Haiti: Unity

U was for Unity.

Unity that allowed them to stay up late each night, talking about things that most adults would never even think to ask. Unity that allowed them to wake up tired the next morning after four or five hours of sleep and still great their teammates with grace.

Unity that pretty much worked me out of a job.

At VBS they worked seamlessly, every person pulling their own weight. Fully in, and fully in together.

Tuesday and Wednesday, there were dance parties in the back of the bus, music blasting as they let their otter sides shine through, as they did everything possible to hold back the exhaustion that was pounding at their bodies. And, still, they looked out for one another. Songs were changed without comment, and, when the quietest one began to mouth the words, everyone noticed, exchanging bright, triumphant smiles as if they had just conquered the world.

Prayer happened in tight huddles, arms over shoulders and around backs, ever cautious of sunburns, but wanting, needing, to be close together, to come as a team, a family, a small segment of the Body brought together for just these few days.

"A....men!" The sign would start on their own fist and end on a neighbor's, followed by laughter or cheers as this one simple act turned out to be so very complicated to coordinate. Complicated, but somehow important enough that they kept at it, all the way through to the end of the trip. Tangible proof of their ability to work together.

Often messy, hesitant at first. This proof that they could watch and listen, that they could be tuned in and focused, that they were a team that knew each other and that functioned well.

Four hours of unexpected waiting in the Port Au Prince airport, and they simply sat, talked a little, shared snacks for lunch. Peanut butter pretzels, lifesavers, fruit and nut medley, beef jerky. Riddles and Mad Libs on phones. Quiet, effortless existence, circled up between suitcases and around backpacks.

Most teams take this time to pull apart, to begin to separate, create an existence outside of the trip, but this one stayed close.

There was frustration and moments where heads were about to be ripped off. Twenty-two people crammed together for nine days are going to rub on a few raw nerves. But, over and through all of that, there was a genuine desire to love one another selflessly.

Mariah was sick on the first morning of VBS, and in the midst of the craziness, Nathan asked to pray for her twice. He talked about her in the car, and gave an assessment that her best friends could not have topped. After just a few hours together, he had watched carefully enough to gauge her character.

They were unified because they allowed Christ in them to love, and to love enough to never stop paying attention.

"They will know you are Christians by your love."

Haiti: Servant Hearted

Back when the oldest of these kids were in elementary school, my youth pastor gave us an acronym to pray over our ministry trips. We were asked to pray that the teams would SURF. S was for servant hearted.

That first year that we prayed it was powerful, tangible, as if God was reaching down to grab us by the shoulders and make us see that He did, indeed, answer prayers. And, then, I remembered, and prayed it this year for this team...

In the middle of a long day of fundraising and training, when their eyes are flagging and heads are nodding, I mention another task that needs to be completed, my task, something that I didn't have the time to do before, and they jump on it - across the church and finished before a leader can be quick enough to follow.

There is construction work going on at HCM, another team there prepping for a pastors' conference. Every time that I turn around, there are students asking to spend their precious moments of rest over doing work that "isn't theirs," asking to serve with their hands and their time and their energy. Too tired to go to the lake and swim. Too tired to play games or even really talk. But, not too tired to paint and sand and hammer.

Teenaged boys carefully portion out the food that they put on their plates, making sure that there is enough for everyone, and patiently waiting to see if there is enough for seconds. It seems simple, when a fifteen year old boy eats a single pancake for breakfast and then refuses to crowd to the front of the lunch line, but it is huge, and oh se telling of the truth in these young hearts.

We bump and jostle them and slop out in the liquid in their souls, and still service comes out.

"I'd love to."

They answer with a phrase from a youth pastor they have never really known, and there is humility when they say it, but also an honest pride. Pride that this is good, this is right, this is how life is intended to be lived. Because, really, they would love to.

Love to walk back to the bus to get the bags of water before it can be recognized that they are needed. Love to dance with children in a hot, sweaty church until everything is ready for the next step. Love to play and laugh and run until they are wet with the humidity of it. Love to pile hot, sweaty kids onto their hot sweaty selves. Love to stack rice and suitcases and water filters.

Love to smear each other with aloe and Neosporin. Love to share their snacks in the times when there are not meals. Love to pray. Love to sing. Love to watch like hawks and point out the good in one another. Love to wait. Love to go. Love to clean and wash dishes and pick up trash from under seats.

Whatever it is that you could think to ask, they wold love to.

Haiti: Overview

Haiti 2013. Where we have finally found our rhythm. Or the right group of kids. Or, perhaps, where God has simply chosen to lavish on us the gift of his unity and presence.

"How He Loves Us" rings through the night air, arms wrapped around each other in a huddle that ought to have been ridiculous but somehow makes perfect sense. Small groups of kids stay up to watch each night turn into morning, having real talk on the roof or sprawled out on mattresses. The darkness pulls truth from their lips, and I rarely call curfew until after 1:00am.

They wake up in the morning to birds and roosters, the hum of air conditioning, or the pounce of a teammate, and it takes days before the sleepless nights begin to catch up to them, a Tuesday morning wall that we break through by blasting music on the bus, Matisy*hu to Justin B*iber to Hillsong and back again. And, the smiles never stop.

They are all in like we've never seen before, vibrant and full of life, connecting and giving without inhibition.

Logan is blistered and peeling with sunburn but gives piggy back rides until his shoulder is raw and bleeding. Eva asks for the first aid kit and patches him up on the bus, both of them laughing when she signs the bandaids with a sharpie and hands out a Lifesaver for being a good patient. Joel comes to tease her when the Bandaid on his knee starts peeling off, and she slaps it without ceremony, giving the team another story, another layer to the unity that they are allowing to be built within them.

They stretch three or four phrases of Creole to explain games and hang out for hours without translators. "Jessica, how do you say...?" "What is...?" "Do you know what s/he is saying?" fall often from their lips, and they have somehow learned to release the control of the VBS groups. Three groups some days. Two groups others. "Actual" games and times where there is nothing more than hanging out with kids. Which, in the end, is everything.

There are dance parties and soccer games, circle games and clapping rhythms. Drip, Drip, Drop; Ninjas; and Ring Around the Rosie until everyone is breathless and laughing. Old friends found and new one made. Teenagers that are climbed on like jungle gyms and blancs that are claimed as nearly personal property.

Names drip from American lips like a talisman, as if we are sealing this into reality.

We find out that Becca sounds like the Creole word for "devil," and she slips uncomplainingly into using a name from last year's French class. A tarantula crawls out of the ceiling at a crowded VBS, and Woodson kills it with a branch. Figgins jumps out of the bus and starts directing traffic until we are moving again on a two hour ride that stretches out into five. DP and Alfons go out time after time to get more snacks for churches overflowing with children.

There are hard times, moments where we wonder what on earth the next step is to move forwards from here, but, mostly, it is beautiful. Answered prayer in action. The kind of beauty that takes your breath away and whispers the truth of eternity.

"...all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

and, I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me..."

Fire and Rain

Thunder shakes the building where the Haiti team is prepping for VBS, two lightening strikes lighting the mountain behind us on fire while they watch. It is the hot dry of a summer thunderstorm, and the flames are spreading fast. On their own, they huddle up and decide to do something.

They pray for the fire to go out, and it does. Sheets of water pouring from the sky and flooding across the parking lot. Not ten minutes later, the rain has passed and the sun is back. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes - or ten.

But, if I had the audacity to speak for the Divine, I might begin to say that this was on purpose. On purpose like the way that the dates were changed for our very first VBS trip to Haiti, when, instead of silence, we stepped out of the crowded vans and into a night filled with songs of worship. Because, these dates too, were once different.

The first paperwork we gave them put this back a weekend, seven days ago, with no thunder or lightening or pounding rain. And, I can't help but wonder if this weekend was a gift. A reminder of a God who hears prayer.

We've been praying for this trip for months. My cluster ought to be sick of hearing the word Haiti fall from four sets of lips at every turn, every chance for a prayer request. But, rarely together, rarely as a team. And, this first time, they see an answer so rapid that they can't stop talking about it. 

There is a new confidence in these nervous kids. The God of angel armies has just answered thier call.

If it is a gift, it is one that we will hold to tightly, one that we will continue to weave through their story in the moments when they are anxious or uncertain or afraid. Because, fear is a big deal to these kids, one that we talk about far too infrequently. This is, after, all Eastern Washington, a church full of engineers, doers and fixers and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps types. But, that makes them no less teenagers growing up in an uncertain world.

Today has spilt some of that wide open, lightening and thunder and fire bringing hidden things straight to the surface, and it is good. Good for them to know that they are not alone. Good for truth to spill out and grace to be given.

TRUTH, for this team, is going to be a powerful tool.

Impulse

"I feel stupid now." The seventh grader pressed against my elbow catches my attention during music, and I have to give him the space to finish the thought, because our last conversation was about Aspergers and brain function, but, thirty seconds later, he could be anywhere.

It's been one of those days, where we're once again drowning in grace.

It's Father's Day and the end of the first week of summer, and their bodies are on edge.

He is always close these days, leaning back just a little, his foot overlapping mine as we stand around the octagon. Today, he leans in, close enough that our arms are connected, and, ever since we got back inside, he hasn't been able to stop talking.

Impulsive. Random. Talking.

He catches himself once or twice, "That was mean. I shouldn't have said that." and verbally acknowledges the nonsense chatter, "I'm just trying to find anything to talk about."

But, the words keep coming.

We talk about Biblical geography and the violence of Bible stories. We go down a list of kids who aren't there and where they might be. We talk about old songs and figures of speech. His voice cracks, and the whisper isn't always. 

The youth pastor calls people out for talking, and he blushes and glances at me guiltily, but it still doesn't stop the questions and observations.

"I just realized," perhaps the most important phrase slips out in the middle of a song as he finishes his thought, "that it doesn't matter if you move up with us or not. Nothing will change for me, because I'm not even in your small group right now."

There is relief in his eyes.

Nothing will change. He is still safe. He is still known. I'm not leaving him.

But, there is also shame. 

Because, that opener of "I feel stupid" wasn't exaggeration. There is something in this kid that whispers that it is true. 

That he is stupid. That he doesn't measure up. That he isn't enough or is too much. That he is the kind of kid that people leave.

Lies.

And, this time, I am the one initiating the talking, making sure that he knows that he isn't the last of the boys to figure it out - in fact, he's been the first of them to verbalize it. 

Ruffling my hand through his hair. Leaning down to listen and talk. Letting him stand as close as he can.

Because I have my own impulsive need to make him understand truth, to let him see grace.

Grace that spins him in circles when he is too paralyzed to do the motions on his own. Grace that will carry his body weight when he leans in the next time and lets me pivot him on one foot like a two-year-old. Grace that returns his smile when he finally settles in for a few moments to worship.

Grace that hands out gum in the hallway as we're leaving and lets him keep my phone in his pocket when he thinks we're being separated for the game.

Grace to prove that the only place safer than the center of God's will is in His presence. Grace for days like today, where fear and shame bubble just a little closer to the surface. 

Grace that says that he is enough.

Because, I don't know where the lies are coming from. I know that it is Father's Day. I know that school is out and he misses his friends. I know that strong emotions happening in the main service have traditionally put his behaviors on edge.

And, I realize how very little I know about this one's family. He is intensely private, even when he is standing in my space. But, I do know that our God is greater than any lie, any fear, any sense of shame.  I do know that, even today, there is grace to cover.

Past and Present

RFKC training. I pick her up early on Saturday morning and feel the whisper as we pass someplace we have already been - a cycle completed.

Last time I was at this camp, she was one of my campers, a tiny little blonde child who still vividly remembers folding to the ground, arms and legs crossed tight, epically pissed off at me for some reason that both of us have forgotten. But, oh so definitely angry.

We stop to pick her up an energy drink, and, on the way to the church, she tells me that they asked her the same question in her interview that they ask everyone, "What would you do if a camper told you that they hated you?"

She said that she didn't know - then laughed as she told them that remembered probably using those exact same words on me.

And, I'm a little bit in awe of a God who ties things off long after we had thought them completed. Because, I never thought that, this many years later, we would be here.

I was eighteen when I was her counselor, just out of high school, ready to leave for college, not really planning to move back, to live here again. She was little, still years from graduating camp, reprimanding me every time that I praised her, jumping on the teen staff like they were climbing frames, and generally doing her best to prove that she was old hat at this - that she really didn't need me much at all.

But, we were well matched, both stubborn as mules, paired with a second child who was sweetly excited over everything. I remember settling onto the grass beside her and just waiting. I never would have guessed that that waiting could have been a  - very small - drop that poured into this.

There's a "Welcome Home Dinner" for the camp staff and families each year, and an open mic time for counselors to tell stories about amazing breakthroughs or cute conversations: like the time that one of my little Sunday school boys was stuck on the rock wall, petrified to move up or down, completely unresponsive to his counselors - until I called his name and he looked down at me... and climbed straight up to the top;

like his sister, who verbally forbade me from being away at college the next summer;

or... like my camper, who angrily sat in the games field refusing to go in to dinner, who probably told me that she hated me.

Except, not so much on the last one. I sat and listened to stories of amazing healing conversations that took place and wondered what families would think if I shared my story of a pissed off little towheaded child who went to my church.

Six years later, we will once again be in the same cabin. She's coming back as a CIT, one of two previous campers to be on this year's staff. She no longer hates me. She still has the pictures from that year. We laugh about the story often, and I was actually able to see her in action on a ministry trip last summer.

Six years later, it could be a welcome home story - all because of a God who, I am pretty sure, gets a kick out of reminding me just how carefully He ties the past together with the present, building seasons and cycles into our lives that we never could have imagined.

On The Edge of Grace

They're the upperclassmen now, the experienced ones, the ones who, last year, seemed so tall and gangly compared to their child-like selves.

This week the eighth graders graduate. Next week they will be gone, replaced by a swarm of wide eyed sixth graders. Next week will be change.

We talk about it coming, and the anxiety rushes to the surface like a tidal wave, compounded by a game that splits boys from girls, separating them without their consent. Music comes, all of us back together, and I don't have enough hands to begin to hold onto all of these ones that need it.

Often, we are disruptive, a squirming mass in the middle of the crowd, but we aren't the only ones, and there is grace in this room. Grace for bodies that won't stay still and minds that won't stop racing. Grace for children growing into adults, who feel alien in their own skins. Grace for boys who shouldn't still be mine but are, working overtime to ensure that no other leader knows their name and hovering millimeters from my elbow to talk.

There is grace, but we are pushing up against the edge of it, teetering on the line.

And, it feels little desperate - because they are. Because school is out in a few days. because summer is coming. And, because I am leaving.

"Why can't you be a seventh grade leader next year?" It's asked a dozen times, as if they can force the answer to change by sheer repetition. "Why can't you tell Chris you want to stay with us?"

And, I'm not going anywhere, not really, staying down with the new class of sixth graders to help them transition in. But, everything in them seems to scream that that isn't the way that things are supposed to go.

We've seen these behaviors before, pressed up against the edges of a much different type of grace in the Children's Wing. And, I glance at the youth pastor who is watching carefully, the warning in his eyes gently insistent. Get them under control. Remind them to be quiet.

"Put it away." One of them finally hisses at the others long after music has faded into an open mic for the graduating eighth graders, long after they are supposed to be listening quietly. "Or, Jessica is going to get in trouble."

It's been long months since I used to coax their fifth grade selves out of trees or in from the parking lot with a laughing reminder that, "If we don't get in for story, Mr. Phil is going to eat me," and I'm not sure what to make of it now to hear it coming from their lips. Except that the phrase most often came out on the edgy days, the days where they most needed to not follow the plan, the days where we turned a simple Sunday school lesson into a dance.

Today, I can hear the reminder in the simple words. There is grace here and trust (and fear and anxiety and confusion). There is the trust that, no matter how old they get, their actions still fall back on me. 

Trust that they are shielded, because they know that they are not the ones teetering on the edge of human grace. 

I am.

Because, we have worked so hard to build this kind of trust. To whisper that they don't have to be perfect. That He is more than enough. That it is okay to be afraid.

And, so, I teeter on the edge of Grace, not at the end of it, but at the beginning.

Grace that is enough.

Enough to reach out for the hundredth time that day to connect with a squirming child. Enough to shake my head no without shaming them for their fear. Enough to sit and listen and pray. Enough that we are drowning in it.

Messy. Beautiful. Grace.

Grace that leaves their faces on my phone screen and echoes through the goodbye that is shouted across the fellowship hall. Grace that begins at the edge, on the line, in the place where human patience wears thin.

They are uncertain, but something deep inside of them knows where we stand. Because we are standing on the edge of grace.

4th Grade

Paper. Markers. A calculator app that one of the boys whips out of his pocket, and a list straight out of a World Vision catalog.

All year we've been marking down points for Bibles brought, verses memorized, and general awesome behavior. They've marked a thermometer, steadily filling it up with red. Because, today, they get to spend their points, each one worth a nickel for someone in need.

They're shopping now, calculating as they go, discussing the merits of rabbits versus goats, saplings versus a warm blanket.

I answer questions but leave the decisions up to them, because these are their points; this is the reward they've been working towards all year. And, because they love this.

We leave four to double check the math, to write me a final shopping list, and set up six of them to complete another project.

They've been filling a book with thank you's for the story presenter, and they need to finish. They settle into a circle with glue sticks and markers to add the final touches; tags that they've cut out of scrapbook paper, notes that are carefully folded into brightly decorated pockets, folded shapes that explode out of the pages.

Next week, they'll give it to her, this mass of artwork and tape and fourth grade gratitude.

Before then, I'll flip through the pages, not to edit but to look. Up till now, this has been completely theirs. Even I don't know everything that is inside.

Today, they finish just in time, as three of the kids work with me to fill out a certificate for each of them, something to show their parents a little of what they've done.

"Certificate of Awesomeness"

They fill in names and the amount that they earned. A few make notes before they leave, marking down what specifically it is that they've purchased. Many of them grab an extra glass stone on the way out the door, a tangible reminder of God's promises for a sibling or parent or friend.

Because, when I have fourth graders who love to serve, this is what we do with our small group time.

We let them serve.

Whirlwind

13.

"Thirteen days of justice."

We start with a prayer meeting on Thursday night. Two showings of a documentary Friday and Saturday. Minor sex trafficking in Cambodia.

Saturday morning is a "Run for Rice." The afternoon is set-up for SOLD, tweaking things as we come full circle back to the church that funded the exhibit to begin with.

Sunday is a video testimony. Monday a seminar on shame and forgiveness and the opening of SOLD. 

SOLD Monday through Sunday. Spoken word Thursday night. Poetry slam twice on Friday. Faith Justice Network meeting. The start of a high school fundraiser. Kids bring ten dollars to spend the night and raise money for water filters for a village in Haiti.

Lights out a little before 3:00 and up again a little before 7:00. Car wash from 9:00 to 1:00, where a couple dozen high school students raise over $900 for clean water.

Lunch with speakers from Cambodia. An evening of spoken word, worship, and art.

Spoken word and a sermon on justice Sunday morning. Anti-trafficking training in the afternoon and a tear down of SOLD that evening. Part two of the training Monday night. Women's brunch Tuesday morning with one of the trainers.

And, a deep breath as we all fall into our pillows.

(Somewhere on Sunday there was also 4th grade Sunday school; middle school game, farewell to the 8th graders, and more donuts; Haiti training, Intersect, and a welcome to the freshmen.)

Their Trip

Late may. The sky is heavy with coming summer. Variegated clouds that burn with brilliant sunsets. Rain and sun that alternate unpredictably.

And, we're beginning to get ready for Haiti.

We sit in our first meeting and the outreach team goes over dress code, expectations, reminders to check on passports and immunizations. Hands raise, not in questions, but to clarify. Returning team members and parents explaining the things that seem important for newcomers to know.

Skirts to the knee - even when sitting.
Sunlight tests to make sure they can't be seen through.
Collared shirts for the guys.
Closed toed shoes All.The.Time.

Silly little things that we've learned make up the pulse of the trip.

Because, we'd much rather focus on VBS than on fighting over clothes. Because coming prepared makes the rest of the trip that much easier. Because there is a list of things that we've learned the hard way. But, mostly because this is B*thel, where it is okay for high schoolers to correct the global outreach coordinator. Because this might be her job, but it is their trip.

Perhaps more so this year than it ever has been before.

For some of them, this is the third time back, more constant than friend groups or relationships or grades in classes. The freshmen who are coming have never known a youth group not defined by Haiti.

We've talked about it after the Real. Life. exhibit, while canvassing apartment complexes outside of Portland, and while standing around a fire in the parking lot. They've fundraised for water filters for a place they've never seen and washed dozens of cars before plane tickets were ever purchased.

Half the group would get on a plane now, if we handed them a passport and an appropriate set of clothes.

This is in their blood and in their hearts.

Even Sacred Road has never had this wide of an impact on the youth group. Denver or Bridgetown have never spread this far or gone this deep.

More than anything that I have ever seen, this is their trip, and, although we'll be there as leaders every step along the way, it is largely up to them what they make of it.

Run

"One of the sixth grade boys brought a friend," the middle school pastor mentions it as we're closing up our leaders meeting Sunday morning, passing on what little backstory the parent gave, so that the guy leaders can carefully pull him in, make sure that he gets connected somewhere in our sea of faces. 

It's one of those stories that remind us just how much hurt some of our kids have seen, one of those that freezes a few of the leaders in their tracks, minds spinning to come up with a strategy. As things turn out, he came with Dyl*n, so my boys introduce us before anyone else can get close.

"Watch this." I hear M*t** tell the kid who is following at his shoulder, and I know what it is that he wants. "That's Jessica." My back goes to him under the pretense of watching the game in the octagon. He 'sneaks' up behind me and shoves, just hard enough to set me off balance, and then takes off running, grinning like a banshee.

He's pro at this, almost scary good at distracting trauma kids, reading their moods, pulling them in deep, making them feel safe and accepted.

I chase him.

I chase M*t** and Dyl*n and Ry*n and their friend. Even N*c jumps into the middle, sending me skidding along the floor as he rolls away, and P*rk*r laughs from the sidelines. Over and over again we play this game. Sneak. Shove. Run. Chase. Catch. Torture. Release. There are more of them than me, and they come back time and time again.

Sneak. Shove. Run. Chase. Catch. Torture. Release, until we are breathless and laughing and the youth pastor is calling everyone together.

"That was good of you," one of the older leaders comments as we shift gears, "to have fun with them like that."

There is a probing curiosity in his voice, perhaps wondering if I am only chasing and catching and generally looking like a fool because we were instructed during the leaders' briefing to "have fun with the kids." And, I find myself trying to explain the unexplainable in ten seconds or less.

This is how we build trust. For these sixth graders, this is part of how you make their world seem safe - predictable, responsive to their agency. This is one of the languages that they speak. 

We're in the middle of something, not at the end of it, and every single one of us is learning as we go. For now, I'll be hands and feet and this curious leader will be the mouth. I'll draw smiles out of the new kid with the incomprehensible past, and he'll give next week's lesson.

Ascension comes next Sunday, and they'll start to let go a little bit, start to buckle into a new way of doing things. But it's not here yet. So, in the meantime, like the disciples might have, if they were really as young as some people say, we run and laugh and make the most of moments while they last.