#change

Often, I come back from youth group trips spilling over with words - words about the kids, words about Jesus - so many words that they all get tangled up in my head and my heart and the only way to sort them out is to write it all down. 

Other times, like coming back from Haiti this summer, much of it already seems to make sense, seems to fit, and it seems silly to try to write it all down, because, well, inside of my head, it's all been sorted out. And, really, I only write to know what it is that I am thinking. 

Winter retreat was a little like that this year. 

It makes sense in my head. Too much sense. So much sense that there are no words for it. 

 But, someday, I am going to want a record of what I was thinking, so, here goes the best attempt. 

I could give you physical sensations. 

I could give you the red a of an Ecuadorian poncho borrowed from a leader, as one of the freshman guys jumped off the stage flying squirrel style to crowd surf before a chapel session. 

I could give you the soft orange of Sunday morning reflected across the snow, or the way that the bitter cold didn't stop the boys from waiting outside of the girls' cabins, ready and eager to haul away luggage as it was packed. 

I could give you the sounds of hockey on a frozen pond or the cup song in the cafeteria.  

I could try to give you the feel of melting ice as powder covered gloves press up against my bare hands, a fifteen year old spilling over with a story that means nothing more than that we are both here, both now, both waiting for the same God. 

I could give you hikes through the snow and breathless runs uphill in the dark just to get a pack of gum. 

I could give you the charcoal and gray and navy of dozens of #change sweatshirts piling off of a bus and out of vans on Friday night and then back in again on Sunday morning. 

I could tell you about hands raised high in worship and try to explain these kids, the words that they sing and the words that they don't. 

Or, I could give you the sound of this song echoing through a gym that somehow didn't seem too big or too empty, because it was full of everything inside of them. 

I could give you the achey feeling of standing in one spot for 2.5 hours as the each of the leaders prayed for every student in turn, the rustle of fabric as they all stood and lined up, the hugs and the tears and the quiet hope each time that a hand was laid on a shoulder. 

I could tell you about how they joined on to the end of the line when they were finished and about how some of them waited for two hours just to get to the first leader. I could tell you that this was important enough that they waited. 

I could give you the gut feeling that every minute of those hundred and fifty was worth it. 

I could give you the echoing sound of dozens of prayers layered over one another in a stream so much longer than we could have ever anticipated. 

 I could give you laughter through frozen air, snowflakes big enough and cold enough to hold their shape after they hit the ground, and high school boys teaching each other how to braid, "in case they have girls someday."

I could give you knitting needles and fires and homework on the bus home. 

I could give you a glove used as a talking stick and quiet questions with quiet answers. 

But, I am not sure how to really explain it all, how to pull it all together into a convenient whole that makes sense outside of my own head. 

It was neither an adventure nor a party. I suppose that it was simply a chance to get together and to #change, because, where God is, things grow.