Group Hug

Every night, we debrief; we talk about the day. What worked (everything), what didn’t (can’t think of anything) and how we are feeling (like death in a toaster oven). We sit down and take about 90 minutes of talk time and turn it into 3 hours of emotional flailing. And laughing. God gave us a sense of humor so that we could better reflect Him. Not funny for the fact of being funny, but funny because there is something cathartic and narcotic in laughter. Like listening to Brian’s alarm go off over, and over, and over and him yelling “Stop it!”. Can’t coach that Brian. He then sticks his head out the door (it’s left open all night in hope that a thief might enter and steal some of the heat) and looks around as if the alarm were wrung in conjunction with a fire. We all laugh, and so the day begins. One of the most remarkable things about this trip is the amount of humor that God has stacked on the team. And most of it is my kind of humor and much of it comes from guys my age. It’s as if God knew I would need it specifically. Uh-oh.

It’s also on this trip that I am reminded that it is not just young people that get the case of the giggles. That spontaneous and viral emotion that starts with a few and affects the many. We adults need it too and it somehow seems that our group time starts with the strategic, leads to the tactical, runs headlong into the emotional and ends with the grace and laughter that God brings.

Which brings me to my point. Every night, we sit in a circle (often on the Gulf of Finland) and we discuss the day. We also do a high/low and feelings check. It’s a time t wring our hearts out, so have an emotional cup of coffee, to depend on others. There is not supposed to be any talking except for the person that is speaking, but the later in the week, the more we all offer commentary. In trips past, the “high” points of my day have revolved around me. Something I saw, or felt, or discovered. But I can say n this trip, my high’s have been truly focussed on the team. My true “high” is this time of night, when we come together and share only what we the team will know. It’s awesome.

And it’s needed. It’s hard on these trips. They just beat the tar out of you. The emotions, the hope, the despair, the commitment that may or may not be returned from the kids. All the preparation we do just to have a kid give you the finger, laugh in your face, and ignore you, not wanting to hear about “our” God. This is what this team will face on a daily basis on this trip. These are hard kids. They know they are abandoned. They know they are unwanted. They know they have no healthy role models. They know their life is bleak. They ....

But the they don’t know the rest. They don’t know that to turn away and refuse Jesus will not make them cool, or tough, or better at surviving; it will only make them lost. We want so bad for them to get it. To hear and accept the Gospel.They have accepted us, but not Christ.

So ... we do a group hug at night, sitting, watching a storm roll in. We love each other, we calculate the changes that God is enacting in our lives and we hold each other. For tomorrow is Friday, the last day at the camps.