known anything about the week beforehand, I would've been heading to Steubenville a bit sooner. But, if I HAD been excited, I don't think the week would've gone nearly as well as it did. Does that make any sense at all? Looking back on it, I say wow, I should've been excited and not nervous because the week was awesome. Yet if I had gone into the week excitedly, I don't think I would've enjoyed it or it had been as amazing. Walls were broken down, friends were made, perspective was changed. I met people that I hope I never have to let go of, and I gained things into who I am that I hope I never lose. They said, we should come away from this week, and maybe right now, it IS the best week of our lives..but if we got proper things out of it, it is only the beginning and new "best weeks of our lives" will continue to pop up as time goes on. And, I think coming out of that week, I truly and honestly believe that.
So, yes, thus far, LEAD has been the best week of my life. It seems like there's so much that happened during it that I'm not sure it's even able to be recapped in a blog post. But because I am as mental as I am about writing/expressing things/being able to go back and read the blogs, I figured I should try.
I turned off my phone for the week. It was the first time I had done that..pretty much since I had gotten my phone and it was amazing. I didn't even care about turning it on except to a) tell people about the amazing things that were happening in my week. and b) on sunday to turn it on so that I could start talking to all the LEAD kids who I was missing already. it sounds slightly pathetic I suppose, that I would be missing them already after several hours without them, but it made perfect sense to all of us. There was so much of myself that the kids who were there that week got to see that I had never shown to anyone. Not even myself. I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I opened myself up to a whole new array of possibilities and opportunities and so did everyone else that was there that week. They all wanted to be a part of my experience, and I wanted to be a part of theirs, too. In turn, it made for one big conglomeration of all of our hearts and experiences and changes to make one experience that was the week as a whole.
The week as a whole. I guess there were a few big things that occurred that are a little weird to talk about, but if I'm talking about my week, they're positively essential to my talk of the week. Firstly, during LEAD, I realized that I actually really like myself. Which sounds a little weird to say, but if you know me at all, you know I have trouble with humility versus just plain discrediting myself for my abilities and such. And while humility is still a challenge for pretty much any normal human being, I realized that I actually really like who I am and I am extremely blessed with all the things I am able to do and be. Secondly, I further delved into my passion during the LEAD week. I spent a lot of time getting to know people in a very short amount of time and I figured out more about myself and how I observe people. I learned that in truly finding out what I like about someone and becoming friends with people, I have to make myself completely and utterly vulnerable. And while vulnerability is usually a turn off to most people (to participate in at least), I realized that I kind of absolutely love it. I love making myself vulnerable, and I love having people trust me, or see parts of me I don't normally show. My passion for people is deeply rooted in myself, and yet, it relies on the other people as much as it relies on myself. I can make myself vulnerable as much as I want, but unless the person returns the vulnerability and lets me in, then it is virtually pointless. However, I still love learning things about people and discovering random things about people on accident. And thirdly, the biggest and most exciting realization which I kind of already talked about earlier, is that I want to go into youth ministry. I'm not sure exactly what I will want to do, whether it will be me as youth minister, or me doing something like Kristi (one of our leaders from LEAD) does or what will happen, but God showed me how passionate I am about it and how good of a career it would be for me. While it is not really the best in terms of money, it is still something that I really want to do. I've never really been this excited about anything before. Yet, sitting through the week of LEAD, and feeding my life off of what was happening in my heart and the hearts of those around me..I realized that is a lot of what youth ministry is. You can find your strength in your own ways, but every story you hear has an effect on your being. Every story is a new witness that you add to your own. Because even though it didn't happen to you, the person telling it happened to you. And frankly, that is sometimes more powerful than the actual experience. But, because of my passion for people, I take these stories and my vulnerability and I make them part of me. [I hope none of this makes me sound crazy to anyone but I'm just trying to explain this..and words aren't really doing it justice..] Everything you hear can have an affect on you, and because I love doing nice things for people, I take what they tell me about themselves and I log it away into who I am. That way, I can more easily be there for them, and I can try to more easily relate to them without shoving whatever it is they told me back at them. Then I use what I know and who I am and try to share it with them, too. I think that's what youth ministry is all about. It's about living your faith and sharing of yourself in that state, wherever you are at. I want to share of myself. And maybe I won't become a youth minister, I'm not really sure where my faith and my life will take me, but I'm so excited about. Waking up each day is like a new adventure, and honestly, I have never ever been as excited about life as I am now.
As a few people who saw me the Sunday I got home know, this is significantly more articulate than I was when I first got home from the week. I was so excited and glowing about the experience that I literally could not form full sentences without having to stop and calm myself down. I tried to tell my best friend about it right that night when I got home, and she didn't really hear that much about it because I couldn't finish any sentences. But another thing I realized when I came home is that living your faith and sharing your faith isn't always about shouting it out (I never really thought it was, but I'm just saying it became more apparent to me.), but it is about simply sharing it when the opportunity presents itself and then just living it the rest of the time. Let people notice it in you.
There is also one other thing that I must address. In my previous blog post, I discussed how excited I was that there were people that were going to be at LEAD who would want to get to know me, and that there are people here who already do. I am SO THANKFUL for both of these categories. Everyone from LEAD holds a special place in my heart because they all got to spend that amazing week with me. But not just that, but because all of your stories have a particular make-up of who I am now. Everything that happened to all of you during the week, and everything that happened before the week that shone through who you were during the week play a part in who I am now. Your stories have become part of my story, and I could never be grateful enough for that because now MY story means more to me. Now my story is more colorful and more beautiful and I want all of them to know I will never forget about them. True, time might pass and I might not remember everything about each of you, or names might slowly be forgotten as time goes on and on, but you will all always be a part of me. In our faiths, we will never forget each other. And that is where it is important.
As for the people here who already know me..I could not be more grateful for you as well. While you don't all believe the same things I do, most of you are very supportive of me and what I believe. And the funny thing is, even if you're not, you care about my happiness. And to be honest, happiness is the core of it. If we cannot find happiness in our spirituality, at least deep down, then what is the point at all? But the people here care about my happiness and that is amazing. They might not always understand what's going on with my faith or my beliefs or my craziness and inability to form sentences, but even then, they don't understand, or might condemn, I can know that they're being the real world. It's not all going to be like LEAD, in fact, very little of it is going to be like LEAD. But, having LEAD as a part of my repertoire of experiences is like being equipped with arrows. We need other soldiers to talk about the war with. We need other soldiers to fight the war with. Society is a war, and if you have happiness, you better be ready for the enemies to steal it. But, I feel pretty firmly rooted in my joy, and who knows what's going to happen from here, but I'm sure it will be an adventure, and I am excited.
Speaking of adventuring, I am actually going to be attending another God camp. Yes..I know, a third one?! I'm crazy, but due to the fact this is the stuff I might want to be doing for the rest of my life, can you really blame me? However, this isn't just another one, it's one put on by Dayton, and I figured if nothing else, it would be a good experience for meeting people I'm going to school with, and getting to know the program I am hopefully going to be involved in within the coming years. So, yes, on the 15th I am going to be attending another God camp, and yes, don't be surprised if when I come back I have more to say. But, to be realistic, when do I NOT have a lot to say?
What I hope you glean from this absurdly long blog post is both that I am happy, and also, that life is an adventure. We are all adventuring both individually and as a group, and you never know what is going to be around each corner or hiding behind the trees. But just because it is unknown does not mean you shouldn't continue on it. That's what makes it an adventure, and I hope you are all going at it in full adventure-mode.
My adventure is beginning in full force, and I am positively stoked about it, in case you couldn't tell.
Thank you if you read this entire thing! :)
Farewell, until I again feel full-to-bursting with things I must say.
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